Beware! Blockminingfoundry 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.
Blockminingfoundry presents itself as a regulated forex broker and cryptocurrency investment firm. However, closer inspection reveals it is nothing of the sort. It is a poorly disguised scam scheme directly linked to a whole network of other scam websites.
BLOCKMININGFOUNDRY REGULATION AND SAFETY OF FUNDS
Nowhere on the website is it stated which legal entity is behind Blockminingfoundry. This is basic information required by any legitimate business, let alone a broker who asks you to trust him with your money. Blockminingfoundry also has no legal documentation such as Terms and Conditions, although you must indicate agreement to them when you register an account.
In the Frequently Asked Questions section we can see the claim that the unnamed firm behind Blockminingfoundry “operates within the regulatory framework established by the European Union and Maltese Government”.
For this to be true, the Blockminingfoundry must be licensed by the Maltese Financial Services Authority (MFSA). As Blockminingfoundry does not provide a company name or registration number, we could only search the regulator’s register by website name. This search yielded no results.
But even if Blockminingfoundry had a Maltese license, it would not allow it to operate in the United States, where it claims to be based:
To operate as a forex broker in the United States, a company must be registered with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) and to be a member of the National Futures Association (NFA). There is no broker with a name including “Blockminingfoundry” in the NFA register:
It should be pointed out that the exact same fake U.S. address has been used by other scam websites we’ve reviewed, for example Binaryeasytrade and ContaboTraders. There are many other similarities between these websites that show that the same scammers are behind them.
When trading in the financial markets, you have to be very careful not to be fooled by the vast amount of scammers online. Under no circumstances should you trust your money to such anonymous sites full of false and contradictory information. Instead, you can turn to one of the many companies that really work under the supervision of respected regulatory bodies like Cyprus Securities and Exchange Commission (CySEC) or Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) in the UK.
As their customer you will enjoy a number of guarantees including negative balance protection and guarantee for your funds if the broker goes bankrupt, which goes up to EUR 20,000 in EU and 85,000 GBP in the UK. Regulations in the UK and EU include some important measures designed to improve investor protection and promote market integrity and transparency, such as transaction reporting. Regulated brokers are also required to segregate their operational funds from the client’s money.
BLOCKMININGFOUNDRY TRADING SOFTWARE
There is no indication on the Blockminingfoundry website what trading software is used. After registering an account and logging into the client portal, it becomes obvious that Blockminingfoundry has no real trading platform at all. Blockminingfoundry offers only a poor and non-functional imitation trading platform which only allows “trading” of EUR/USD and shares of Apple and Gazprom:
The same fake platform is also used by some of the websites that share the fictitious Blockminingfoundry address. Apparently, the scammers behind these websites are targeting people who have no clue about forex trading and do not know what to expect from trading software.
Legitimate brokers offer clients a wide selection of trading software, including desktop, mobile apps and web-based platforms. The most widely used platforms in the industry are MetaTrader 4 (MT4) and MetaTrader 5 (MT5). These platforms have established themselves as industry standard because they offer a wide range of features, including a variety of options for customization, multiple account usage, designing and implementing custom scripts for automated trading and backtesting trade strategies.
BLOCKMININGFOUNDRY TRADING CONDITIONS
The Blockminingfoundry website describes four trading accounts with minimum deposits starting at 250 USD for a Basic account and going up to 250,000 USD for a VIP account. The FAQ section of the website lists another minimum investment amount, 200 USD.
You should know that there are many legitimate brokers where a novice trader could open a micro account with a deposit of 100 USD or even less.
A leverage of 1:500 is specified for all type accounts. This in itself proves that Blockminingfoundry could not be a licensed broker, either in the EU or in the US. High leverage creates the opportunity for more significant profit, but correspondingly increases the risk of sudden and excessive losses. All leading regulators therefore restrict leverage for retail traders. The EU regulators limit leverage to 1:30 for trading in major currency pairs and even lower levels for more volatile assets. In the US, the maximum limit is slightly higher at 1:50.
The account descriptions also include spreads for various tradable assets. These levels are far from favorable and reach 2.8 pips for the benchmark currency pair ESD/USD. In the industry, levels above 2 pips are considered too high and unprofitable for the trader.
BLOCKMININGFOUNDRY DEPOSIT/WITHDRAW METHODS AND FEES
The Blockminingfoundry website advertises that it uses a number of popular payment methods such as Skrill, QIWI AstroPay, PerfectMoney and Neteller.
In reality, however, the deposit menu only allows a direct transfer to a Bitcoin wallet, Cashapp or PayPal account. The email of the PayPal user is the same that can be seen in the Binaryeasytrade. This now proves beyond any doubt that the same people are behind these scam websites.
The minimum amount that the deposit system accepts is 25 USD.
The website indicates that the minimum withdrawal amount is 200 USD , but there is no information on the associated withdrawal terms and fees.
HOW DOES THE SCAM WORK
Stories of people getting rich from cryptocurrencies tempt many to try their luck in the financial markets. But you have to be very careful not to fall into the clutches of the many scammers lurking in the online space. These scammers only pose as brokers and lure you in with promises to take on the confusing aspects of investing for you.
If you make contact with such scammers they will first convince you to give them a small initial sum of a few hundred dollars. They may even fool you for a while that your investment is generating incredible profits to convince you to give them a larger amount. But your money won’t really be invested. And when you try to withdraw your supposed profits or even your deposit, you will find that it is impossible.
The scammers may tell you that all your investments have been lost by a sudden change in the market. Or they’ll point you to clauses hidden in their Terms and Conditions that say withdrawing your money is only possible after you meet impossibly high minimum trading volume requirements. And they can simply disappear because these scam sites hide behind fake names and offshore companies that are not subject to rules and regulations.
WHAT TO DO WHEN SCAMMED
If you find yourself a victim of scammers, you should inform the relevant authorities in your country and spread the word online to warn other potential victims. However, the chances of getting your money back are not high.
If you used a credit/debit card for the transactions, you could ask for a chargeback. However, such requests can be disputed if you have provided the fraudsters with proof of identity such as a copy of an ID. Under no circumstances should you trust people on the internet who claim they can recover your money for an upfront fee. These too are certainly scammers.
