Beware! GoldenCoins 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.
GoldenCoins sells itself as a secure solution for trading cryptocurrency pairs. But nothing on this website gives us confidence that our money would be in safe hands. The alleged owner of GoldenCoins is a shady and unregulated offshore company. The website lacks basic information and functionality. Nothing can justify working with GoldenCoins given that there are enough established and legitimate alternatives.
GOLDENCOINS REGULATION AND SAFETY OF FUNDS
When you visit the website of a genuine financial services provider you can expect to find detailed information about the owning company and its legal status right on the homepage. This is not the case with GoldenCoins. The website lacks a legal entity name and even an address. The only way to get in touch is by email.
Only the Terms and Conditions state that the website is operated and owned by the Star Mkt Ltd. The company’s name is embedded in the text in the form of an image, which should perhaps serve as a barrier to being picked up by internet search engines.
The same document states that “corporate information regarding the company can be viewed on the website” – but this is not true. In fact, the name of this company is not even mentioned in other legal documents such as Privacy Policy and Refund Policy.
The Terms & Conditions are stated to be governed by the laws of Seychelles.
This is an offshore zone without any significant regulations for brokers, except for a minimum capital requirement of 50,000 USD. But Star Mkt Ltd is not listed among the companies authorized by the Seychelles Financial Services Authority. A general internet search shows that this company is listed as the owner of a digital marketing website.
We cannot be sure exactly who the owner of the GoldenCoins is, but there can be no doubt that this owner is not legally authorized to offer brokerage services. If you intend to invest in cryptocurrencies or other financial instruments, it would be wise to choose a duly licensed company.
Depending on your location, it is advisable to choose a company that is regulated by an institution such as Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) in US, Australian Securities and Exchanges Commission (ASIC), UK’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) or some EU regulator like Cyprus Securities and Exchange Commission (CySEC).
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.
GOLDENCOINS TRADING SOFTWARE
GoldenCoins promises “a professional web-based platform, enabling simple and secure access to the digital markets”. However, there are no clues on the website as to exactly what software is being used. At the time of writing this review, creating a new account was not possible, so we could not confirm if GoldenCoins does indeed have any kind of trading platform. Given the low quality of the website, our guess is that the answer is no.
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.
GOLDENCOINS TRADING CONDITIONS
The lack of information also affects the terms of trade allegedly offered by GoldenCoins. There is no description of the different trading accounts or any specific information on the trading parameters on the website.
The text of the Terms and Conditions mentions fees and commissions, claiming that a detailed description can be found on the website – but as stated, this is not true. So we’re neither sure who we’re dealing with, nor do we know exactly what the terms of the deal are. This is not a good situation at all when our money is on the line. A much safer and sensible choice is to use the services of a licensed broker. Many of the leading companies in the industry allow you to open a starter account with a very low minimum deposit of 100 USD or even less.
GOLDENCOINS DEPOSIT/WITHDRAW METHODS AND FEES
GoldenCoins claims to accept three payment methods – credit/debit cards, wire transfer and cryptocurrencies. Legitimate brokers typically offer clients a wide choice of transparent payment methods, including established e-wallets such as PayPal, Skrill, Neteller. Scammers prefer cryptocurrencies because these transactions are not subject to refunds.
GoldenCoins specifies a minimum withdrawal amount of 100 USD if a credit card is used and 250 USD by wire transfer. No fees or additional withdrawal terms are specified, but such websites always serve up unpleasant surprises such as hidden fees and terms.
The only fee specified is that for inactivity. If the account is dormant for 60 days a one-time fee of 200 USD is charged, after which there is a monthly fee of 90 USD. Reactivation of such an account requires an additional fee of 100 USD.
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.