Beware! Investissement Crypto 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.
Investissement Crypto is nothing but a scam broker trying to masquerade as a legitimate company licensed by some of the strictest regulators in the world. The broker does not hold a license by the authorities it is supposedly regulated by – that much we can promise – and actually does not have a lot to offer you – their platform is rudimentary and their trading conditions – less than impressive.
Refrain from putting money in such schemes unless you want to end up losing it.
Investissement Crypto REGULATION AND SAFETY OF FUNDS
In the footer of its website, Investissement Crypto states that it is regulated by one of the most respected forex regulators in the world – the Cyprus Securities Exchange Commission (CySEC). In its Terms and Conditions, on the other hand, the broker claims that it is licensed by the UK’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) – another strict regulator. Neither of these things was true – that is what we established after checking the databases of both regulators. This is a shady, unlicensed enterprise – no legitimate broker would lie about something so fundamental as regulation.
Choose a broker who is licensed in the UK, the EU, and Australia – these brokers are very reliable and are obligated to follow the law strictly if they want to obtain a license and keep it. They have to prove their financial stability by maintaining a certain minimum operational capital – €730 000 in the UK and the EU, and A$1 million in Australia. The sum could, however, go up if the broker has many clients. Negative balance protection is a must – which means you could never suffer losses exceeding the amount of money you have in your account. Client funds are kept in segregated bank accounts – the broker has very limited access to your money after you have deposited which proves they would not be able to use it for their own business. In addition to all that, UK and EU brokers are obligated to provide funds for compensation schemes so if a broker goes bankrupt, each of their clients could receive a compensation of up to €20 000 in the EU and £85 000 in the UK.
Investissement Crypto TRADING SOFTWARE
Investissement Crypto promises access to the most popular platforms in the industry – MetaTrader 4 and MetaTrader 5. However, the platforms could not be downloaded from the broker’s website. When we opened an account, this is what we got:
Such a thing could barely be called a trading platform – it is a simple chart tracking the crypto market with a few extra buttons attached. Trust us when we say that trading on such “software” would hardly provide you with the best trading experience.
Most legitimate brokers can offer far better platforms than the one you can see above. Check out some brokers who actually provide access to MetaTrader 4 and MetaTrader 5. Both versions of MT are efficient and highly functional while also being accessible, even for complete beginners. The platforms provide a full charting and analysis package as well as exquisite features like Expert Advisors, VPSs, signals, a Strategy Tester, a market for add-ons, and even the possibility to create custom scripts. This is, without a doubt, the best the industry can offer so don’t hesitate to try one or both versions of the software and see which one fits your needs better.
Investissement Crypto TRADING CONDITIONS
Investissement Crypto promised quite decent trading conditions – their most basic account costs only $100. This makes the broker’s offer one of the more affordable ones – but considering that this is a scam everything you invest with them will just be lost. Instead of wasting time and money, check out some legitimate brokers who offer trading accounts for $100 or less.
The maximum leverage the broker supposedly offers on forex majors is 1:500 – however, we were not actually provided with the opportunity to trade forex since the chart above only showcases crypto markets. Moreover, no legitimate UK or EU broker could offer such high leverage to retail traders – leverage caps exist in both countries and prevent brokers from offering leverage higher than 1:30 on forex majors to retail traders. Trading with such high rates could indeed to much bigger losses (and not just to bigger profits) which is why you should always be careful with your leverage settings.
Investissement Crypto DEPOSIT AND WITHDRAWAL METHODS AND FEES
Investissement Crypto only accepts crypto deposits – in Bitcoin, Ethereum, or Tether. We find this fact bothersome and another addition to the list of reasons why investing with this broker might not be a great idea. Only a scam broker would urge you to deposit in crypto and offer no alternatives – legitimate brokers also accept this payment method but always give you the choice to deposit in a more conventional way (with a card or via wire transfer, for example). Crypto transactions are both anonymous and irreversible by default – which means that you would not be able to track down your payment to a specific person or group of people or ask for a chargeback if you have already deposited. If this sounds like the perfect set-up for a scam, it is because it is – only use this payment method with people and organizations you are sure you can trust.
HOW DOES THE SCAM WORK?
This type of scam is really not that complicated – but it has proven to be quite effective and has managed to trick quite a few people. Given such schemes’ growing popularity, it is important to know how to avoid them – so reading the following paragraphs carefully is vital.
The scam starts with you seeing an ad on the Internet for a certain broker’s website. Such websites usually promise amazing conditions and extremely fast profits – but offer very little in terms of license and company information. However, sometimes scammers can be very elaborate in their promise – so you fall for it and provide them with a phone number or an email. There is another option – they might have stumbled upon your contact details somewhere and are the first to make contact. After that, a game of cat and mouse begins – you will be asked to open an account and make a deposit. Keep in mind that these are professional scammers who convince people to transfer money for a living – they will sweet-talk you into depositing by talking about profits and opportunities.
After that, you might indeed see profits and deposit even more money – but all of this is smoke and mirrors, scammers often manipulate results to make you transfer bigger amounts.
At some point, of course, you would want to withdraw your money – and the problems will start. Additional fees or unfulfilled clauses in the Terms and Conditions will appear, and you will be denied access to your money. At this point, you will probably discover something is wrong – and this is when the scammers will drop out of sight.
WHAT TO DO WHEN SCAMMED?
There are a few things you could do if you discover you have been scammed. Chargebacks are possible in some cases depending on the payment method you have used to deposit. Both Visa and MasterCard allow such chargebacks within 540 days while bank transfers and cryptocurrency transactions are irreversible.
Make sure to change all banking passwords. If you have installed any remote access software, remove it immediately – scammers ask their victims to install such software under different pretexts but their endgame is to just get access to your banking accounts and steal even more money.
Notify authorities and share your story with as many people as possible – the more people know about such scams, the less they will fall victim to fraudulent schemes.
Last but not least – don’t trust any so-called “recovery agents” that offer to retrieve your money for a fee – this is just another type of scam, sometimes even conducted by the same people that stole your money in the first place.
