Beware! UXTrades 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.
UXTrades is a fairly typical example of a fraudulent scheme posing as a forex and CFD broker based in a global financial hub. Fact checking leaves no doubt that this anonymous website aims to scam inexperienced people out of their money. Let’s take a detailed look at how you could recognise such traps.
UXTRADES REGULATION AND SAFETY OF FUNDS
If a financial services provider is legitimate, you will find on its website clear and detailed information about the company that owns and operates it, where it is based, and what licences it has. Genuine brokers also provide access to a comprehensive set of legal documentation. The availability of such information does not guarantee that it is not false or misleading. But the absence of these elements is very indicative that in all likelihood you are dealing with scammers.
UXTrades conceals which company owns and operates this website. Even the text of the Terms and Conditions is missing the name of the legal entity, making this document legally null and void.
We are therefore quite certain that the listed contact address in the United Kingdom, a highly regulated jurisdiction, is a fake.
As further evidence of this, we find in the Terms and Conditions the legally absurd wording that “These Terms and Conditions and the website are governed by the laws of Bulgaria and will be interpreted in accordance with the English courts”.
In order to operate as a forex broker in the United Kingdom or a European Union member state such as Bulgaria, a company must be licensed by the relevant financial regulator. The absence of a company name on the AMM website is itself evidence that such a licence does not exist. A check of the UK Financial conduct Authority (FCA) and Bulgarian Financial Supervision Commission (FSC) databases confirms that there is no authorised broker using the brand and domain name of UXTrades.
Before investing your money in financial instruments, it is imperative to make sure you do so through a licensed intermediary and not one of the many scammers lurking online. 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.
UXTRADES TRADING SOFTWARE
Signing up for an account with UXTrades gives us access to a fairly rudimentary-looking web trading platform that is a far cry from the functionality of software offered by licensed brokers.
While the platform has the basic features for placing orders, customising charts and application of technical indicators, it lacks the more advanced functionality found in the most widely used trading platforms in the industry, 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
It should be noted that the presence of some kind of trading software is no guarantee that this 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.
UXTRADES TRADING CONDITIONS
The trading parameters outlined on the UXTrades website provide us with further evidence that we are dealing with a scam and not a regulated forex broker based in the UK or EU.
The first such clue is the statement that the UXTrades offers leverage up to 1:40.
The FCA, like EU regulators, limits leverage to 1:30 for trading in major currency pairs and even lower levels for more volatile assets. 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 Terms and Conditions state that UXTrades offers bonuses, a practice that is completely prohibited to regulated brokers.
The homepage states a minimum deposit of 250 USD, but the descriptions of the different account types state a much higher amount – 25,000 USD. Most licensed brokers allow you to start trading with a very low minimum deposit, often 100 USD, 50 USD or even less.
UXTRADES DEPOSIT/WITHDRAW METHODS AND FEES
UXTrades claims to allow deposits and withdrawals via credit cards, wire transfer and Bitcoin. Account verification requires you to provide bank card details, and in the deposit menu we see links to multiple websites for purchasing cryptocurrency.
By all appearances, UXTrades only uses cryptocurrencies as a payment method. This is typical of financial fraudsters because crypto transactions do not allow the defrauded to request a refund or chargeback. If you’re interested in legitimate brokers that accept digital currency payments alongside conventional methods, check out this list.
UXTrades has a very high minimum withdrawal amount – 100 USD by credit card and 1000 UXTrades by wire transfer. But withdrawing funds becomes very difficult if the account has received a bonus. In that case, the withdrawal requires a minimum traded volume of 25 times the bonus amount plus the deposit. Scammers use such clauses to block withdrawal requests.
HOW DOES THE SCAM WORK
The idea of passive income is increasingly attractive to more and more people. The Internet gives the impression that making money through investments in the financial markets is more accessible than ever to non-experts. But the online space is full of scammers who lure inexperienced wannabe traders through flashy advertisements and fake testimonials from satisfied clients. However, these fake brokers don’t really invest the money you give them – even though they very confidently assure you that you are generating great profits and should invest even more.
But when you try to withdraw some of your supposed winnings or deposit, it turns out to be impossible. Scammers will tell you that a sudden change in the market has wiped out all your money, or point you to vague clauses in the Terms and Conditions that require a huge minimum volume traded. The victim of such a scam may also be surprised with hidden fees and taxes amounting to tens of percentages of their funds.
Holding fraudsters accountable is difficult because they operate through offshore companies that are uncontrolled and unregulated. In addition, scammers require that you provide them with a copy of your ID and proof of address so that they can claim that all transactions were voluntary and agreed upon by both parties.
WHAT TO DO WHEN SCAMMED
First of all, you should know that there is another kind of scammers who prey on victims of fake brokers. They claim they can refund your money for an upfront fee. The most realistic option to get at least some of your money back is to request a chargeback, but this is only possible if you used a credit or debit card for the transactions. Scammers usually insist on using cryptocurrencies, direct bank transfers or shady online payment platforms where refunds are impossible.
