Beware! Trading-Road 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.
Trading-Road can’t possibly be serious to offer its services looking the way it does! But then again, this so called broker is a scam, and so it has permission from itself to behave and look in any way it sees fit. However, we don’t think that Trading-Road is your typical scammer entity, not because what it does but because of the target audience. Aside form that, this company behaves pretty much like the worst broker out there, really succeeding in throwing us off.
To make matters worse the broker did not grant us access to a client dashboard. We tried registering but our account was not approved. The for we sent over for approval was not processed, meaning that the firm really is looking only for solid investors, preferably those that are easily manipulated.
Without access, we had to rely on the website, and this turned out to be quite the futile attempt. The only thing the site reveals are the available assets; shares, indices, commodities, forex currency pairs, and other CFDs not really defined. And these are alleged instruments. We have no concrete information on spreads or leverages.
TRADING-ROAD REGULATION AND SAFETY OF FUNDS
We want to return to the target audience question that we raised in the introduction. Originally, the site opened to us in Arabic, and then abruptly translated into English. Now, the presence of any foreign language, especially with scammers like this one, means one thing. In our case, it’s that Trading-Road targets Arabic speaking clients, probably in the Emirates, since there are many lucrative opportunities there. But this is all purely speculative.
The real news comes with the supposed claim that Trading-Road is regulated by the CVG Financial Services Authority. But this agency does not really exist. There is no CVG Financial Services Authority; although there are many Financial Services Authorities out there, many of them offshore. But the site does not specify which one. Presenting us with a fake regulator is a very bas sign, and there is no way getting around this, not that we had any hopes for Trading-Road in the first place.
Moreover, and crucially, Trading-Road is actually anonymous, seeing that we have no idea where it is based at. Anonymity is synonymous with being both unregulated and a dangerous scam.
It would be a big shame to lose all that money to scammers. By registering and investing in an unlicensed broker, you are indirectly throwing your money away for a completely futile and illicit cause. There is no reason to do so. That is why we urge our readers to rely on European, UK, US, or Australian brokers, or any licensed entity for that matter. Licensed entitles are covered by hundreds of requirements, many of them apply financial compensation schemes, and anti fraud practices. In other words, they are the exact opposite of what this broker and others like it stand for.
TRADING-ROAD TRADING SOFTWARE
We confirm that the broker had, somehow, acquired the MT4, but we are not sure how legitimate this achievement. Moreover, there was the issue with the file itself, which seemed to us way too shady. The download file probably contained a malware or something equally or more damaging. So we ended up to opening it, and at no extra loss; the broker is already a scam so even if we did open it things would not have made a difference.
TRADING-ROAD DEPOSIT/WITHDRAW METHODS AND FEES
The fact that we have no clue where it is located means that all funds invested here will be lost, no matter what the website of the broker’s representatives have to say. Not only that, but all these funds will be lost and there would be no way to get them back, or at least the user will have great difficulties doing so.
Usually scammer rely greatly on untraceable payment methods like crypto wallets or wire transfer, or at times obscure e-wallets. But the end result is the same at all times. The firm in question will stall withdrawal requests or downright refuse them. And Trading-Road is no different.
This broker is definitely a risk and not at all worth investing in, nor paying attention to at all! Stay away from whatever it offers you. It’s a scam!
HOW DOES THE SCAM WORK
Generally, the first step to being in a scam, whether a user is aware of it or not, is to bridge the crucial gap that exists between a user and a broker. With legit entities rarely does this go beyond the limits of formality, whereas with scammers they will try to behave as close friends, and will try to sell you as much as they possibly can.
It easy to fall prey to their sweet talk, because as financial instruments grow more complex, so do scammers, and there are surprisingly advanced swindle techniques that will leave you empty handed faster than you know. So make sure to think before you act, and to ask for professional guidance if necessary.
Contact usually begins at the online ads level, and expands to the telephone line relatively fast, depending on how good the scammer is and how susceptible he or she is to manipulations.
The ultimate goal is reached once a scammer successfully causes an initial deposit to be invested. Once this happens the user has become the victim, and from then on the fraudsters will try to retain the client for as long as possible, draining him/her along the way.
On average, it takes 2 to 3 deposits for a user to realize that something very unlawful is happening. By that point however, the broker will cut all communications with the user and will deny all withdrawal requests.
WHAT TO DO IF SCAMMED
The most common action to take is to file for a chargeback, but this happens only if the user has invested with a credit or debit card. That’s why you don’t get many investment frauds taking card payment nowadays. But the good news is that, if money was invested via a card, the chargeback period for MasterCard and VISA is 540 days.
Wire transfer deposits are harder to get back, and the only thing we recommend is contacting the bank to sort things out if possible. Oh, and make sure to change you bank account user name and password ASAP!
Crypto transactions are lost for good, unfortunately. As cryptocurrencies become more numerous and the systems underlining them more complex, scammer are taking full advantage of these aspects, and the end results are very lucrative. So, never trust unregulated brokers with crypto payments.
And then, we have to mention the other type of scammer, the recovery agents. These are either third party fraudsters or extensions of existing swindles, and will provide the seemingly impossible service of tracing your lost money. All they need is a fee for their effort, a sum of money that will be lost once paid.