Wise 4X review – 5 things you should know about wise4x.com

Beware! Wise 4X is an offshore broker! Your investment may be at risk.

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Don’t put all your eggs in one basket. Open trading accounts with at least two brokers.

Wise 4X is representative of the most brazen kind of fraudsters who illegally use the data of legitimate companies. But Wise 4X  does this very sloppily and leaves plenty of clues that we are actually dealing with a scam. Wise 4X  is not a broker through which to invest in financial assets, but it is an instructive example of why we should not blindly believe everything we read on the internet.

WISE 4X REGULATION AND SAFETY OF FUNDS

At first glance, the Wise 4X  website has the necessary information and legal documentation. The homepage claims that this broker is owned by Wise About Money Limited, a company based in the United Kingdom.

However, the attached link to a purported license leads to a very dubious anonymous website claiming to be a UK based regulator called “International financial market supervisory authority” or “Ifinma”. No such institution exists. UK brokers must be authorised by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA). In the FCA database we find a company with this name, but it is not a broker, but an appointed representative without a registered domain. It is obvious that Wise 4X is using the details of this company illegally.

We find further evidence of this in the text of the Terms and Conditions. First, there is no mention of the name of this legal entity. Secondly, it states that the agreement is subject to the laws of Estonia:

On the website we also see a claim that Wise 4X is also licensed by two other leading European regulators – Cyprus Securities and Exchange Commission (CySEC) and Germany’s BaFin.

We do not find any information about Wise 4X or Wise About Money Limited in the databases of these regulators, nor in the Estonian Financial Supervision Authority (EFSA) register.

And that’s not all. In some places on the website, a different brand is mentioned – Equity Capital. This is typical of scam websites, which are often cobbled together from elements of previous projects by the same scammers.

Trading software can be downloaded from the Wise 4X website, which is registered in the name of a completely different company – Finansysfx. This company is based in the Marshall Islands – an offshore zone where there is no financial regulator at all. Wise 4X does not provide login credentials for this platform, so it is unclear whether this is the true owner of the website.

Under no circumstances should you trust your money to such anonymous websites 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 CySEC or FCA. 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.

WISE 4X TRADING SOFTWARE

After registering an account we get access to an installation file for the MetaTrader 4 (MT4) platform – the most popular software among brokers worldwide. As stated, this platform is registered in the name of another company and Wise 4X  does not provide the necessary credentials to log into a trading server.

In addition, the dashboard has a link to a simplified web platform, which is not the browser version of MetaTrader and has no comparable advanced features:

It should be noted that the presence of some kind of trading software is no guarantee that it is a genuine broker. Financial scammers often use trading platforms to fool their victims that their money is actually being invested. However, this trading is entirely fictitious and the money goes directly into the scammers’ pockets.

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.

WISE 4X TRADING CONDITIONS

There is no description of the different types of trading accounts on the Wise 4X website, nor is there detailed information on the trading parameters and conditions. However, the little information available may serve as further evidence that Wise 4X could not be a genuine broker operating legally in the EU or the UK.

The first such difference is the specified leverage of up to 1:500. 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 FCA, like EU regulators, limits leverage to 1:30 for trading in major currency pairs and even lower levels for more volatile assets.

Wise 4X also claims to offer bonuses – a practice prohibited by all European regulators. These bonuses are claimed to be withdrawable subject to very high requirements and a minimum traded volume of 30 times the bonus amount plus the deposit. These conditions also bind any profits made from an account with bonus.

WISE 4X DEPOSIT/WITHDRAW METHODS AND FEES

The logos of many popular payment methods can be seen on the website, including Visa, MasterCard, Skrill, PayPal, Sofort and GiroPay. But the deposit menu is not available if the account is not verified by providing identification documents. Therefore, we could not confirm what payment methods are actually available. Fraudsters rarely use conventional payment methods and prefer cryptocurrencies that do not allow refunds.

Wise 4X’s Terms and Conditions are identical to those of dozens of other fake brokers we’ve encountered. This includes withdrawal fees of up to 50 USD – an outrageously high amount considering that most legitimate brokers don’t charge transaction fees at all. On top of that, there is a whopping 10% fee when withdrawing money from an account that is “not executed more than 200 in turnover”. It is not specified 200 what – possibly meaning lots, i.e. 20 000 000 currency units.

If the account has not traded for three months, Wise 4X starts charging an inactivity fee of 10% per month.

HOW DOES THE SCAM WORK

Unfortunately, the internet is full of scammers. In the age of cryptocurrencies, many of them pretend to be brokers and take advantage of people’s desire to get rich easily through financial instruments they don’t really understand.

Fake brokerage sites lure you in with promises to take on all the difficult and confusing aspects of investing for you. If you make contact with such sites, they will first convince you to make a small, “risk-free” investment of a few hundred dollars. Experienced scammers will then begin to persuade you to “invest” more and more money, and will even deceive you into believing that your initial investment is generating incredible profits.

But you will never see those profits or the money you deposited. These scammers hide behind fake names and offshore shell companies that are not subject to oversight and regulations like regulated brokers. They use cryptocurrencies or other shady payment methods that make refunding money difficult or often impossible. The terms and conditions of these sites are riddled with pitfalls that block withdrawals with impossible-to-fulfill conditions for minimum traded volume and extremely high fees reaching 10, 20 or more percent of the amount.

WHAT TO DO WHEN SCAMMED

If you find yourself in such a situation, you should be very careful not to fall into the clutches of other fraudsters while trying to recover your money. Offers from people on the internet who promise to get you your money back from scammers for an upfront fee are also one hundred percent scammers.

If you used a credit or debit card for the transactions to the scammers, there is some chance you can get your money back by requesting a chargeback. Visa and MasterCard allow this to be done within 540 days. But such a claim can be challenged if you have provided the scammers with documents such as a copy of your ID and proof of address.