Beware! Marketseco is an offshore broker! Your investment may be at risk.
RECOMMENDED FOREX BROKERS
Don’t put all your eggs in one basket. Open trading accounts with at least two brokers.
The interface of Marketseco or Evolution Markets Ltd as it shows on the website is generic enough and does not stand out in any way among the sea of online forex brokers. However, we are looking at the facts regarding this broker in order to advise you how safe it is to trade with it.
Marketseco Regulation and safety of funds
In the Contact Us section on the company’s website, we find out that the address is in London, UK. We know that UK brokers are regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), so we check its register. We found that Evolution Markets Ltd is a clone of an authorized firm (image below). To be thorough in our search, we also checked to see if it exists in the register under the name of Marketseco, but it does not. From the above information, it is crystal clear that trading with this broker will be detrimental to your precious funds.
FCA is a strict regulator of UK brokers and takes precautions to make sure that scammers do not infiltrate the ranks of legit and licensed brokers. UK brokers must jump through various hoops in order to get their license. First of all, they must invest an initial capital of no less than 730,000 EUR, keep clients’ funds segregated from their own, provide negative balance protection, report transactions on a regular basis for the sake of transparency, allow external audits, etc. In addition to that, UK brokers also participate and deduct funds towards the local Financial Services Compensation Scheme which can provide up to 85,000 GBP per client in case the broker becomes insolvent.
If you are interested to explore other jurisdictions with equally favourable trading conditions, we can advise you that EU brokers abide by the same regulations as their UK counterparts with the major difference being that they participate in local investor compensation funds which can dispense up to 20,000 EUR per client if the broker goes bankrupt.
Marketseco Trading software
Marketseco trades in stocks, indices, forex, commodities, bonds, ETFs, and cryptocurrencies. Unfortunately, without making a deposit, you cannot log onto the trading software which consists of a web trader, so we are not able to show you what the platform looks like. However, after we registered an account and accessed the trading room, we found out that the leverage is 1:100 and it can be changed to up to 1:500. Such high leverage shows 2 things. First of all, trading with high leverage increases the risk exposure for clients’ funds because, in case of unsuccessful transactions which happen to 70% of the traders, the scope of financial loss is amplified by the high leverage. Secondly, this is another proof that this broker is fraudulent, as ESMA to which regulations UK brokers abide has put a limit on leverage for forex currencies and it cannot exceed 1:30. This is one of the measures to protect clients’ funds and to prevent traders from entering reckless and risky transactions.
If you look at the last image, you will see that the spread for the different account types starts from 0.2 pips or 1 pip. For your information, a spread that is tighter than the industry average of 1.5 pips is beneficial for traders as the cost of transactions will not be too high and they will be able to achieve a sustainable profit.
It is also good to know that legit and self-respecting brokers usually offer good quality trading software and in 80% of the cases, it consists of the MetaTrader 4 or MetaTrader 5 trading platforms. This is quite understandable as MT4 and MT5 are the two leading platforms in forex trade thanks to the advantages they offer to the traders, such as an auto trading option, code base with customs scripts, VPS, an app market, a financial calendar, etc. We cannot omit to mention the plethora of charting options that traders have at their disposal which when combined with the array of technical analysis indicators help traders to predict the future direction of exchange rates and make a profit.
Marketseco Deposit/Withdrawal methods and fees
The image below shows that the trading accounts offered by Marketseco are 4 – Micro, Standard, Premium, and VIP. The minimum initial deposit for the Micro account is $100. The other accounts start at $500, $25,000 and $100,000.
If you click the button for making a deposit in the trading room, you will find out that the only deposit method is done via wire transfer.
A trading account that stays inactive for a period of 12 months will be considered dormant and will be charged an annual maintenance fee of $25.
There is no information about what the minimum withdrawal amount is. However, the only withdrawal method as per the company’s Deposit and Withdrawal Policy is via wire transfer. In the same policy, it is mentioned that there is a fee schedule on the website. However, we searched for the schedule but did not find it.
Same as any other fraudulent brokers, Marketseco offers bonuses to its clients. This is visible in the Deposit/Withdrawal Policy, as well as in the trading room. However, there is no information whatsoever about what the conditions for accepting bonuses are. First of all, we want to advise you not to accept any bonuses which are funds belonging to the broker, not the client. They are usually accompanied by some hard to fulfill conditions that can create a mess with clients’ funds and withdrawal options. Secondly, we want you to be aware that legit brokers in the UK and the EU are banned from offering bonuses or any other promotions and this is how you can differentiate them from the dodgy ones.
How does scam work?
No one wants to be duped by scammers, but it happens all the time because they know how to manipulate people. As they say in one popular song “sweet dreams are made of this” and this is what scammers rely on – creating in people’s minds a sweet dream of being rich! Scams usually start with unsolicited telephone calls or ads on the Internet or social media promising quick and easy profit. It is easy to fall into scammers’ trap and once you make a deposit, you are done for! Scammers won’t let you get away easily even if you realise that you are being scammed. They will try to delay you when you try to withdraw your funds by asking you to provide this document or fill out this form, etc., in order to make you miss the deadline when you can file for a chargeback.
What to do if scammed?
You need to act very quickly. First of all, if you have made a deposit using a credit card, you must immediately file for a chargeback. Fortunately, VISA and MasterCard allow for 540 day period in which you can file for a chargeback. This is the good news. The bad news is that if you have made a deposit using bank wire or Bitcoin, the chances of you getting your funds back are nil!
Another thing you can do is cancel your credit card if the scammers have your CVV code. Check your PC and erase the software that gives scammers access to your personal data.
Be careful, because even doing all that we recommended, your unfortunate experience with scammers may not be over. There are so-called recovery agents. One of those may approach you offering to recover your funds for a fee. Do not trust them and always check the legitimacy of the recovery agent and the agency.
