Beware! Mitrate 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.
Mitrate is yet another website posing as a stock, currency pair and index broker, that is actually a front for scammers. At the time of writing this review, the site is barely functional – pages load extremely slowly, basic functions are missing, the “latest news” section shows posts from July 2021, and most importantly, it was not possible to create an account.
But the available information is sufficient to conclude that this is a typical fraudulent operation. It seems that this project has either not yet been completed or has been abandoned, as often happens with scammer platforms. But if this site is ever activated, you shouldn’t be fooled – this is not a real broker and in no case should you trust your money to the people behind it.
MITRATE REGULATION AND SAFETY OF FUNDS
The website states that a company called Mitra Investment Ltd is behind it. This company is said to be based in the United Kingdom. Since brokers operating in the UK must be supervised by the country’s regulatory body, the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), we checked the institution’s official registry. As expected, it does not list a licensed broker under the name Mitra Investment .
Fraudsters often give a contact address in a known financial centre such as the UK, but have an actual registration offshore where they are not subject to regulation. In the case of Mitrate we only have the lie that they are based in the UK.
It is quite obvious that Mitrate are scammers. If you are keen to start investing in the capital markets, it is advisable to approach a legitimate broker operating under the supervision of a regulatory institution such as the FCA.
Such companies are obliged to meet strict transparency and financial stability requirements, including significant minimum net capital requirements of EUR 730,000. They also have to participate in guarantee schemes that cover up to GBP 85,000 of a client’s investment if the broker becomes insolvent.
MITRATE TRADING SOFTWARE
Mitrate claims to offer “mobile & PC trading platform”, but there are no download links on the website. The page to create an account doesn’t load, so we couldn’t check to see if there was any trading platform at all.
Legitimate brokers offer clients a wide selection of quality trading software. Typically, this includes the industry’s most popular platforms, 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.
MITRATE TRADING CONDITIONS
Mitrate’s website lacks information on what types of accounts and trading conditions they offer – something that can be found even on most scam platforms. Since there is no functioning trading platform, it is also impossible to see what spreads and leverage are set. This also indicates that this scam is probably still a work in progress.
The “Terms of use” states that Mitrate offers bonuses to its customers. This also indicates that this could not be a legitimate broker operating in the United Kingdom. The FCA, like regulators in the European Union and the US, prohibits brokerage firms from using bonuses and promotions to attract clients.
The Mitras have set a common scam trap in their terms of use. In order to withdraw any funds from an account that has been credited with a trading bonus, the trader will be required to execute a minimum trading volume of 30 times the bonus amount plus the deposit. Such high traded volume requirements make it virtually impossible for the customer to withdraw their supposed profits and even their deposit.
MITRATE DEPOSIT/WITHDRAW METHODS AND FEES
It the Terms of use it is stated that the minimum deposit is USD 250, and the minimum withdraw amount is USD 100. The only mention of deposit and withdrawal methods is in the FAQ section. However, only general wording can be seen there that “Mitrate offers a broad range of deposit methods, such as but not limited to, debit/credit cards, bank wire transfers, and e-wallets”.
Legitimate brokers usually offer multiple payment methods, including wire transfers and established online platforms such as PayPal, UnionPay or Sofort.
Mitrate also claims it does not charge any withdrawal fees, “regardless of total investment and account balance”. But that doesn’t matter, since obviously Mitrade isn’t doing any real trading either.
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.
