Beware! SwizzPRO 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.
To everyone who considers Trading with SwizzPRO – this firm is a horrible choice of a broker for a couple of reasons. Firstly, it lacks any kind of license or credibility and offers financial services outside the law. On top of that there is an official warning against it set by the National Securities Market Commission (CNMV) of Spain, which states that this firm is not authorized to operate on the forex market.
All of these facts are quite worrisome, however they are not alone. Actually, there are some disturbing facts about its trading conditions and payment methods as well. Not to mention that SwizzPRO promises to provide the industry standard MetaTrader 4, however no such thing is possible. The problems with this broker are countless to be honest, so we have tried to thoroughly explain everything in the following review.
Regulation and safety of funds
SwizzPRO claims its registered address to be in Tallinn, Estonia however there is no phone number or email. The only way to contact this broker is via their LiveChat. What’s more, it claims that its company name is CFNX Solution OU. Now, there are several disturbing facts here.
First of all, we searched the web for CFNX Solution OU and this firm is not authorized to offer financial services in Estonia. The proof can be found on the official website of the local forex regulator – the Estonian Financial Supervision Authority (EFSA), which has posted a warning against it. See for yourself:
What’s more, we searched the registers of EFSA for SwizzPRO, however there was no data about it as well, so there is no doubt that none of these firms are allowed to offer financial services. Obviously they operate on the market against the law.
But wait for it, this is just the tip of the iceberg. It turned out that there is an official warning against SwizzPRO set by another financial authority – the National Securities Market Commission (CNMV) of Spain. CNMV has posted a notice stating that SwizzPRO is not authorized to provide investment services. See for yourself:
Having said that, it’s already clear that this broker is not to be trusted. It obviously tries to deceive people into thinking it’s reputable, however every investment here comes with the huge risk of getting scammed. So if you don’t want to flush hard earned money down the drain, better forget about trading with SwizzPRO.
There are plenty of legitimate brokers in Estonia that comply with the rules and are safe and secure choices for every trader. Being part of the EU, Estonia follows the requirements set by the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA). Every broker licensed there must have a minimum net capital of 730 000 EUR and must also keep its client’s funds in segregated accounts. Lastly, you can benefit from a compensation up to 20 000 EUR in the unlikely event of broker’s insolvency.
Trading software
SwizzPRO claims to offer the well-known platform of MetaTrader 4. However note that you can’t preview the software or download it from this broker’s website. This leaves us no other choice but to register in order to see the platform itself.
We advise you not to take this broker’s words for granted, or you’ll be highly disappointed. The reason being that SwizzPRO doesn’t prove MT4 at all. In fact you can use just a standard web-based software. See for yourself:
This platform is probably not the best choice when it comes to trading commodities, stocks, indices or any other asset. And it certainly can’t compete with more sophisticated software like MetaTrader 4 or MetaTrader 5.
MT4 and MT5 have been praised by both brokers and traders for a good reason. They definitely surpass their predecessors in so many ways – they are more advanced, have more functionalities and tools to choose from at least to say.
You can be sure your funds and personal information are safe, as all transactions are encrypted and so is your IP address. MT4 and MT5 are definitely platforms you can fully trust to execute your trading operations promptly and effectively.
Among all great features that MT4 has for example, the most popular are the Expert Advisors. These trading bots can do the job for you – they search for certain conditions and start trading the moment they find them. As simple as that!
MT4 and MT5 have desktop, mobile and browser-based versions. All of them are very easy to navigate even for beginners. Don’t worry – these platforms are free and don’t require any payments.
Unfortunately for all of us MetaTrader 4 and MetaTrader 5 are no longer available on AppStore, as Apple has recently removed both of them. If you are using an iPhone or iPad and you have already downloaded one of them, you can continue using it but without any further updates or upgrades. Hoping this is only temporary and that Apple shall bring them back as soon as possible. MT4 and MT5 are still available for download on Google Play Store.
Trading conditions
SwizzPRO claims to offer three account types – Standard, Premium and VIP. Take a look at some more details about each of them:
As you see the Standard account promotes floating spreads with additional commissions, which however are not specified. This data is quite obscure and doesn’t clearly explain what to expect from this broker. A huge drawback if you ask us. Anyway, after we opened the trading platform there was a spread of 0.4 pips for EURUSD, but since we don’t know how much the commission is, the spread happens to be pretty uncertain. For this reason we advise you to be very careful with this broker and better invest with a legitimate firm instead. What’s more, genuine brokers usually offer competitive spreads below 2 pips.
The leverage for the Standard account is said to be 1:30, which is in line with the requirements in Estonia. The leverage there is restricted exactly to 1:30. Nevertheless, better don’t trust this broker an inch. On the other hand, if you want to invest with higher leverage we suggest looking at some of the offshore subsidiaries of reputable forex brokers.
As for the minimum deposit, there is no data on the whole website, which is a red light for sure. A lot of the traders are looking for a lower minimum deposit requirement, so the absence of this information is a huge drawback. In general the standard amount for the sector is 250 USD for regular accounts or around 10 USD for micro accounts, so better stick to legitimate brokers who offer that.
Deposit/Withdrawal methods and fees
On its website SwizzPRO claims to accept Visa, Mastercard, Maestro as well as bank transfer and Skrill.
After we registered, however, the payment method turned out to be rather confusing. The thing is that you can’t see what payment options are there at all. In order to perform a deposit you have to contact your Account Manager directly or the support team. This is yet another warning sign, so better refrain from investing here. Plus, be extra careful if you come across payments with crypto coins like Bitcoin or Ethereum, as these transactions are proven to be completely irreversible and anonymous.
How does the scam work
Remember that financial scammers are only interested in your money, not in your trading or financial success. They happen to come upon new ideas on how to deceive people every day. Unfortunately despite the efforts of all financial institutions there are still a lot of offshore brokers that claim to invest your money in the best possible way but in fact aim to steal everything. The worst part is that they use various techniques to win your trust and to make sure it’s almost impossible for a beginner to tell them apart from a reputable broker. Here’s a list of their most common tricks you should watch out for.
First of all, scammers tend to offer incredibly high return on investment. They assure you there’s nothing to worry about, as trading with them is easy as a, b, c. Offshore brokers might even promise they can handle the trading for you and your only job is to relax and wait for the “fantastic results”.
Bear in mind that scammers can manipulate their trading platform and make it seem as if your funds are being invested, but in reality no such thing happens. They also can fake your trading results thus making you believe they have been very profitable – this is made to make you invest more and more, because your trading is “so successful”.
Scammers might also claim that trading with them is risk-free and so on. That is another ridiculous lie – reputable brokers even tend to display on their website the exact amount of trading losses as a warning.
Furthermore they might offer you some kind of bonuses just to make you invest right away. Don`t believe them however as such promotions usually come with a very high volume requirement that is a challenge even for experienced traders.
Another scam alert is the presence of a certain fee upon any withdrawal request – this fee may start from 10%, 20% and go higher depending on the broker. It’s important to know however that most regulated brokers don’t usually ask for a fee in order to allow withdrawal.
Nevertheless even if you decide to pay the fee you still won’t have access to your money – with most scam firms this scenario is very likely to happen. You may realize that a withdrawal is impossible – no matter if it comes to your initial deposit or the so-called “profits”. So finally you may end up losing everything plus the paid fee.
What to do when scammed
Most people that have been scammed usually try to take some actions to retrieve their stolen funds. Unfortunately in such cases you can’t really turn to any official financial institution as offshore brokers` actions are not overseen by any regulator. So a regulatory body can’t help you here. What most people do in such circumstances is to turn to people on the internet who promise to retrieve their money in exchange for a certain fee. This is probably the worst thing you can do, actually. These people are most certainly also fraudsters who want to take advantage of your despair and steal even more of your funds. It may even turn out that they are the same scammers that already deceived you.
The best possible thing you can do is to turn to your bank and file for a chargeback if you used your Visa or MasterCard. If you have paid using PayPal or Skrill you can also open a dispute. Paying with crypto coins like Bitcoin and Ethereum is not eligible for a chargeback as we already said and the funds cannot be restored.
