Beware! Abtfx Markets 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.
Abtfx Markets claims to be a broker with years of experience through which “novice investors can trade easily from any country”. In reality, however, this is a pretty transparent fraudulent operation that is only posing as a brokerage firm. Their website is virtually anonymous and full of false and misleading information. In short, Abtfx Markets should be avoided.
ABTFX MARKETS REGULATION AND SAFETY OF FUNDS
Regulated brokers are required to provide clear information on their websites about where they are based and what licenses they have. The Abtfx Markets website lacks any information as to the legal entity behind it. The contact information includes only an email and an address in Limassol, Cyprus, which we are sure is fake.
The Terms and Conditions and other attached documents literally state that “Abtfxmarkets is a company incorporated under the laws of xxxxx”:
At the same time, Abtfx Markets claims to have a registered office in Cyprus. Many brokers operating in the European Union are based in Cyprus, but Abtfx Markets is not one of them. This can easily be verified in the records of the Cyprus Securities and Exchange Commission (CySEC) which licenses and supervises brokers in Cyprus. Unsurprisingly, Abtfx Marketsis cannot be found among the entities regulated by the CySEC.
If you want to start trading in the financial markets, you should not trust shady sites like Abtfx Markets. Instead, it is advisable to approach one of the licensed brokers that are truly regulated by institutions such as CySEC.
There are many advantages to working with such brokers, because they must comply with all the requirements of the he European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA). They must maintain a minimum net capital of at least EUR 730 000, which guarantees that the company is financially stable and has a serious long-term approach. Whenever clients deposit money in their trading accounts, it is kept segregated from the broker’s operating funds in separate bank accounts. Thus the clients’ money remains shielded in case of mishaps like a broker’s bankruptcy.
All brokers licensed in Cyprus are members of the Investor Compensation Fund, which may cover a maximum of EUR 20,000 per person in the event of broker insolvency. Cypriot forex brokers are required to report their clients’ transactions on a regular basis. This requirement is designed to improve investor protection and promote market integrity and transparency.
ABTFX MARKETS TRADING SOFTWARE
Abtfx Markets has a basic online trading platform. Here’s what it looks like:
While this platform has the basic features that are necessary for trading, legitimate brokers offer clients a more robust set of software, including desktop and mobile apps. The most widely used platforms in the industry are 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.
ABTFX MARKETS TRADING CONDITIONS
Abtfx Markets offers four types of Accounts – Bronze, Silver, Gold and Platinum, with an initial investment of USD 250, USD 10,000, USD 50,000 and USD 100,000 respectively. As already highlighted, it is advisable to work with regulated brokers, most of which offer favorable conditions for novice traders, such as micro accounts with a minimum deposit of USD 100.
The trading conditions offered for the account types are further evidence that Abtfx Markets cannot be a broker operating from the territory of Cyprus. The stated leverage for the various accounts is between 1:200 and 1:400, levels not allowed for regulated brokers in the EU. In the trading platform, the leverage is at a level of 1:200.
High leverage creates the opportunity for more significant gains, but also increases the risk of excessive losses. ESMA rules limit leverage for retail traders to 1:30 for major currency pairs and even lower levels for more volatile assets.
The website promises “extremely low spreads” from just 0.1 pips. But in the online trading platform the levels are set at around 3 pips. In the industry, levels above 2 pips are considered too high and disadvantageous for the trader
Another clear sign that Abtfx Markets are fraudsters is that they offer bonuses, which is also prohibited for regulated brokers in the EU and other major markets.
ABTFX MARKETS DEPOSIT/WITHDRAW METHODS AND FEES
On the Abtfx Markets website, one can see the logos of many known payment platforms such as GiroPay, Sofort, Neteller, AstroPay, QIWI and Skrill (alongside an 18+ logo for some reason ):
However, only two options are available in the deposit menu, bank transfer and the unknown platform Finanic, and only the second option is actually active. Finanic is a very fishy platform, which is also used by other scam sites we have reviewed. Finanic is not actually an e-wallet, but a crypto wallet, where people use their bank cards to buy digital money and send it to the Abtfx Markets.
While there are legitimate brokers that accept Bitcoin, cryptocurrencies are preferred by fraudsters because transactions with them are difficult to trace and non-refundable.
The minimum amount that can be deposited is USD 100, which is less than the minimum deposit described on the website.
Abtfx Markets’s terms and conditions include a trap often used by fraudsters. It is related to the aforementioned bonuses – if an account has received a bonus, the withdrawal of money becomes tied to meeting high minimum trading volume requirements. In this case – “30 times the bonus issued”. Such high bars make it impossible to withdraw the supposed profits and even the deposit.
HOW DOES THE SCAM WORK
It is tempting to be lured by the promises of easy money that we constantly come across on the internet. But behind the vast majority of these promises, if not all, are scammers. In recent years, many fraudulent schemes have consisted of websites posing as brokers and trying to cash in on the excitement surrounding cryptocurrencies.
If you give your contacts to one of these scammers, they will start convincing you that they will multiply your money, with nothing required of you but to sit back and take profits. If you agree to an initial investment of a few hundred dollars, they will start persuading you to invest more and more.
But you will never get the promised profits or the money you deposited. Scammers have many ways to ensure this. First of all, they are hidden behind offshore companies, not subject to controls and regulations. For the money transfers they use shady payment platforms, direct bank transfers or cryptocurrencies that make recovering money very difficult and often impossible.
The terms and conditions are always riddled with traps that also block your ability to withdraw your money, such as prohibitively high minimum trading volume requirements or withdrawal fees amounting to tens of percentages of your funds.
WHAT TO DO WHEN SCAMMED
When you find yourself scammed and seek advice and help online, you are likely to receive offers from individuals and companies who promise to refund your money for a fee that you have to pay in advance. Don’t trust such offers or recommendations from anonymous commentators on the internet – this is also a well established scam.
The best chance to get at least some of your money back is to request a chargeback, but this applies only if the transfer is made via credit card. It is of course advisable to notify the relevant authorities of the fraudsters’ activities and to spread the word online to warn other people who may fall victim to the same scammers.
