Beware! WbiInvest 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.
WbiInvest’s overwhelming website might seem like a waste to some, while to others it might seem like an intriguing investment opportunity. The following review is for those that do not know how to make up their minds. Make no mistake that this broker is not worth the risk. It is very shady, and most probably a scam, although it may not be so easy to tell so seeing the overload of information and text. However, some might argue that due to the sheer volume of all this info the broker cannot be regulated. Well, this is just one of the many reasons why WbiInvest is not worth it.
We registered and were redirected to a familiar user area, in that we have seen it being used by hundreds of previously reviewed unlicensed brokers. The web trader was also familiar. We got a EUR/USD cost of trade of 0.1 pips, although this is way too low to be real, as it is too good to be true. There must be a hidden commission to it, or it may be a fake spread altogether. The leverage is capped at 1:200, while the available tradeable financial instruments are forex currency pairs, commodities, cryptocurrencies, indices, and stocks.
The broker is available in English and Italian.
WBIINVEST REGULATION AND SAFETY OF FUNDS
Users need to be informed of Estonian laws. This was read in the legal docs, suggesting that the broker is licensed in Estonia by the Estonian Financial Supervision and Resolution Authority. Well, it isn’t, but you already kind of knew that. There is no proof of WbiInvest being regulated by the agency.
Other than that, we get our bits and snippets from the leag docs claiming the broker to be available only there where it is licensed, a claim that is rhetorical suicide. The broker is in fact not licensed, and even worse: it is anonymous. Being anonymous makes WbiInvest even more dangerous than we thought. Do not invest here!
Perhaps the most crucial move a user can make in the process of deciding what broker best suits her needs is to ascertain that the broker is regulated, properly, by a legitmate license issuer (there is a rise in fake regulators). Make sure your broker of choice is a UK, EU, US, or Aussie-licensed entity; there are other perfectly fine jurisdictions where a firm can be authorized, it’s just that these ones are the most developed in terms of providing the best possible trader security. Moreover, some specific regulators also allow for their regulated brokers to participate in compensation schemes which add a very sturdy extra layer of defense. The FCA guarantees up to £85 000, while CySEC guarantees up to €20 000 per person.
WBIINVEST TRADING SOFTWARE
The main trading software is a web-based terminal that has been popular for quite a while, although it can just be a reformed version of older software. Although, it really does not matter. The web trader offers few incentives to use it for more than half an hour.
The features that it does have will not be enough to satisfy. Only the most rookie of users will feel at home but after a while, even they will start wanting more.
There is also a downloadable MT4 that bears the name of a different company, meaning that this MT4 does not belong to WbiInvest. Therefore, the broker does not offer the MT4.
WBIINVEST DEPOSIT/WITHDRAW METHODS AND FEES
Let us see what we found out on the user area concerning payments. The minimum deposit is $50, and the payment methods are Finanic, GC, and PayCent, all shady e-wallets. The withdrawal area revealed nothing. As a matter of fact, it was also not working, and so we are not sure whether users can actually take out money.
On the notorious Deposit And Withdrawal Policy we learn that there are withdrawal fees: $35 for credit card withdrawals, $50 for bank transfers, and $25 for alternative payment methods. A 10% commission is applied to users who withdrawal prior to prior to a trading turnover of at least 200 times the initial deposit. The minimum withdrawal is $250 for bank transfer and $100 for all other methods. Withdrawals are processed within 5 to 7 days.
Note that the Deposit And Withdrawal Policy is mostly misleading, and we can not be sure that what we just revealed is the truth.
What we can be sure of is that WbiInvest is unlicensed and a scam, and a risk to all! Do not invest here!
How Does The Scam Work
We can easily reverse-engineer the scammer process by looking at the whole thing as a series of contained events.
The first of these is falling for one of the thousands of online ads that lead to any number of fraudulent investment websites. The most obvious aspect of such ads is their ability to attract the eye gaze of users since they include glamorous content that we have all dreamed of owning.
Giving in to one of these ads will lead the user to one of two sources: either a so-called intermediary website or the scammer brokerage itself. The former works to introduce the latter, so the principle remains generally the same. The second step ensues once the user provides the crucial contact details that will be used by the firm to solicit funds. Because they are crucial to the scheming process, the broker will put a lot of input into this effort.
The third event is establishing grounds for communication, and a pivotal point for recruiting the user as a depositor. The first deposit is the hardest to sell, and that is why most scammer brokerages have dedicated internal departments whose only job is to entail a preliminary investment.
The fourth even is up to the retainers, or the expert scammers – account managers-, whose job is to keep the user invested as long as possible and to drain as much money out of her. Here is where many, unbeknownst to the user, psychological tricks are used by the scamming experts to really deplte funds from accounts.
The final step is containing the damages, or to put it in the lingo of the perps- to keep the stolen mon ey with minimal collateral damage. Here is where the scammers get cheap. Many will simply ignore the requests of withdrawals- or simply stall them-, or can shut down accounts and even entire websites for the purpose of keeping what they have stolen.
What To Do When Scammed
Fiel for a chargeback! It’s the surest way to get your money back, although not many scammer brokers allow for credit/debit card deposits. They are aware that users can file for a chargeback, and therefore condemn it by either not including cards payment gateways or by penalizing the client when she files for one. Note that, VISA and MasterCard have extended their cash-back period to 540 days.
A popular payment method is bank transfer, and here is where things get tricky. Users should contact the bank to help them out if they get scammed, but there is no real guarantee that the banking institution will be able to help them out. Moreover, change your bank account user name and password ASAP should you get defrauded.
Crypto payments are untraceable and are therefore non-refundable. For these reasons, crypto wallets are the favorite means for investing for scammers.
The last point to make concerns recovery agents whose promises will tempt many a victim. Agents or agencies promising some magical way to recover your stolen funds are separate fraudulent entities.
