Beware! Finero.co.uk 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.
Finero.co.uk has done its best to fool you into thinking that they are a reliable UK broker. However, the broker seems to provide intentionally deceitful when it comes to its licenses. There were other things – dangerously high leverage, the offer of bonuses, the fact that the broker urges you to deposit in crypto – that also do not speak well of Finero.co.uk. Be sure to only trade with reliable companies if you want to trade securely.
Finero.co.uk REGULATION AND SAFETY OF FUNDS
Finero.co.uk claims to be a reliable UK broker and has provided a link to the UK Companies House website in order to prove that. However, the fact that a company is registered somewhere does not necessarily prove that they are regulated and licensed. In order to obtain a license, a broker has to meet many additional requirements and provide extra safety to its clients. Finero.co.uk is not licensed in the UK – a quick check in the register of the FCA, the UK financial authority, confirmed that.
Checking the registers of the regulatory bodies responsible for licensing forex brokers in certain countries or regions only takes a few minutes but it will save you a lot of trouble. Working with a reliable broker regulated in the UK, the EU, or Australia would provide you with a huge degree of security and transparency. All licensed brokers have to prove their financial stability by maintaining a certain minimum capital, €730 000 in the EU and the UK, and A$1 million in Australia. However, brokers with many clients might be asked to have more money. This capital cannot be used for the broker’s daily financial operations, it just serves as insurance. Client money are always kept in segregated accounts – which means that the broker cannot use your money for their own financial operations, and negative balance protection is provided – so your losses can never exceed the amount of money you have in your account.
So, if you want to trade safely and be sure that you can trust your broker, turn to somebody licensed.
Finero.co.uk TRADING SOFTWARE
Finero.co.uk offers its clients the possibility to trade on a web-based trading platform:
We have nothing against such simple platforms – there is a time and place for everything. The accessible interface makes such software a fairly okay option for complete beginners. You should consider, however, they you would not be getting access to as many useful features, or to the same level of functionality as on the two leading platforms in the industry – MetaTrader 4 and MetaTrader 5. These platforms have built a solid reputation because of the many amazing tools and features it grants access to. Clients would be able to use Expert Advisors (trading bots that trade automatically in accordance with an algorithm), set up customizable signals, purchase add-ons on the MT market, create custom scripts, purchase VPSs, etc. You will find that trading on such an advanced platform offers far more opportunities than choosing more simple software. You will benefit from trading on more powerful software even if you are a complete beginner.
Finero.co.uk TRADING CONDITIONS
Finero.co.uk offers access to a decent range of markets – forex, commodities, stocks, and cryptocurrencies. The minimum deposit amount is €250 which is fairly standard. However, there are much more reliable brokers who would open an account for much less – even for as little as $10.
The maximum leverage offered by the broker was 1:200 – that could not be changed from the settings. This is problematic since trading with high leverage could lead to huge losses, especially if you do not have sufficient knowledge and experience. That is why many financial regulators have imposed leverage restrictions to protect traders. UK broker, for example, cannot offer rates higher than 1:30 to retail traders. This means that Finero.co.uk is offering this high rates illegally. Always be careful with your leverage settings in order to prevent losses.
The spread we got on the broker’s platform was 0.1 pips on EURUSD. This is indeed great – so great, in fact, that we are sure that the broker charges an additional commission it has mentioned nothing about. That commission might be so high that it completely ruins your chances of turning a decent profit. Moreover, it is not uncommon for scam brokers to try and manipulate platforms to manufacture good results. Always be careful when dealing with such brokers – with them, there are always things that do not add up and that you should worry about.
Finero.co.uk DEPOSIT AND WITHDRAWAL METHODS AND FEES
Finero.co.uk accepts deposits made in Tether or Ethereum. The broker mentioned that we could get access to other deposit methods if we made a request. Our account manager was supposed to “contact (us) shortly and … provide (us) with five different options for activating your trading account”. We suspect that once that happens, we will be informed that no other payment solutions are available at the moment, or at least not in our region. You will then be urged to deposit in crypto.
The reason why scam brokers will often urge you to deposit in crypto is simple – such transactions are both anonymous and irreversible. You will only be able to track down your payment to a wallet address and not to a person or organization. You will also not be able to get a chargeback since all crypto transactions are final by default. The only way to get your money back is the recipient to send it back. This is very convenient for any scam broker who wants to rob you so do not deposit unless you are 100% sure you can trust the recipient of the payment.
The broker also offers bonuses – that are banned in the UK where Finero.co.uk is supposedly based. The reason for that is that scam brokers often attach devious clauses to those bonuses that are meant to prevent you from withdrawing any money from your account – including deposits and profits – before reaching a very high turnover. This is just a trick meant to prevent you from withdrawing your money to soon – so that the broker could disappear with it and remain undetected for a longer period of time.
HOW DOES THE SCAM WORK?
You might think that not many people fall for such scams, but you would be dead wrong – some scams are quite elaborate and have managed to fool a lot of people. That is why it is important to know what to expect and look for in order to spot a scam broker from a mile away.
The scam starts with an ad on the Internet promising you an easy gateway to forex trading or investing – the only thing you would have to do is open an account with the broker. You know that there are people who trade for a job and that even regular Joes manage to earn a nice side income through trading and wonder why not the same, there is no harm in trying. So you give in and provide the scammers with your contact details.
This is the moment when you will start getting constant calls and emails asking you to deposit – even if you have only opened a demo account. At some point, since everything seems legitimate, you do deposit and, in the beginning, things might be looking great. The profits you were promised come soon but you should remember that it is easy for scammers to manipulate platforms to make it look like you are turning a profit. But you will be asked to keep on investing – and you would have no problem doing that because you will be smooth-talked into it by people who scam others for a living.
But when you try to withdraw, you will start running into different obstacles – obscure clauses in the Terms and Conditions preventing you from withdrawing, additional fees and taxes, and weird procedures. At some point, you would not be able to deny the fact you have been scammed – but it will be too late. The scammers will disappear and stop answering your calls and emails and leave you wondering what to do.
WHAT TO DO WHEN SCAMMED?
So, what can be done in case you have already deposited?
Be prepared that there is a rather high chance that you would never see your money again. There is, however, still hope to retrieve it especially if you have deposited with a credit or debit card – both Visa and MasterCard allow chargebacks within 540 days of the transaction. Moreover, there are some things you absolutely have to do in order to avoid further losses of money.
Change all passwords and banking details you have provided the scammers with and remove all sorts of remote access software if you have installed such. Some scammers would promise to help you trade or resolve different problems if you only install such software – their actual agenda is to get access to your computer and all your passwords and information.
Don’t trust any so-called “recovery agents” who offer to retrieve your money for a fee – this is just another type of scam targeting desperate scam victims, often conducted by the same people that are behind your “broker”.
Make sure to notify authorities and try to share your story online, or with your acquaintances – the more people know about such scams and how they function, the lower the success rate they will have.
