Beware! ThinkvateMarkets 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.
If you start trading with ThinkvateMarkets, you would get access both to a good trading platform and to decent trading conditions. However, this is an anonymous, unregulated broker – we cannot say that trading with them would be worth it in that case. There are many more legitimate brokers who offer better trading conditions – that is why we do not think that ThinkvateMarkets would be a good investment choice.
ThinkvateMarkets REGULATION AND SAFETY OF FUNDS
ThinkvateMarkets has not provided any sort of address or license information and has offered barely any company information. The broker has provided some sort of registration number – but without information about their supposed location, we did not know what register to check. This broker is the definition of anonymous.
When we checked the terminal ownership information on ThinkvateMarkets’ MetaTrader 5 terminal, we found out that the broker is based in India.
It is hard to establish if a certain broker is authorized to operate in India. In fact, the local forex regulator, The Reserve Bank of India, warns against some of the best, safest brokers in the world. The reason for that is that certain regulations exist in India – brokers cannot accept credit/debit card payments, or allow clients to trade spot forex or many currency futures. You could freely trade currency futures such as USDINR, YENINR, GBPINR, EURINR, EURUSD, GBPUSD, and USDJPY but that is about it.
We were not surprised to find that ThinkvateMarkets is not licensed in India. The problem is that the broker is not licensed anywhere else either. Be cautious when dealing with such enterprises – there are no guarantees that they would be treating you fairly.
Regulated brokers in stricter jurisdictions like the EU, the UK, and Australia are also obligated to maintain a certain minimum capital to prove their financial stability – €730 000 in the UK and the EU, and A$1 million in Australia – but are also obligated to follow many other rules and procedures. Negative balance protection is a must – the amount of money you could lose could not exceed the amount of money you have in your account. Client funds are kept in segregated accounts – your money will be kept separate from the broker’s own funds so you can be sure that the broker would not be able to use your deposits for their own purposes. Licensed brokers are obligated to report to authorities regularly to ensure transparency. UK and EU brokers must also participate in compensation schemes – so in case your broker becomes insolvent, you could receive a compensation of up to €20 000 in the EU and £85 000 in the UK.
ThinkvateMarkets TRADING SOFTWARE
ThinkvateMarkets provides access to what is largely considered to be one of the best platforms in the world of trading – MetaTrader 5.
This is the most popular platform in the industry right now, and judging from recent statistics, its popularity will only grow in the future so take your chance and jump on the bandwagon. MT5 offers 38 technical indicators, 21 timeframes, 4 order execution types, and 6 pending order types – a significant increase in tools compared to the software’s older version, MT4. MT5 also offers features like Expert Advisors, VPSs, and multi-threaded Strategy Testers, as well as the possibility to create custom scripts, set signals, export charts, use the platform’s hedging and netting option, and purchase add-ons on the MT market. You would be able to exchange strategies in a community chat or access a built-in economic calendar – all in one single platform.
However, some scam brokers just use MT5’s good reputation as a way of attracting clients. Our suggestion is to check out some legitimate brokers who offer this great software.
ThinkvateMarkets TRADING CONDITIONS
ThinkvateMarkets actually offers access to trading conditions that seem great on paper. The broker lets you trade forex, metals, oil, stock indices, bonds, and cryptocurrencies. The minimum deposit amount is $250 which is fine enough. However, there are plenty of licensed brokers who offer an even wider range of instruments on trading accounts that cost $100 or less.
The spreads we got with ThinkvateMarkets were 1.2 pips on EURUSD – when they promised spreads starting from 0.3 pips on the website. We can forgive that difference and maybe assume that this is the spread offered on different account types since 1.2 pips is still great. The industry average is usually around 1.5 pips. However, the broker has not mentioned anything about the additional commissions it charges – those might be huge. Moreover, these are the spreads on the demo account so some sort of difference with the real account could be expected. Many scammers manipulate their platforms to fake great results on demo accounts – the reality could be completely different.
The broker offers maximum leverage of 1:400. High-leverage trading could be beneficial for more experienced traders in certain situations – it could lead to bigger profits. However, it is also risky and could result in greater losses too. Always be careful with your leverage settings and trade with rates you are sure you can handle.
ThinkvateMarkets DEPOSIT AND WITHDRAWAL METHODS AND FEES
ThinkvateMarkets would not allow us to deposit (or even check out available deposit methods) before we have submitted all the necessary verification documents and provided the broker with a huge amount of personal information. Be cautious – identity theft is no joke when you are dealing with such brokers. That is why we were reluctant to send the broker copies of ID cards, passports, driver’s licenses, etc.
We would like to point out that scam brokers often urge you to deposit in crypto. This is because such payments are both anonymous and irreversible and you would never be able to get a chargeback if you have deposited in such a way. If ThinkvateMarkets urges you to make such a payment, beware that something might be wrong – you will not be able to recover your money once it has been deposited.
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.
