Beware! AutoFXTrade.net 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.
AutoFXTrade.net joins the list of scam broker websites that look exactly the same and ask you to invest in the same kind of fraudulent scheme – check out our reviews of Bluespaceinvest, AstroCapitalTrade, etc. None of these brokers is to be trusted – they are not actually licensed but are more than willing to claim otherwise. They also do not have anything to offer you other than rudimentary trading platforms and poor trading conditions.
Trading with a legitimate broker is definitely to be preferred – avoid scams like AutoFXTrade.net if you do not want to end up losing capital.
AutoFXTrade.net REGULATION AND SAFETY OF FUNDS
AutoFXTrade.net claimed to be globally regulated and licensed – the broker stated that it is licensed by authorities such as the UK’s FCA, Cyprus’s CySEC, South Africa’s FSCA, and the FSC of Mauritius. Additionally, they stated that they are authorized to operate on various EU markets because they are MiFID Compliant. This directive allows brokers licensed in one EEA country to offer services in all such countries without a local license and requires them to follow the same set of rules. AutoFXTrade.net claims that it falls under the supervision of respected authorities such as BaFin (Germany), CNMV (Spain), ACP (France), and Finanstilsynet (Denmark). In the meantime, the broker claimed to be based in the US but did not provide an exact address. They were also supposed to be a “Maltese-directed investment services supplier that works under European and Maltese guidelines”.
We were hardly surprised when we found out that the broker was not licensed by any of the authorities it was supposedly licensed by. We checked the registers of the FCA, CySEC, FSCA, and MFSA (Malta) but found zero matches.
This not only means that the broker is under nobody’s supervision and that it has not met any requirements but also that they are willing to make false claims and try to fool you into thinking otherwise. This is a serious misstep, one that no legitimate broker would allow. Lying about something so vital as licenses is a sure sign the broker will try to scam you.
Choose your broker among those licensed in the UK, EU counties and Australia – the financial regulators of these countries are strict and brokers are asked to meet many requirements so that safety and transparency are ensured. All licensed brokers have to prove their financial stability by maintaining a minimum operational capital – €730 000 in the UK and the EU, and A$1 million in Australia. Client money must be kept in segregated bank accounts – this proves that your money will not mix with the broker’s funds and that the broker will not be using your investment for their own purposes. Negative balance protection prevents you from losing more money than you have in your account. Finally, UK and EU brokers are also obligated to participate in compensation funds. If such a broker becomes insolvent, each of their clients would be entitled to compensation – up to £85 000 in the UK and €20 000 in the EU.
AutoFXTrade.net TRADING SOFTWARE
AutoFXTrade.net offers the sort of software that can barely be called a trading platform – because it can barely be used for trading:
This is just a TradingView chart with a few additional features – a Buy/Sell button, order history, and an economic calendar. You would probably be able to do some very basic trading on such a “platform” but you cannot expect access to any useful features. TradingView is generally available for free on the Internet and you do not need a broker to access it. Adding a few buttons to it to make it look like an actual platform and not the market-tracking software it is, is also easy.
Such scammers choose the cheap solution because they cannot afford to offer more effective platforms like the well-known MetaTrader 4 and MetaTrader 5. Proving access to those is a bit pricier for the broker but offers far more opportunities to the client. Both MT4 and MT5 offer a wide variety of indicators, chart types, timeframes, order execution types, and pending order types. On top of that, you would be able to use Expert Advisors (pre-programmed trading bots) to track markets and trade automatically with the help of an algorithm. This is a feature the two platforms are actually famous for. You would also be able to create your own bots and indicators – from scratch or with the help of building blocks. To keep those bots running when your computer is off, you could purchase a VPS. Actually, you can purchase a ton of add-ons on the MT market. Lastly, you can set trading signals or subscribe to those set by others.
You can hopefully see how MT4 and MT5 are both superior to the rudimentary software you can see above.
AutoFXTrade.net TRADING CONDITIONS
AutoFXTrade.net asks you to invest at least $1000 in order to start trading – quite an extraordinary amount considering that most legitimate brokers offer extremely affordable trading accounts. Check out this list of brokers who ask you to invest $1oo or less.
This broker also promised access to a decent range of instruments – forex, commodities, crude oil, and Bitcoin. In reality, we were able to trade exactly four forex or crypto pairs – EURUSD, USDCHF, EURJPY, and BTCUSD. This is hardly the wide variety of markets we were expecting – some legitimate brokers can literally offer thousands of trading instruments.
AutoFXTrade.net DEPOSIT AND WITHDRAWAL METHODS AND FEES
AutoFXTrade.net asks you to deposit in crypto – you can choose between Bitcoin, Ethereum, Tether, Litecoin, Dogecoin, BNB, and TRON. Many scammers would urge you to deposit in crypto without offering an alternative. And while legitimate brokers have also started accepting this payment method, there is a very specific reason why scammers would not take any other type of payment. Such transactions are both anonymous and irreversible – if you have already deposited with this broker, you would not be able to track down the payment or get your money back.
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.
