Beware! DBSInvesting 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.
The DBSInvesting website tries to assure us that it is a financial advisor and forex broker operating in highly regulated markets such as the United Kingdom and the European Union. But fact checking reveals that this is not true and we are no doubt dealing with some kind of scam. In this review, we will look in detail at the clues that DBSInvesting is not a legitimate financial services provider and we should not trust it with our money.
DBSINVESTING 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. But the absence of these elements is very indicative that in all likelihood you are dealing with scammers.
We see no indication on the DBSInvesting homepage which company is behind this website. Only in the text of the Terms and Conditions is there a mention of a company name – Halebore LTD, which is stated to be based in the United Kingdom.
DBSInvesting claims to have offices in the UK and France.
A check of the databases of the relevant national regulators shows that Halebore LTD is not an authorised broker. There is also no licensed broker using the trade name and domain of DBSInvesting.
The Terms and Conditions state that the applicable jurisdiction is not UK, but Seychelles.
There are no significant regulations for forex brokers in this offshore zone. But we don’t actually find this company among those registered by the Seychelles Financial Services Authority (FSA). Therefore, we cannot be sure that such a legal entity actually exists.
Before investing your money in financial instruments, it is imperative to make sure you do so through a licensed intermediary and not one of the many scammers lurking online.
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.
DBSINVESTING TRADING SOFTWARE
After account registration we get access to a web-based trading platform. Here is how it looks like:
While the platform has the basic features for placing orders, customising charts and application of technical indicators, it lacks the more advanced functionality found in the most widely used trading platforms in the industry, MetaTrader 4 (MT4) and MetaTrader 5 (MT5).
These platforms have established themselves as industry standard because they offer a wide range of features, including a variety of options for customization, multiple account usage, designing and implementing custom scripts for automated trading and backtesting trade strategies.
It should be noted that the presence of some kind of trading software is no guarantee that this is a genuine broker. Financial scammers often use rigged trading platforms to fool their victims that their money is actually being invested. However, this trading is entirely fictitious and the money goes directly into the scammers’ pockets.
We also see a link to download remote access software on the DBSInvesting website. Scammers often convince their potential victims to install such software, supposedly to provide them with technical assistance. But this allows fraudsters to maliciously exploit their victims’ devices.
DBSINVESTING TRADING CONDITIONS
When you visit the website of a legitimate broker you will find proposals for different types of trading accounts suitable for investors with different preferences, as well as detailed descriptions of trading parameters – minimum deposit, order execution method, tradable financial instruments, leverage, spread, swap, commissions, etc.
On the DBSInvesting website we see a list of trading account types, but their descriptions provide specific information on only one parameter – a minimum deposit of 250 USD. For the same amount you could start using the services of almost any licensed broker. Many of the established brands offer Micro and Cent accounts with symbolic deposits, sometimes as low as 5 USD.
DBSInvesting also promises bonuses, which is further proof that this couldn’t really be a licensed broker. Financial regulators in the EU and UK prohibit brokers from offering bonuses and promotions. DBSInvesting does not provide any information about the terms associated with these bonuses. This is troubling because scammers routinely use promises of generous bonuses to bind their victims to hidden fees and other extortionate terms.
Another such proof is that the trading platform has a set leverage of 1:200. This is not a level that you see with regulated brokers. Trading with high leverage allows higher profits, but also increases the risk of sudden and excessive losses proportionally.
The FCA, like EU regulators, limits leverage to 1:30 for trading in major currency pairs and even lower levels for more volatile assets. The same rules currently apply to Australia. In the US, the maximum limit is slightly higher at 1:50.
Regulated brokers offer higher leverage only to professional clients who must meet very high standards for capital and experience and forgo the guarantees enjoyed by retail traders.
If you don’t qualify as a professional trader but are willing to take the risk of high-leverage trading, the most viable option is to use the services of an offshore affiliate of an established brand.
In the trading platform we also see a fairly high spread of 2.5 pips. This is about double the industry average and very unprofitable for the trader.
DBSINVESTING DEPOSIT/WITHDRAW METHODS AND FEES
The logos of popular payment methods such as credit cards, QIWI and WebMoney can be seen on the homepage of the website. However, at the time of writing this review, there were no active options in the DBSInvesting deposit menu.
On the withdrawal menu, on the other hand, we see an option for a Bitcoin wallet. We suspect that DBSInvesting actually only allows cryptocurrency transactions. This is typical of most financial scammers of this type. The reason is that cryptocurrencies do not allow refunds or chargebacks to be requested.
While there are some legitimate brokers that accept digital currencies like Bitcoin, they do so alongside other transparent payment methods.
DBSInvesting does not provide clear information on fees and conditions for deposits and withdrawals.
HOW DOES THE SCAM WORKS
There are many scammers lurking on the internet, luring people with promises of easy riches. These scammers arouse the curiosity of their potential victims through online ads, videos, comments and other content on social networks. Often the initial hook is get-rich-quick tips that link to websites and mobile apps of fake brokers or fake investment firms. After clicking on the ad or downloading the mobile app and having given their contact details, the victims are usually swiftly called by fraudsters presenting a concrete “investment proposal”.
These scammers are very aggressive and often even try to persuade the victims to allow them to take control of their computer remotely in order to make certain money transfers. The fraudsters also try to convince the victims to invest increasingly higher amounts of money. They also make promises of repayment in exchange for one last money transfer. This is a technique to collect even more money from their victims. When you try to withdraw your money, your request is blocked by hidden conditions and huge fees. Fraudsters can also simply disappear because they hide behind fake names and offshore companies.
WHAT TO DO WHEN SCAMMED
First of all, it is important that you do not try to recover your money by trusting people who claim to offer such a service for an upfront fee. These are also 100% scammers. If you used a credit or debit card for the transactions to the scammers, you could ask for a chargeback. But such a claim could be disputed if you provided the scammers with a copy of an ID or proof of address. Scammers usually get their victims to use cryptocurrencies that don’t allow refunds. In any case, it is advisable to inform the relevant financial authorities in your country and spread the word online to warn others not to fall into the same trap.
Nicola Jane
I have a DBS investment plan and the advisor managed to persuade me to download ‘any desk’. In which the reason was to try and reclaim money from another scam!
In fact she had located my banking and somehow was trying to be fraudulent. I continued to receive a phone call off my bank to agree to £5900 pounds to be be taken which required a 4 digit code. off course I refused This is a warning to be aware even with the most convincing of people it can be and is a scam.