Beware! GreenWaveX is an offshore broker! Your investment may be at risk.

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GreenWaveX is a very shady offshore broker trying to pose as being based in one of the leading global financial centers. The lack of a license, misleading information on the website and predatory terms and conditions lead us to believe that GreenWaveX is most probably a scam. It is not advisable to trust your money to GreenWaveX.

GREENWAVEX REGULATION AND SAFETY OF FUNDS

In the “About Us” section, we see a statement that GreenWaveX is headquartered in the United Kingdom, one of the most strictly regulated jurisdictions.

But this is quickly exposed as a lie. Two offshore and completely unregulated companies are listed as owners of the website –  Iron Tulip Limited, based in Mauritius, and GreenWaveX Limited, allegedly based in the Marshall Islands.

GreenWaveX’s trading platform is also registered to a company in the Marshall Islands, and this jurisdiction is listed as applicable in the Terms and Conditions. There are no regulations in place for brokers in Marshall Islands, or even an institution to act as a financial regulator. Moreover, incorporation of companies there can be done entirely online. This makes this offshore area an ideal base for financial fraudsters.

There is therefore absolutely no guarantee that GreenWaveX really offers the consumer protections it claims. In fact, there are no guarantees that it really is a broker.

If you want to trade on financial markets without being scammed, you can turn to some of the legitimate brokers that actually operate from established financial hubs like the UK. These brokers have to meet stringent requirements for financial stability and transparency of operations imposed by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA). 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.

GREENWAVEX TRADING SOFTWARE

The GreenWaveX website does not specify what trading software is used. Therefore, we were surprised that after registration we got access to MetaTrader 4 (MT4) – one of the most popular platforms among traders worldwide. Here is how it looks like:

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.

GREENWAVEX TRADING CONDITIONS

GreenWaveX claims to offer trade with a wide range of CFD instruments including Currencies, Commodities, Indices, Cryptocurrencies, Precious Metals and Stocks. However, the website does not provide a detailed description of the trading conditions. Five types of accounts are offered, the description of which includes only part of the trading parameters.

The minimum deposit of 200 USD may seem low, but you should know that many licensed and regulated brokers allow you to start trade with lower amounts. The website promises a spread of 1.2 pips for a Standard account. On the trading platform, we saw a slightly higher level of 1.5 pips for the benchmark currency pair USD/EUR. These levels are comparable to industry averages, but as noted, there is no guarantee the trade offered by GreenWaveX is not fictitious.

Leverage for all account types reaches 1:500. This is not a level that you see with regulated brokers. Trading with high leverage allows higher profits, but also increases the risk of sudden and excessive losses proportionally. All leading regulators limit leverage for retail traders. In the EU and UK the maximum permitted level is 1:30. This maximum level only applies to trading major currency pairs, with even more limited leverage for more volatile assets.

GreenWaveX does something else forbidden to regulated brokers – it offers bonuses. Like many financial scammers, GreenWaveX uses bonuses to bind the trader to vaguely defined and extortionate terms.

GREENWAVEX DEPOSIT/WITHDRAW METHODS AND FEES

On the homepage of the website we see the logos of popular payment systems such as Skrill, Neteller and AstroPay, but they are not available in the deposit menu. There, the choice is between credit card, bitcoin and the Ezeebill platform for payment with Indonesian Rupiah.

Scammers prefer cryptocurrencies because these transactions are not subject to refunds. If you are interested in licensed brokers that also accept cryptocurrencies as a means of payment, take a look at this list.

The minimum withdrawal amount is 50 USD, with GreenWaveX charging a whopping 5% fee if the account has not completed at least five trades. If the account has not been active for 90 days, GreenWaveX  charges another 5% inactivity fee.

If the account has received a bonus, withdrawing money requires meeting a minimum volume requirement. According to the examples given in the Terms and Conditions, a bonus of 1,000 USD requires a trade of 10,000,000 USD. Such clauses are typical of fraudulent websites and underline our belief that GreenWaveX is just that, not just an unregulated offshore broker.

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.

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2 Comments

  1. What about waves.exchange?
    Using it for years but still doubting. Not too much info about the company running it

  2. alex.lean @plusrecoup.com

    Write a formal complaint to the above contact

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