Beware! Tradingpro.com 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.
Tradingpro.com is an offshore broker that claims to offer favourable trading conditions, but gives us plenty of reasons to be suspicious. We wouldn’t claim that it’s a scam, but in this review we’ll introduce you to the reasons to give careful thought to whether it’s wise to trust your money to Tradingpro.com.
TRADINGPRO.COM 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
According to the homepage of the website, there are two companies behind this broker – TradingPro International LTD, based in Saint Vincent and the Grenadines (SVG), and TradingPro International (PTY) LTD, registered in South Africa.
A check of the relevant registers shows that both companies do exist. But the text of the Terms and Conditions clearly states that the agreement is between the client and the SVG-based offshore company.
While this country has a financial regulator, unlike other offshore areas, it does not regulate the activities of forex and CFD brokers. Тhe Financial Services Authority (FSA) of St. Vincent and the Grenadines have repeatedly issued warnings on this issue.
It should be noted that according to the registration information of one of the trading platforms used by Tradingpro.com, the company is based in another offshore zone, Vanuatu.
Such discrepancies are reason to be suspicious of Tradingpro.com.
If you have decided to invest in financial instruments, and especially if you are a novice trader, you should use the services of a licensed broker based in a jurisdiction with strong regulations.
You should only trust legitimate brokers operating in one of the established financial centres like the UK, EU, USA or Australia. There, the activities of brokers are controlled by powerful regulatory bodies such as UK’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), Cyprus Securities and Exchange Commission (CySEC), Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) in US or Australian Securities and Exchanges Commission (ASIC). 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.
TRADINGPRO.COM TRADING SOFTWARE
Tradingpro.com provides a choice between two of the industry’s most popular trading platforms, MetaTrader 4 (MT4) and MetaTrader 5 (MT5). However, at the time of writing this review, Tradingpro.com does not allow the registration of a new trading account or even a Demo account. Because of this, we were unable to test the functionality of the platforms.
It is advisable to contact one of the many legitimate brokers that offer MT5 or the still very popular MT4. These platforms have established themselves as leaders because they offer a wide range of features, including a wide variety of options for customization, multiple account usage, designing and implementing custom scripts for automated trading and backtesting trade strategies.
TRADINGPRO.COM TRADING CONDITIONS
Tradingpro.com offers five types of trading accounts. The minimum deposit listed is extremely low – only 1 USD. You should know that many licensed and regulated brokers also allow you to start trading for a symbolic amount.
Moreover, this information does not correspond to the truth – according to the information on available payment methods, the minimum amount to be deposited is 100 USD when using credit cards and 10 USD when using e-wallets.
The maximum leverage depends on the exposures of the account and reaches a very high level – 1:2000. 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.
Tradingpro.com promises a spread of 1.6 pips. This level is consistent with industry averages. But many licensed brokers offer even better terms, so it’s hard to say it’s worth taking on extra risk by working with an unregulated company.
Tradingpro.com offers various bonuses, promotions and prize games. These are practices prohibited by almost all financial regulators. Before accepting a bonus, you should carefully read the terms and conditions. For example, Tradingpro.com offers a 50% deposit bonus, but if you use it, you will not be able to withdraw 50% of your trading profits.
TRADINGPRO.COM DEPOSIT/WITHDRAW METHODS AND FEES
Tradingpro.com claims that deposits and withdrawals of funds are possible through credit.debit cards, cryptocurrencies and Asia-based payment processors such as FasaPay and Dragonpay. We cannot confirm if this is true due to the inability to register an account.
Licensed brokers typically offer clients a wide choice of transparent payment methods, including bank transfer and established e-wallets such as PayPal, Skrill and Neteller.
The minimum withdrawal amount varies between 10 USD and 100 USD depending on the payment method used. Tradingpro.com does not provide information on deposit and withdrawal fees.
HOW DOES THE SCAM WORK
Stories of people getting rich from cryptocurrencies tempt many to try their luck in the financial markets. But you have to be very careful not to fall into the clutches of the many scammers lurking in the online space. These scammers only pose as brokers and lure you in with promises to take on the confusing aspects of investing for you.
If you make contact with such scammers they will first convince you to give them a small initial sum of a few hundred dollars. They may even fool you for a while that your investment is generating incredible profits to convince you to give them a larger amount. But your money won’t really be invested. And when you try to withdraw your supposed profits or even your deposit, you will find that it is impossible.
The scammers may tell you that all your investments have been lost by a sudden change in the market. Or they’ll point you to clauses hidden in their Terms and Conditions that say withdrawing your money is only possible after you meet impossibly high minimum trading volume requirements. And they can simply disappear because these scam sites hide behind fake names and offshore companies that are not subject to rules and regulations.
WHAT TO DO WHEN SCAMMED
If you find yourself a victim of scammers, you should inform the relevant authorities in your country and spread the word online to warn other potential victims. However, the chances of getting your money back are not high.
If you used a credit/debit card for the transactions, you could ask for a chargeback. However, such requests can be disputed if you have provided the fraudsters with proof of identity such as a copy of an ID. Under no circumstances should you trust people on the internet who claim they can recover your money for an upfront fee. These too are certainly scammers.
