Are You Stuck in the “Bonus” Spiderweb?

That supposed “bonus” you received from an online forex trading site was a gimmick to prevent you from withdrawing your funds.

Many unregulated online scam brokerage sites simply steal all of your deposits. The “trading” is entirely fictitious. The professional-looking trading platform on their websites is, in actuality, completely phony. It’s a sham designed to make the inevitable losses look legitimate — just unlucky. And among their principal tools are forex trading bonus scams.

Here at MyChargeBack we hear it all. We’ve spoken to thousands of victims of online trading scams from over a hundred countries. They have been burned by phony forex and binary options brokers and a host of others scammers. Criminals masquerading as “brokers” have endless ways of separating you from your money, and they’re always thinking of new ones. 

Often, when you request a withdrawal, the fraudster will approve it on the condition that you first pay a processing fee (or whatever else he chooses to call it). Before you do so, ask yourself if that makes any sense. If the fee is less than your balance, why don’t they simply deduct it before crediting you the remainder? The reality is that this “fee” is just the final payment you will make towards your broker’s new car before he stops answering your phone calls and emails.

There Is No Such Thing as Free Money!

The one ploy our clients fall victim to more than any other is the innocent-sounding but malignant “bonus.” But it’s all fake. There are no bonuses. These are forex trading bonus scams.

Ah, free money! Who wouldn’t want that? We all would, and scammers know that. Beware, therefore, of shady online brokers handing out money like the tooth fairy. You can get a bonus for signing up, forking over additional sums of money or getting your friends to sign up. Why are they so generous? Because they know they’ll never have to actually part with any of that money. And they know that because they’ll never allow you to withdraw it. That’s why these traps are forex trading bonus scams!

“What,” you say, “the bonus isn’t real?” Oh it’s real. A real trap. By accepting the bonus, you agree to a set of restrictions so abstruse, so convoluted that your average lawyer would have difficulty deciphering and applying it.

What Are the Restrictions?

The fine details vary considerably from one broker to another. In any case, the broker probably won’t tell you about them beforehand. If you look for them you’ll be hard pressed to find them. If they’re posted on the broker’s site, they’ll be hidden in the small print on the “Terms & Conditions” page along with a lot of legalese you may not even understand. 

But the bottom line is that before you can withdraw the bonus your have to use it in trading. A lot of it. You might need to trade upwards of $1,000 for every single dollar of bonus money you get. Even without the broker gaming the system, if you trade that amount you are almost statistically guaranteed to lose the rest of your money at some point. But the nastier brokers won’t even take that chance. They’ll make sure your account tanks. That way, if they’re convincing enough, you’ll never even think to go after them. You’ll just think you made a bad investment. Which is exactly what they want you to think.

If, however, you try to withdraw your balance when it’s still in the black you’ll discover just how trapped you are. Your whole account is encumbered and you just watch helplessly as it slides lower and lower, unable to get your money out. You’re in the bonus spiderweb, and the more you struggle, the more tightly it grips you.

If you’re a victim of an online investment scam, contact MyChargeBack today for a free fund recovery consultation. We’re an American financial services firm with a global reach. Working opposite over 800 banks, we have helped clients on every continent recover millions of dollars in funds that they thought were lost for good.