Beware! Dcmgroup.io 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.
Dcmgroup.io claims to be a “reliable” brokerage firm offering forex, stocks, commodities and cryptocurrency trading. However, fact checking reveals beyond any doubt that this is no broker, but a typical scam scheme trying to take advantage of people with no experience in financial markets. It is in your best interest to stay away from Dcmgroup.io.
DCMGROUP.IO REGULATION AND SAFETY OF FUNDS
According to the information on the website’s index page, the company behind it is Marshall Islands-based Archax Ltd:
The Marshall Islands are notorious as a base for shady brokers and scammers because there is no financial regulator in this offshore zone and registering a company can be done over the Internet. Moreover, the dubious activities of Dcmgroup.io have come to the attention of some European financial regulators. The Spanish Comision Nacional del Mercado de Valores (CNMV) issued a special warning that this website offers financial services without authorisation:
That in itself is reason enough not to trust Dcmgroup.io with your money. But this website tries to mislead in other ways. The contact information lists an address in Limassol, Cyprus:
To operate in this jurisdiction, a broker must be licensed by the Cyprus Securities and Exchange Commission. However, Archax Ltd is not on the list of companies authorized by the regulator, and Dcmgroup.io cannot be found among the approved domains. In the text of the Terms and Conditions we find yet another contradictory statement – that the agreement with the client is subject to the laws of Estonia:
The Estonian Financial Supervision Authority database actually lists a company called Archax Ltd , but it is a British entity authorised to offer cross-border services in the country. In the UK’s Financial Conduct Authority registry, we see that this company uses a completely different website than the Dcmgroup.io:
The British regulator also warns that there are numerous clone companies of this particular company. We have already reviewed another one of those – Archax Trade. Apparently the Marshall Islands-based Archax Ltd is just another clone of the legitimate British company.
If you are interested in investing in financial markets through a European broker, it is advisable to approach a company which is indeed licensed and supervised by reputable regulatory institutions such as 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.
DCMGROUP.IO TRADING SOFTWARE
Dcmgroup.io website promises a custom designed web trading platform. However, the links to the supposed mobile versions of this software are empty. After registering an account and logging into the client portal, we did not find any trading platform. This also shows that Dcmgroup.io is a scam aimed at people who have no knowledge of trading in the financial markets and do not know what to expect from a broker.
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.
DCMGROUP.IO TRADING CONDITIONS
There are four types of trading accounts described on the Dcmgroup.io website – Basic, Standard, Pro and VIP. The stated minimum deposit for the Basic account is extremely high – 3500 EUR. Elsewhere on the website a minimum deposit of 250 USD is stated, but even this is high compared to the terms of legitimate brokers. Many of them now offer beginner accounts with a minimum deposit of less than 100 USD/EUR.
Dcmgroup.io claims that it does not charge fees or commissions. The spread is only stated to be ‘static’. However, this means nothing given that Dcmgroup.io does not even have a trading platform.
The specified leverage for different account types varies between 1:200 and 1:500. This is further evidence that Dcmgroup.io could not be a licensed broker operating anywhere in the European Union. 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. EU regulators limit leverage to 1:30 for trading in major currency pairs and even lower levels for more volatile assets.
Dcmgroup.io laso offers various bonuses – a practice forbidden by all leading regulators. According to the Terms and Conditions of the Dcmgroup.io, these bonuses are withdrawable if minimum traded volume requirements are met. However, the exact amount of these requirements is not clear – in one place the text specifies 30 times the bonus amount plus the deposit, and in another 25 times. Such inconsistencies are typical of scam websites.
DCMGROUP.IO DEPOSIT/WITHDRAW METHODS AND FEES
The only payment method available on the Dcmgroup.io deposit menu is the little known and very questionable provider PayBox, which has been used by other fake brokers we have reviewed. The minimum amount for a single transaction is 250 USD.
Legitimate brokers typically offer clients a wide choice of transparent payment methods, including bank transfer, credit/debit cards and established e-wallets such as Neteller, Sofort or WebMoney.
In the text of the Terms and Conditions we find a clause according to which “a levy of 10% of the withdrawal amount will be charged to any withdrawal from an account that has not executed more than 200 in turnover”. It is not specified 200 of what – it is very likely that 200 lots are meant, i.e. 20 000 000 currency units. Such vaguely worded and impossible to meet clauses are intended to block any requests to withdraw money.
There is also a monthly fee for an inactive account, which also amounts to 10% and is activated after six months.
HOW DOES THE SCAM WORK
With all the buzz surrounding skyrocketing prices of cryptocurrencies, many people are starting to consider investing in the financial markets as a bid to improve their fortunes. Scammers on the internet have taken notice of that and take advantage of the ignorance of the general public by creating countless websites posing as brokers. These websites offer no real brokerage services and only deceive people into believing that their money is really being invested.
If you come across such a scam website and give out your contacts, you will be contacted by experienced scammers who will convince you that they can take on all the frighteningly complex aspects of investing for you. But you will never get any real profits, nor will you be able to get back the money you deposited. The terms and conditions of these websites are riddled with clauses that make withdrawing funds from your account unfeasible – for example, extremely high minimum trading volume requirements or hefty fees of 10%, 20% or even more of the amount.
Scammers hide behind fake addresses and names and operate through offshore companies that are not subject to regulation and scrutiny. So even if all the withdrawal requirements are met, they may simply disappear and move on to their next fraudulent scheme.
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.
