USDC Investment: Unregulated Broker Asks Investors Pay Fees to Withdraw

The illegal forex broker USDC Investment was recently brought to our attention by a complaint filed by a BrokersView user against it. The broker's website is full of suspicions, and several users have reported that they have been blocked from withdrawing their funds, not being able to do so to this day.

Victims' experiences in USDC Investment

According to the victim, the reason he wanted to invest in USDC Investment was because of a recommendation from a stranger who approached him on social media and persuaded him to trade here.

The victim invested $100 in principal at the direction of this person and earned $16 through trading.

After the investor earned the first gain, the scammer began to persuade him to deposit a higher amount of capital, saying that the profit earned would also be more. The victim invested $2,800 this time and earned $950 in profit. At this point, the investor had "earned" a total of $966 from USDC Investment.

After making the profit, the scammer pretended to teach the victim how to withdraw funds - this is the "main course" of the scam.

On the first withdrawal, the investor attempted to withdraw a small amount of $30 and succeeded. But when he tried to withdraw $3,000, the system blocked the transaction. An alleged employee of the company told the victim on Telegram that his withdrawal was blocked because his account was suspected of money laundering and that the only way to get to normal and lift the restriction would be to pay a fee within 24 hours, an exorbitant fee that amounted to thousands of dollars, which is clearly not a reasonable request made by a legitimate broker.

USDC Investment is an unregulated broker

According to its website, USDC Investment claims to be a company "registered in the United Kingdom" and is regulated by the National Futures Association (in the USA) under the number 0555620.

We first searched the Company House of the UK for the company name "USDC Investment Limited" and found a registered company with the same name. However, the broker's website did not provide any details (e.g. address, telephone number, etc.) for investors to compare and confirm. Therefore, we were unable to confirm that the UK-registered company was the operating company of USDC Investment.

In addition, we searched the UK Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) portal, but did not find any regulated company named "USDC Investment Limited". In other words, USDC Investment is not registered or regulated by the FCA as required by UK law and is not authorized to carry out foreign exchange service activities.

Finally, according to our search on the NFA portal, USDC Investment is not regulated by the NFA, and BrokersView repeatedly reminds traders that firms labeled as "non-NFA members" are not regulated by the NFA.

Illegal broker demanding payments before withdrawing

It is not uncommon for illegal platforms to ask investors to pay a fee before withdrawing their funds, but such behavior is clearly not under the law. It is unheard of for a fee to be paid to dismiss a money laundering charge.

In addition, the victim also said that he was asked to use a trading software called "ST5 MAX", which reminds us of a scam that the BrokersView users complained about last month, "ST5".

Several users said they were tricked into investing in "ST5" and encountered withdrawal issues. The scammers demanded that these users pay a "15% tax" before they could withdraw their funds, or they would not be allowed to do so. A user also asked in the comments if they could actually withdraw their funds after paying the tax. In fact, even if the investors pay the required withdrawal fee, it is impossible to get a penny of profit.

Both USDC Investment and "ST5" are scammers operating in the Forex market, and they use very similar tricks. While we have no evidence that these two scams are perpetrated by the same group of criminals, we are certain that neither scam is worthy of any investor's trust.

As the ultimate goal of the scammers is ill-gotten gains, "foreign exchange" or other trading instruments are just a disguise they put to scam, the funds invested may not go into the foreign exchange market, and there is no transaction involved. All the money just directly be sent into the pockets of the scammers. To prepare to play a much longer game, lairs may modify the balance shown on the trading Apps to create the illusion of profit, and they may also occasionally approve withdrawal requests for small amounts of money to deceive the victim's trust. Once the trader is convinced, the scammers use the trust to demand more expensive fees. When the trader refuses to pay the fees or can not afford to pay the expensive fees, scammers cut off all contact and "disappear."

BrokersView reminds you

Recovering funds from scammers is a troublesome problem for victims, regulators, and law enforcement. Scammers hide their real addresses on the vast Internet, sometimes falsely claiming to be located in regulated jurisdictions. This has even led to the development of "money recovery service" scams, which victims have been warned about by the UK regulator, the FCA, called "Recovery room scams."

But rather than trying to make up for losses or recover funds after being scammed, we recommend that investors consider their options carefully before investing. While working with a compliant broker does not completely eliminate the risk of investing, it does allow you to retain the right to file a complaint and make a claim against the regulator and the broker in the event of misconduct by the company.

If you find it difficult to verify the legitimacy of your potential broker before investing, you can search for a broker's name in BrokerView or ask us a question. BrokersView offers you a Forex broker reviewing service for free.