Beware! Kryptoeuclub 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.
Kryptoeuclub, or KClub, presents itself as a secure cryptocurrency trading platform. But we have every reason to doubt that this is true.
Behind this website is a dubious offshore company that is not subject to any regulations and does not provide any guarantees to its customers. The website lacks basic information and at the time of writing this review, account registration was not possible.
It is plausible that the website is still a work in progress or has already been abandoned, as is often the case with scam schemes. However, the information available is sufficient to judge that it is in your best interest not to trust Kryptoeuclub with your money.
KRYPTOEUCLUB REGULATION AND SAFETY OF FUNDS
Immediately noticeable is that the main page of the website lacks information that is required of any broker or any business at all that manages client money – there is no name of a legal entity, no information about licenses and regulations, not even a contact address.
The Terms and Conditions state that a company called Mandarella Ltd is behind Kryptoeuclub. The name of the same company has popped up behind other shady websites we have come across, for example MrGuru.
The text of the Terms and Conditions also states that the agreement between the client and Kryptoeuclub is subject to the laws of Commonwealth of Dominica:
This offshore zone has become increasingly popular with financial fraudsters. Although this country has a financial regulator – Financial Services Unit, It does not license or supervise forex brokers. This means that if you deal with a brokers registered there, they are completely unaccountable and you have no guarantees about the safety of your money – in fact, it is almost certain that they are scammers. The Commonwealth of Dominica also allows incorporation of totally anonymous International Business Companies (IBCs) which is very convenient for these scammers.
It is noteworthy that both the name of the company and the name of the jurisdiction are inserted in the text in the form of images. The likely reason for doing this is to prevent this information from being indexed by search engines. The people behind the Kryptoeuclub obviously have something to hide.
You should only trust legitimate brokers 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.
KRYPTOEUCLUB TRADING SOFTWARE
Claims can be read on the website that Kryptoeuclub offers a trading platform developed by its own team. However, the platform in question is only described in general phrases and illustrated with stock images of a standard webtrader.
There are no links to download the software anywhere. Our attempts to register an account were unsuccessful, so we have not been able to confirm whether Kryptoeuclub has a trading platform at all.
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.
KRYPTOEUCLUB TRADING CONDITIONS
In the text of the Kryptoeuclub’s Terms and Conditions It is stated that “all applicable charges such as Spread(s), Commissions and Swap(s), which are available on our Website”. However, this is not true. No information about trading conditions, fees and commissions can be found on the website.
That in itself is argument enough that you shouldn’t trust the Kryptoeuclub with your money.
Legitimate brokers provide detailed information about their terms and conditions. They usually offer different types of trading accounts tailored to the different needs of investors with different experience and capital. Many regulated brokers offer favorable terms for beginner traders, such as micro accounts with a minimum deposit of 100 USD or even less.
KRYPTOEUCLUB DEPOSIT/WITHDRAW METHODS AND FEES
According to the information available on the website, Kryptoeuclub accepts as payment methods cryptocurrencies, bank transfer, credit/debit cards “and a number of leading E-Wallets“.
There is no minimum deposit specified. А minimum of 100 USD is indicated for withdrawal when using a credit card and 250 USD when using a wire transfer.
The only fee for which specific information is provided is that for an inactive account. It is 200 USD and is charged after 60 days of inactivity.
HOW DOES THE SCAM WORK
Scammers who promise easy money without any effort are nothing new, especially on the internet. But given the excitement around bitcoin and cryptocurrencies in recent years, malicious actors have run rampant more than ever, capitalizing not only on people’s desire to solve their financial woes with a magic wand, but also ignorance and misunderstanding of how blockchain and complex financial instruments actually work.
If your curiosity is stirred by one of the many flashy websites promising easy riches, and you provide your contacts, you will soon be contacted by skillful and persuasive scammers who will convince you to start with a relatively small and “risk-free” investment. If you agree to this, you will be transferred to even more skilled at convincing scammers, who will persuade you to invest even more. Any money you give to such people is money you are unlikely to get back.
Any attempt to withdraw deposits or alleged profits will be hampered by numerous and significant fees, as well as harsh and often prohibitive conditions written into the terms and conditions – such as high trading volume requirements, unexpected “taxes”, or withdrawal fees as high as 10% or even 20% 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.
