Beware! JDR Securities 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.
It is a bit hard to draw a definite conclusion about JDR Securities. This might actually be a relatively new Australian broker still trying to gain a solid local license and operating from an offshore location in the meantime. We did not notice anything sketchy about the broker’s Terms and Conditions and were offered access to a great trading platform. The trading conditions also seemed fairly reasonable. However, we still have some huge problems with the broker – this is still an unlicensed offshore company that is quick to require account verification documents.
Only time will show if JDR Securities is in fact a legitimate broker. In the meantime, we invite you to proceed with caution. Check out the offers of multiple brokers before deciding who to trade with.
JDR Securities REGULATION AND SAFETY OF FUNDS
JDR Securities has two offices – one in Australia, and one in St. Vincent and the Grenadines. No broker could be licensed in St. Vincent and the Grenadines – the local financial authority simply does not monitor the activities of forex brokers and does not impose any laws in the sphere. Australia, on the other hand, has one of the strictest financial regulators in the world, ASIC. When we searched the ASIC register for a company with the name provided by this broker, we found that two companies with similar names were registered. One of these companies seemed to be licensed but the address did not match the one provided by JDR Securities. The other company – the one we believe that we are dealing with – was merely registered and had not provided a lot of essential information. You will not find an address or an Australian Company Number (ACN) – a number each and every registered company must have. So while we can admit that ASIC is probably familiar with the company behind JDR Securities, we cannot say with full certainty if this is a regulated, licensed broker.
Brokers licensed in the UK, the EU, or Australia are usually very reliable and are your best option. The activities of such brokers are monitored by some of the strictest authorities in the world – the UK’s FCA, Cyprus’s CySEC, Australia’s ASIC, etc. – which means that they are obligated to conduct business in a fair and transparent manner, and regularly release certain important information. There are many requirements for such brokers – they have to prove that they are financially stable by holding a minimum operational capital of €730 000 in the UK and the EU, and A$1 million in Australia. Client money is kept in segregated bank accounts – this speeds up withdrawals, and proves that broker money and client money could not mix. Negative balance protection is a vital safety net all retail traders get access to – your losses can never exceed the amount of money you have in your account. If you are a client of a licensed UK or EU broker, you can also expect a certain compensation if the broker goes bankrupt – up to €20 000 in the EU and £85 000 in the UK.
JDR Securities TRADING SOFTWARE
JDR Securities offers access to MetaTrader 4 – a great platform that most traders are probably already familiar with:
MetaTrader 4 is accessible and user-friendly which makes it suitable for beginners. Experienced traders, on the other hand, would be happy to find some additional tools and features. The platform offers a ton of indicators, graphical objects, and timeframes – but you would be able to access tools like Expert Advisors that track markets and trade automatically, or develop your own trading bots and indicators. You can also purchase VPSs, employ Strategy Testers, and access a vast market for add-ons. Last but not least, you will get the chance to set signals for prices going up or down or subscribe to those set by other successful traders.
MT4 is, without a doubt, a platform that has been defining the world of trading for decades, and we would definitely advise you to try it out. There are many licensed brokers who offer the software – you can check out some of them here.
JDR Securities TRADING CONDITIONS
JDR Securities seems to offer pretty good trading conditions. There are two account types – Pro and Standard – but we could not find big differences between them. The minimum deposit on both accounts was supposed to be “$0” – which basically means that you can start trading with whatever amount of money you decide. This is great and in line with the current trends in the world of forex trading. Many established forex brokers offer Micro accounts for as little as $1.
The broker allows maximum leverage of 1:100 but upon request, that number can go as high as 1:400. Offshore brokers are allowed to offer any leverage they see fit – that is why it is up to you to be careful with your leverage settings. Keep in mind that trading with high leverage could lead to bigger profits and bigger losses alike.
Finally, the spread we got on our demo account was 1 pip on EURUSD. This is very good as it is below the industry average of 1.5 pips. However, the broker has not mentioned anything about additional commissions – if such exist, trading with JDR Securities might be a less lucrative affair than it seems to be at first glance.
Finally, the number of trading instruments this broker offers access to was decent but not impressive – 64 currency pairs and an unspecified number of commodities and indices. This is less than great considering that many renowned brokers can offer access to thousands of trading instruments.
JDR Securities DEPOSIT AND WITHDRAWAL METHODS AND FEES
The demo account with JDR Securities did not actually allow us to see which deposit methods the broker accepts. The possible payment methods they mentioned on the website were bank transfer, Skrill, Neteller, Alipay, and Dragonpay. The broker does not charge additional fees for wire transfers and Dragonpay payments but asks for a 2% deposit and withdrawal fees on the other payment solutions. We could not help but notice the absence of a credit/debit card option – such payments are the easiest to reverse because you are free to ask for a chargeback within 540 days of the transaction.
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.
