One of the simplest and most common brokerage frauds are clone companies that impersonate reputable firms, and professional wealth managers.
One such example is the Investico broker, which allegedly operates out of the South African republic under FSCA supervision. While the legal information partially checks out, discrepancies are found all over, and we present them all in our Investico review.
| Regulated by: | Unregulated Broker |
| Is This Company Safe? | This company is not in any way regulated, so they cannot be considered as safe! |
| Known Websites: | investico.com |
| Have Warnings from: | N/A |
| Registered in: | South Africa (alleged) |
| Operating since: | 2023 |
| Trading Platforms: | Web trader |
| Maximum Leverage: | 1:500 |
| Minimum Deposit: | $250 |
| Deposit Bonus: | Hinted, but undisclosed |
| Trading Assets: | Forex, Cryptos, Shares, Commodities, Indices |
| Free Demo Account: | Not available |
| How to Withdraw from This Company? | Book a consultation with our legal experts to start your recovery process. |
Impersonates a South African Firm
Allegedly run by a FSCA-regulated investment firm called Faraz Financial Services (PTY) Limited, the website at first seems legit. However, after quickly finding the right domain, we could easily determine the true state of things here.
The mentioned company indeed exists in the register, but their official website is farazltd.com and not investico.com. The latter is actually an illicit scam domain without a valid Forex license, promoting itself as a regulated financial service provider.
If you want to ensure fund safety, negative balance protection and compensation funds, you have to choose a properly supervised, transparent company instead of swindlers like Bittra.
How Clone Companies Work
Clone companies in general deceive the public by misappropriating the credentials of another, legally authorized company. To make the scheme work, Investico scam combines this with the so-called boiler room agents.
Their job is to endlessly call people by phone, and pester them to invest. Any invested funds goes straight into the swindlers’ pockets, however. Recovering it is still possible with the help of our experts.
The investico.com website is a young one, created in June 2023. So far, it’s primary focus have been these nations:
- Netherlands
- Japan
- Singapore
- United States
Missing Online Ratings
This self-proclaimed “unparalleled service” doesn’t have much of a reputation online. While the firm does have some ratings on TrustPilot, there’s a grand total of 10 separate comments.
Other similar sites like SiteJabber and TrustedReviews have generated the necessary pages, but have yet to receive any Investico reviews. What this ultimately tells us is that the few comments we see online were all posted by review seller networks.
Costs as a Part of the Scheme
The Investico leverage is set to a maximum ratio of 1:500. Spreads are anything but attractive, however, as the beginner accounts feature wide spreads of 3 pips on EUR/USD. Moreover, there’s plenty of things hidden from the eye of the victims.
Firstly, there’s high withdrawal fees of $80 by default, plus standard fees that depend on the payment method:
- Credit card – 3.5%
- Wire – $30 or equivalent
- E-wallets – 1.5% – 4.5%
Dormancy fees are charged after 30 days of inactivity, and they increase each month from $150, up to $1.000 with a $2.000 fine for account reactivation after 12 months.
Mandatory Bonus Clauses
The trading volume requirement for becoming eligible for a payout is Bonus USD * 20.000. After not reaching the targeted profit in a matter of 90 days, clients won’t be able to withdraw even the sums initially deposited, let alone their profits. IM Markets is also known for offering attractive bonuses, with no chance for withdrawal after accepting them!
One Unpredictable Trading Environment
Saying that the trading conditions and features on the website as a whole are unreliable would be an understatement. With low transparency shown, it’s hard to even explore any of the promised options. In addition, most important trading tools are questionably functional.
Misleading Web Terminal
The Investico WebTrader is deceptively comprehensive and simplistic. However, lacking an advanced set of tools and analytical options, it could never be the right ally on the financial markets. It evidently falls behind in comparison with industry standards, such as MT5 and cTrader.
The biggest risk of using these simplified software is the fact the majority of them are severely manipulated in order to deceive traders.
Questionable Asset Availability
The company seemingly features a good selection of trading instruments. Instruments that are advertised as available fall within the scope of the cloned firm’s business model:
- Forex Majors – EUR/USD, USD/JPY, GBP/USD, AUD/USD
- Cryptocurrencies – BTC, ETH, XRP, LTC
- Shares CFDs – Apple, Amazon, Microsoft, Facebook
- Commodities CFDs – Gold, Silver, Crude Oil
- Indices – Nikkei 225, S&P500, DAX30, CAC 40
Live Packages Available
Since you can’t actually trade with the Investico demo account, you have to immediately switch to one of the live accounts that feature no information except different spreads included per account.
Here’s the list of available bundles with Investico minimum deposit requirements:
- BASIC – $250
- GOLD – $25,000
- PLATINUM – $100,000
- VIP – $250,000
Damaging Education Materials
The learning materials available on the site can only be described as malicious. They contain very little actual trading information, and serve only to entrap the victims more thoroughly. The dominant theme with these materials is to urge the clients to invest first, and study later.
No Withdrawal Option
Looking around the client panel, we couldn’t actually find an option to submit an Investico withdrawal request. While the funding options are available and they feature several deposit methods, such as credit cards, e-wallets and crypto, nothing is said about payouts.
Even legal papers lack clarification on the processing time and special withdrawal conditions. Since this is a blacklisted fraud, we don’t recommend pouring money into the scheme anyway.
Unmotivated Support Staff
Customer support is allegedly available through several channels. These include an email, a phone number and an online chat option. Trying them out, the phone line did not connect and nobody responded to our email.
Our live chat ticket did get a response, but the staff was not patient enough to stay until we’ve successfully resolved our relatively simple issue of a Investico login password change.
Scammed By This Broker? Contact Us Promptly!
After discovering the disturbing facts about the Investico regulation, all we can say to our audience is to stay away from this dangerous money stealing machinery.
If you happen to already be scammed out of your money by the sham, please do not hesitate to get in touch with our legal representatives. You can book your free consultation via the live chat and our chargeback experts will help you recover lost funds.
FAQ Section
What is Investico?
It is a dangerous scam entity, known as a clone company. The firm tries to fake legitimacy by stealing another company’s credentials.
Is Investico a Legit Broker?
No, this is not a genuine brokerage. The license they present on their website belongs to a completely different firm.
How to Withdraw Money From My Investico Account?
The platform on the site does not feature a withdrawal option. To get your money back from these fraudsters, contact our legal experts.
Source:
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