Beware! FXopel 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.
FXopel presents itself as a regulated broker offering its services worldwide. The poor quality of the FXopel website makes these claims seem dubious even at first glance. Fact-checking reveals beyond doubt that this is no broker at all, but yet another reincarnation of a familiar fraudulent scheme.
FXopel’s website is in fact almost identical to other scammers we have reviewed, such as Binaryeasytrade. Under no circumstances should you trust your money to such scammers.
FXOPEL REGULATION AND SAFETY OF FUNDS
The first red flag is that it is not clear who exactly is the legal entity behind the website. The name “fxopel Capital Inc.” can be seen on the website’s footer. But in the “Regulation” section, three other companies are mentioned – “ fxopel COMPANY LTD”, “AA business solutions SDN BHD” and “fxopel trading Capital”. They are said to be registered in Saint Vincent and the Grenadines(SVG), Malaysia and Hong Kong respectively:
SVG is an offshore zone that does not regulate brokers. Тhe Financial Services Authority (FSA) of St. Vincent and the Grenadines has repeatedly issued warnings on this issue, with the latest such warning dated 23 June 2021.
Malaysia also does not formally regulate brokers. The name listed on the website appears to be that of a Malaysian import and export company that has nothing to do with FXopel.
To operate in Hong Kong, a broker must be licensed by the Hong Kong Securities and Futures Commission (SFC). However, there is no company with such a name on that regulator’s register:
FXopel’s efforts to appear legitimate also include a very low resolution image of a private limited company certificate from England and Wales. This certificate however does not state a company name or registration number, nor would it allow brokerage services:
FXopel obviously uses names of companies that do not exist or that have nothing to do with the alleged broker. Even if FXopel did have these licenses it claims, that would not give it the right 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 “Binaryeasytrade” in the NFA database.
It should be pointed out that the exact same fake U.S. address has been used by other scam websites we’ve reviewed, not only the aforementioned Binaryeasytrade, but also Blockminingfoundry and ContaboTraders.
You should only trust legitimate brokers that are truly operating in one of the established financial centres like 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.
In the EU and the UK, brokers must also participate in guarantee schemes that cover a certain amount of the trader’s investment if the broker becomes insolvent. These guarantees amount to up to 20 000 EUR in the EU and 85 000 GBP in the UK. However, the likelihood of such a bankruptcy is low because 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.
FXOPEL TRADING SOFTWARE
On the FXopel website one can see references to MetaTrader 4 (MT4), which is the most popular trading software in the industry. However, after registering an account and logging into the client system, it becomes apparent that FXopel does not have a true trading platform.
Like the other fraudulent websites mentioned, FXopel is trying to pass as the real thing a very unconvincing imitation. This supposed trading platform has no real functionality and doesn’t even display any instruments other than the EUR/USD currency pair and shares of Apple and Gazprom:
The scammers behind these websites are obviously targeting people who have no clue about forex trading and do not know what to expect from trading software.
There are more than enough licensed brokers offering clients the MT4 experience and/or the newer version of the software 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.
FXOPEL TRADING CONDITIONS
There is no systematic description of trading conditions on the FXopel website, nor are there different account types represented. The main page mentions a 100 USD deposit, and the deposit menu accepts 25 USD as the minimum amount. In any case, it would be a better choice to go to a licensed broker, many of which offer starter accounts with a very low minimum deposit.
FXopel claims to offer an incredibly high leverage of 1:2000:
This also proves that FXopel could not be a licensed broker based in the United States. 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. In the USA, the maximum leverage allowed is 1:50. In the EU and UK the limit is even lower – 1:30.
There is also mention of a spread “as low as 0 pips”, but at the same time the attached table of average spreads shows a spread of 1.9 pips and higher. The table in question looks like it was copied from some real broker’s website. Since FXopel does not even have an actual trading platform, these values have no real meaning.
FXOPEL DEPOSIT/WITHDRAW METHODS AND FEES
The Visa, MasterCard, Skrill, PayPal and Neteller logos can be seen on the main page of the website. However, the deposit menu only allows a direct transfer to a Bitcoin wallet, Cashapp or PayPal account.
In this respect, FXopel is also identical to the other scam sites we pointed out.
Nowhere on the website or in the Terms and Conditions are fees and conditions for depositing and withdrawing funds mentioned.
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.
