Beware! Tradelivefx 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.
With the pompus slogans of “Your future begins today” and “Revolution is here”, you would think that what Tradelivefx has to offer will change your life for the better. However, before you decide to entrust your precious funds to this broker, read the facts.
Tradelivefx Regulation and safety of funds
In the footer of Tradelivefx, we find out that the address of the company is in St. Vincent and the Grenadines. Then, in the Terms and Conditions document, we see that the registered address of the company is in Vanuatu. Both of these jurisdictions are offshore zones for forex trade.
In Vanuatu, forex brokers are regulated by the Vanuatu Financial Services Commission (FSC) and the minimum capital requirement is $50,000. FSC keeps a register of regulated forex brokers. However, from the image below, you can see that the name of Tradelivefx is not in it which means that this broker is non-legit and trading with it will put your money at risk.
Forex brokers from offshore zone cannot provide sufficient guarantee for their clients’ funds even when they are registered and regulated. So, we advise you to look elsewhere if you are searching for a licensed and reliable broker. We suggest that you explore the well-established jurisdictions of the US, the EU and the UK where, in our opinion, the best conditions for forex trade exist, brokers are strictly regulated and all precautions are taken into account to guarantee the safety of clients’ funds. First of all, licensed brokers from these jurisdictions must be well-capitalised. US brokers, which are among the most strictly regulated, must provide an initial capital of $20 million. Such huge amount is requried because there are no compensation funds or schemes and clients must rely on the fact that their broker is well-capitalised to be able to protect them in case of unfavourable events. EU and UK brokers need to invest only 730,000 EUR initial capital. However, they also must participate in a local compensation fund or scheme from which in case of bankruptcy their clients can be compensated. UK brokers deduct funds towards the local Financial Services Compensation Scheme from which each and every client can be reimbursed up to 85,000 GBP if the broker becomes insolvent. EU brokers, on the other hand, participate in local investor compensation funds which can dispense up to 20,000 EUR per client if the broker is insolvent.
In addition to that, forex brokers in the above-mentioned jurisdiction must keep their clients’ funds segregated from their own, provide negative balance protection and keep low leverage.
Tradelivefx Trading software
Tradelivefx trades in forex, cryptocurrencies, indices, commodities and stocks. The trading software offered to the clients consists of a web trader (image below). On the left-hand side of the screen are displayed the buttons for opening and closing trades. In the middle of the screen, you can see displayed the chart of one of these trading products, namely the EUR/USD currency pair with the fluctuation in price in a given time frame. On the right-hand side of the chart is the information for the same currency pair showing the minimum trading amount, leverage, maintenance margin, etc., together with the bid/ask price. We calculated the spread to be 3.8 pips which is too wide and quite above the industry average of 1.5 pips. The implications for traders are that the cost of transactions will be too high and they won’t be able to achieve a sustainable profit. On the other hand, the broker who derives revenue from the spread will get richer.
We also find the leverage to be quite high – 1:200. Let us tell you that although high leverage seems like it increases the potential of making a big profit, such notion is actually misleading given the fact that around 70% of traders lose in transactions. What will happen in reality is that the scope of financial loss will be amplified by the high leverage. As we mentioned above, EU, UK and US brokers have a cap on leverage for forex currencies and in the EU and the UK, the maximum leverage that can be offered is 1:30. In the US, the cap for the leverage on forex currencies is 1:50. Such measures prevent traders from trading recklessly and suffering a great financial loss.
Before we move on, we want to tell you that the functionalities of the web trader are somewhat limited. If you are looking for trading software that can enhance your trading experience, we suggest that you select a licensed and reliable broker that offers either the MetaTrader 4 or MetaTrader 5 trading platforms. Both are top-notch platforms and choice number one for 80% of the brokers. Such choice is well justified as both platforms are equipped with an excellent package of trading tools and instruments among which we can mention the auto trading option, VPS, trading signals, the app market, the financial calendar, code base with customs scripts. The variety of charting options and techincial analysis indicators help traders predict the future direction of exchange rates and make a profit.
Tradelivefx Deposit/Withdrawal methods and fees
Tradelivefx offers 3 trading accounts (image below) – Trader, Expert and VIP. The minimum initial deposit for the Trader account is $250. The other accounts start at $5,000 and $50,000 respectively.
The minimum withdrawal amount depends on the payment method. For withdrawals made via wire transfer, it is $500 and via credit card, $100. For the holders of the Expert and VIP accounts, there are no fees for bank wire. The holders of the Trader account will have to pay those fee, though.
Similarly to other fraudulent brokers, Tradelivefx also offers bonuses to its clients. There is the Welcome bonus and its credited for 7 calendar days within which the trader must trade 15 times the first deposit amount to be eligible to withdraw the bonus money.
For the trading bonus, traders are required to execute a minimum trading volume equal to 25 times the sum of the bonus and deposit amount.
As you can see, it is quite challenging to fulfill the bonus requirements set by this broker. On the other hand, accepting a bonus will create a mess with your funds and withdrawal options.
For your information, legit brokers are banned from offering bonuses and this is how you can differentiate them from the dodgy ones.
How does scam work?
A lot of people get scammed in different scammers’ schemes not because they are naive but because scammers are masters of persuasion and manipulation. It all starts with unsolicited telephone calls or a flashy ad on the Internet or social media. Sometimes people give up to temptation and invest money in shady schemes made to look legit and attractive and always promising quick and easy money fall. Once you deposit money into any of these schemes, you reach a point of no return! Your money is gone down the scammers’ food chain and you’ll have a lot of trouble recovering it. Scammers will do anything in their power to delay you, so you miss the opportunity to file for a chargeback. They will ask you for this and that document and will find hundreds of reasons not to let you retrieve your money. The trick with offering bonuses in forex trading is one of those as your funds are mixed with the bonus money and it takes a lot of hassle to fulfil the broker’s requirements before you are able to withdraw any funds.
What to do if scammed?
Speed does it! You need to act very quickly if you want to recover your money. Immediately apply for a chargeback if you have made your deposit via credit card. Fortunately, VISA and MasterCard give you 540 days within which to apply for a chargeback.
If you have paid via wire transfer or Bitcoin, chances of retrieving your fund are grim. Anyway, we want to warn you that some of the so-called recovery agents may approach you and offer to retrieve your funds. For a fee, of course! Be cautious when dealing with them as it may be another form of scam! Always check if the recovery agency is legitimate and visible to the public!
Another thing we advise you to do is to immediately cancel any credit cards if the scammers have your CVV code. Also, make sure to erase any programs on your computer that give scammers access to your personal data on your PC.
