Beware! VIG Investment 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.
VIG Investment promises to be a “leading provider of online foreign exchange (FX) trading, CFDs trading, spread betting, and related services” focused on providing “global traders with access to the world’s largest and most liquid market by offering innovative trading tools, hiring excellent trading educators, meeting strict financial standards and striving for the best online trading experience in the market”. The broker is smooth-talking, we will give them that – but so are most other scam brokers.
Investing with this company would not lead to anything good, at leat not for you – read the following review to find out why we believe this to be a fact.
VIG Investment REGULATION AND SAFETY OF FUNDS
VIG Investment was one big mess when it comes to regulation. The broker claimed to be based in Hong Kong but was not licensed by the local Securities and Futures Commission (SFC) – a fairly reliable regulator. They claimed to be regulated in the British Virgin Islands but did not show up anywhere in the database of the British Virgin Islands Financial Services Commission. The requirements forex brokers have to face in this jurisdiction are actually quite stern despite the fact that the FSC is an offshore regulatory body – local brokers have to maintain a minimum capital of between $100 000 and $1 000 000 depending on the kind of services they want to offer. This broker was obviously not willing or capable of doing that. Finally, VIG Investment provided a license number for the register of the NFA – one of the US financial regulators. The number and the broker’s name once again resulted in zero matches.
This means that we are dealing with an unlicensed broker who is just trying to fool you. Such brokers offer no protections to their clients and are not held accountable by any sort of authority.
The situation is much different in EU-member states, the UK and Australia. Brokers based there are a good choice because they have to meet many requirements and do everything by the book to obtain a license from a reputable regulator like CySEC, the FCA, or ASIC. Brokers in Europe have to maintain capital of at least €730 000 while those in Australia have to have at least A$1 million. This money serves as proof the broker is financially stable and cannot be used for any other operations. Client deposits must be kept in segregated accounts – which means your broker cannot reinvest your money elsewhere if they for some reason decided to do so. Negative balance protection is also a plus – you could never lose more money than you have invested with a broker.
VIG Investment TRADING SOFTWARE
VIG Investment promised that we would be able to trade on multiple popular platforms – on the legendary MetaTrader 5, as well as on ZuluTrade and Trading Station. We were indeed able to access an MT5 download link on the broker’s website – but that link only allowed us to install the generic, free version of MT5 that you could easily download from the website of the software’s developers, MetaQuotes.
When we tried to open an account, we were immediately asked for a referral code and denied the opportunity to trade without one.
No legitimate broker would try such tricks – but scammers tend to heavily rely on them. They prefer to only let certain people open accounts – this way, the scam could remain undetected for a longer period of time. Legitimate brokers, on the other hand, try to promote their services every chance they get – they would often let you trade on demo accounts so you could see if this is, in fact, the right broker for you.
Stick to tried-and-trusted trading platforms like MetaTrader 4 and MetaTrader 5 – the currently most popular trading platforms. They might not be as simple as the software you can see above but offer far more features and are actually pretty easy to get used to. You can not only use the infamous Expert Advisors and keep them always operating with a VPS – you could also develop your own bots and indicators and set up signals for prices going above or below a predetermined level. Look up licensed brokers offering the software.
VIG Investment TRADING CONDITIONS
VIG Investment offers decent trading conditions on paper – but without an account or access to a platform, we cannot confirm that there is actually any truth to their promises.
The broker allows you to trade around 60 trading instruments across the following markets: forex, commodities, and indices. This is a rather poor range of instruments considering the fact that many established brokers offer hundreds, if not thousands of instruments.
The minimum deposit required to open an account seems to be $100 – which makes VIG Investment quite an affordable broker but considering the fact that many renowned companies offer accounts for the same or even smaller price is simply not worth it.
The maximum leverage the broker offers on forex majors is 1:500 – which once again proves that they could not be a legitimate US broker. Since trading with high leverage could lead to huge losses if you do not have the necessary knowledge and experience, leverage caps exist in many jurisdictions. Brokers in the US cannot offer more than 1:50 on forex majors (the rates are lower for more volatile assets) while those in the UK, the EU, and Australia cannot offer retail traders more than 1:30. Always be careful with the leverage you choose despite the broker’s offer.
The spreads VIG Investment promised were around 1.3 pips on EURUSD – which is indeed a great spread but without access to a platform, we cannot safely say that this is the actual spread we would get access to if we started trading with the broker. Moreover, nothing was mentioned about additional commission – those might be huge and ruin your chance of turning a profit.
VIG Investment DEPOSIT AND WITHDRAWAL METHODS AND FEES
Without an account, we cannot say with complete certainty which deposit methods VIG Investment accepts – but we suspect that they are not lying. On the website, it was stated that the broker only takes wire transfers, and cryptocurrency payments – the transaction methods most often preferred by scammers. The reasons for this preference are simple – both types of transactions are irreversible. Bank transfers can technically be stopped if your bank warns the recipient bank that the payment should not pass through before it is too late – but this works mostly in cases of technical mistakes. Crypto transactions, on the other hand, are completely irreversible by default because all of them go into a ledger that can never be changed. Such payments are also anonymous which makes them even more convenient for scammers.
Depositing with a broker like VIG Investment is a terrible idea – the only possible outcome for you is monetary losses.
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.
