Beware! Wall-Index 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.
This supposed financial services provider can’t even decide how to spell its own branding – on the website we see the variants Wall-Index , WallIndex and Wall Index. Closer inspection reveals that this is yet another anonymous website designed to cash in on the excitement surrounding cryptocurrencies. If you trust the Wall-Index you won’t get the promised profits, you’ll end up getting scammed.
WALL-INDEX REGULATION AND SAFETY OF FUNDS
According to the homepage of the website, the company behind the Wall-Index is CastanCY OU, registered in Seychelles. However, the contact address is completely different and is in the United Kingdom:
These jurisdictions are quite different in terms of brokers – Seychelles is an offshore zone with no regulations at all, while the UK has some of the strictest financial regulations. CastanCY does not appear on the list of brokers authorised by the UK Financial Conduct Authority (FCA). There is another significant problem – the FCA prohibits trading in crypto derivatives, which is the alleged main activity of Wall-Index.
But interestingly, this company cannot be found in the Seychelles Financial Services Authority database either:
Links to Terms and Conditions and other legal documentation on the Wall-Index website lead to non-existent pages. Only the account registration form has a working link to Terms and Conditions, which lists a completely different company with the generic name Alternative Services LLC.
These very short and devoid of essential information Terms and Conditions do not even state where this company is based. We can confidently bet that these legal entities do not exist at all. Wall-Index is a completely anonymous website that has no legal authorization to offer the services it claims.
The only specific information in this document is that the funds deposited by the customer are not insured. This is far from true for traders who work with brokers who are indeed authorised by a regulator such as the UK FCA. These brokers have to meet stringent requirements for financial stability and transparency of operations. They must provide clients with negative balance protection and to participate in a guarantee fund that covers up to GBP 85,000 of a client’s investment should the broker go into insolvency. These brokers are also required to keep their clients’ money segregated from their own operating funds in separate bank accounts.
WALL-INDEX TRADING SOFTWARE
After registering an account we get access to an unconvincing looking web trading platform. This platform consists of two separate parts. One is a simple chart with current asset prices taken for free from the data provider TradingView. The other is a non-functional buy and sell menu. This has nothing to do with the software used by legitimate brokers.
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.
WALL-INDEX TRADING CONDITIONS
When you visit the website of a legitimate broker you will find proposals for different types of trading accounts suitable for investors with different preferences, as well as detailed descriptions of trading parameters. On the Wall-Index website, we find only proposals for two vaguely described subscription plans with monthly fees of 145 USD and 225 USD. For a smaller amount, you could open a starter account with a legitimate broker and start real trading.
With the Wall-Index, you don’t know who you’re dealing with or what the terms of the deal are. This is completely unacceptable when your money is on the line.
WALL-INDEX DEPOSIT/WITHDRAW METHODS AND FEES
Wall-Index promises “a variety of payment methods” including cryptocurrency, wire transfer and credit cards. In the deposit menu itself we only see two of these options, bank transfer and cryptocurrencies. However, an error message pops up when selecting a bank transfer. Therefore, the only option available is cryptocurrencies.
Scammers prefer cryptocurrencies because these transactions are not subject to refunds. While there are some legitimate brokers that accept Bitcoin, they do so alongside other transparent payment methods, including popular e-wallets like PayPal, Neteller or FasaPay.
Wall-Index charges several deposit fees, totaling 7.5%. This is an outrageous level, especially considering that genuine brokers rarely charge transaction fees. We suspect that Wall-Index has more hidden fees and unfair terms, like all scammers of this kind.
HOW DOES THE SCAM WORK
The hype surrounding cryptocurrencies has drawn public attention to the trading of financial instruments. However, the vast majority of people remain ignorant about financial markets. There are a growing number of scammers who are taking advantage of this by posing as brokers.
If you make contact with any of these sites that promise to make you rich effortlessly, they will first start convincing you to make a small “investment” of a few hundred dollars. If you prove susceptible, even more convincing scam artists will court you to give them even more money. They will probably even fool you into thinking that your initial investment has already generated profits.
But the truth is that your money will never be truly invested. It will go straight into the pockets of the crooks and you will probably never see it again. Scammers hide behind fake and offshore companies that are not subject to any regulation and control. They also often use non-transparent payment methods that make it difficult to track them and recover money. Your attempts to withdraw your supposed profits or deposit will be blocked by confusing clauses in the Terms and Conditions, prohibitively high volume requirements and huge withdrawal fees.
WHAT TO DO WHEN SCAMMED
Unfortunately, it is difficult to recover money given to such scammers. If credit or debit cards were used for the transfer, there is a chance if you ask for a chargeback. Visa and MasterCard allow this to be done within 540 days. But this method is not foolproof either, because fraudsters will ask you for copies of your ID and proof of address right from the start. This way they can claim to the card company that the transfer was voluntary and agreed by both parties.
It is important not to trust offers from people on the internet to recover your money from scammers for a fee. Such offers also come from scammers.
