Beware! Atlantic Holdings Inv 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.
Atlantic Holdings Inv is almost identical to many of the fake brokers we have encountered, for example GatesBridge. But even if you’re not familiar with this particular type of scam, it’s not hard to determine that Atlantic Holdings Inv is not a legitimate financial services provider. Let’s look at exactly how.
ATLANTIC HOLDINGS INV 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.
It is a complete mystery who is behind Atlantic Holdings Inv. Neither the website nor the Terms and Conditions mention the name of a legal entity.
This anonymity in itself is a big red flag that we are dealing with scammers. It also means that there can be no truth to Atlantic Holdings Inv’s claim that it has offices in regulated jurisdictions like Australia and Canada.
The text of the Terms and Conditions reveals that the anonymous company behind Atlantic Holdings Inv is in fact based in an unregulated offshore zone, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines (SVG).
SVG is an offshore zone with no broker regulations in place. As soon as you open the website of the local Financial Services Authority you see a warning that the institution does not licence forex and other types of brokers and does not supervise the activities of International Business Companies engaged in such activities.
If you intend to invest in financial instruments, you should beware of the many fake brokers lurking online. Always check carefully whether the broker you choose really has the necessary licences. There are numerous benefits to working with a company that is truly authorised and supervised by a regulatory institution such as the 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.
ATLANTIC HOLDINGS INV TRADING SOFTWARE
Atlantic Holdings Inv uses a basic web-based trading platform. But this trading isn’t real – the scammers are using rigged software to fool their victims into thinking that their trades are really taking place with their money. But in reality, the scammers are putting the money in their own pockets.
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.
ATLANTIC HOLDINGS INV TRADING CONDITIONS
Atlantic Holdings Inv claims to offer five different types of trading accounts. However, the account descriptions lack the detailed information about trading parameters that you will find on the websites of genuine forex brokers.
The website promises favourable terms, but in the trading platform we see a very high and unprofitable spread of 3 pips.
The minimum deposit for a starter account is 250 USD. For the same or often lower amount you could start trading through a licensed broker.
The leverage varies between 1:100 and 1:400. Regulated brokers do not offer such levels to retail traders as trading with high leverage carries risks of sudden and excessive losses. A maximum leverage of 1:30 is allowed in the European Union and the United Kingdom and 1:50 in the United States.
Atlantic Holdings Inv also promises generous bonuses. Regulated brokers are prohibited from offering bonuses, promotions and prize games. Fraudsters use the bonuses to tie their victims to extortionate conditions. Atlantic Holdings Inv is no exception, as we will see below.
ATLANTIC HOLDINGS INV DEPOSIT/WITHDRAW METHODS AND FEES
Depositing funds with Atlantic Holdings Inv requires contacting website support. Because of this, we were unable to determine what payment methods Atlantic Holdings Inv uses.
Experience has shown that scammers of this type use shady payment processors or most commonly cryptocurrencies. This prevents the defrauded from claiming a refund.
Legitimate brokers typically offer clients a wide choice of transparent payment methods, including bank transfer, credit/debit cards and established e-wallets such as PayPal, Skrill, Neteller or Sofort. If you’re interested in legitimate brokers that accept digital currency payments alongside conventional methods, check out this list.
In the text of the Terms and Conditions, we find typical scam traps: if the account has received a bonus, it can withdraw funds only after it has met the extremely high minimum trading volume requirements – 50,000 times the bonus amount. This effectively blocks any withdrawal requests.
And if you can withdraw money from Atlantic Holdings Inv at all, you will have to pay an outrageously high fee – 1% of the amount, but no less than 30 USD. Legitimate brokers rarely charge transaction fees.
HOW DOES THE SCAM WORK
With all the buzz surrounding cryptocurrencies and NFTs, 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.
