Beware! CXOINVEST 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.
CXOINVEST claims to be a regulated broker who offers “over 1,000 stocks, forex, commodities and indices available as CFDs”. However, this is actually an extremely suspicious and anonymous website filled with misleading information. Even a minimal scrutiny reveals that this is not a legitimate broker, but just a front for a fraudulent scheme.
CXOINVEST REGULATION AND SAFETY OF FUNDS
Regulated brokers are required to provide clear information about where they are based and by which regulatory institutions they are supervised. But nowhere on the website is it stated which legal entity is behind CXOINVEST. The company name is not even mentioned in the Terms and Conditions.
The only clue is the mention of “IFSC Legislation” and “IFSClicense”. In this context, IFSC should mean International Financial Services Commission – the financial regulator of Belize.
Unlike many other countries in the Caribbean and Central America region, Belize is actually taking steps to regulate the forex market. But the CXOINVEST is not among the brokers licensed by the IFSC:
A company name can only be seen in the section Privacy Policy – SPEED SOLUTIONS Ltd. And indeed there is a licensed broker by that name in Belize. But the website associated with this company is quite different from that of the CXOINVEST:
It is safe to assume that the scamerts behind CXOINVEST have simply copied the Privacy Policy from the SPEED SOLUTIONS website.
The only contact information on the CXOINVEST website is two emails, a phone number with a U.S. area code, and a map with the California address marked.
This should probably give the impression that the CXOINVEST is operating in the US. However, brokers in the US are among the most tightly regulated in the world. They must be members of the National Futures Association (NFA). As might be expected, neither CXOINVEST nor SPEED SOLUTIONS can be found on their register:
Anonymous sites like CXOINVEST should be avoided at all costs. Instead, you can turn to the legitimate brokers operating in one of the established financial centres in the UK, EU, USA or Australia. There, the activities of brokers are controlled by powerful regulatory bodies such as Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), Cyprus Securities and Exchange Commission (CySEC), Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), and Australian Securities and Exchanges Commission (ASIC).
Clients of these brokers receive protections such as negative balance protection and segregation of the client’s funds from the broker’s funds, as well as guarantee for their funds in case the broker goes bankrupt. These guarantees amount to up to EUR 20,000 EU and 85,000 GBP in the UK. Regulators also have significant net capital requirements that companies must maintain – EUR 730 000 in UK and Cyprus, AUD 1000 000 in Australia and at least 20 million USD in the United States.
CXOINVEST TRADING SOFTWARE
CXOINVEST claims to offer a trading platform that “combines simplicity with sophistication” and allows the traders ”instant access to the global markets via your desktop, smartphone or other mobile device”.
But after signing up for an account and logging into the client portal, it quickly becomes apparent that CXOINVEST has no trading software at all. The dashboard only has a built-in interactive table showing current quotes for currencies and other major assets.
Legitimate brokers offer their clients a wide selection of quality trading software, including the most popular solutions in the industry MetaTrader 4 (MT4) and MetaTrader 5 (MT5). These platforms provide a variety of options for customization, multiple account usage, designing and implementing custom scripts for automated trading and backtesting trade strategies.
CXOINVEST TRADING CONDITIONS
CXOINVEST offers four types of accounts, or “plans” – Starter, Growth. Luxury and Elite. The minimum deposit is USD 200 for the Starter plan. Legitimate brokers usually offer micro accounts with a minimum deposit of around USD 100.
The individual plan descriptions lack basic commercial information such as leverage and spread. Due to the lack of a functioning trading platform, these indicators cannot be checked.
Only unexplained and too-good-to-be-true “daily profit” levels of 1% to “up to” 250% are listed.
According to information on the Website, the CXOINVEST offers traders bonuses – something that is prohibited for regulated brokers in all major markets.
Related to these bonuses is one of the common traps used by scammers. Bonus money can only be withdrawn after meeting significant minimum traded volume requirements. In the case of CXOINVEST – a volume that equals “the bonus amount multiplied times a rate between 40-50”. These clauses are intended to make the requirements for withdrawing funds from an account unaffordable.
CXOINVEST DEPOSIT/WITHDRAW METHODS AND FEES
Another clear signal that CXOINVEST are scammers and not a real broker is that the only deposit option is via Bitcoin:
While there are legitimate brokers that accept payments with Bitcoin, they do so alongside other options such as bank transfer, credit cards, and digital platforms like PayPal, Skrill or iDeal. Cryptocurrencies as the only option is a big red flag. Scammers prefer to use cryptocurrencies because these transfers are non-refundable.
The minimum withdrawal amount stated in the Terms and Conditions is USD 30. There is a withdrawal fee of 3.5% and also a USD 50 fee for inactive accounts, not specifying what period it is charged on.
HOW DOES THE SCAM WORK
The online space is full of ads promising easy money. They sound too good to be true, because they are not – they are outright scams. Many of these fraudsters pose as brokers and take advantage of the general public’s ignorance of the capital markets.
If you give your contact details to one of the flashy sites promising to make you rich, you will be contacted by experienced scammers who will start convincing you to “invest” in their scheme. Initially they will ask for a small amount, say USD 250 or USD 500. If you agree, they will begin to persuade you to give them larger sums.
However, your money will never be truly invested in the market, and you will not be able to receive either the supposed profits or the money from your deposit. Your attempts to withdraw your money will be blocked by deliberately confusing clauses in the terms and conditions. Some of the most commonly used traps are extremely high minimum trading volume requirements or withdrawal fees equal to 10%, 20% or more of your funds.
WHAT TO DO WHEN SCAMMED
It is very important not to rush into trusting people on the internet who offer to magically refund your money for a fee. These are also scammers, and they may even be the same ones who scammed you in the first place.
If you have made the transfers using credit or debit card, you can claim a chargeback. Visa and MasterCard allow this to be done within 540 days. However, such a request may not be approved if you have given the fraudsters documents such as a copy of an ID and proof of address. This will allow them to claim that the transaction is legitimate and approved by both parties. Wire and cryptocurrency transfers unfortunately are not refundable.
