Etoro is a scam, they stole 7500 USD from me

Commercial Content Scam Stories
44

Hi.
First of all I am sorry for your loss as it seems that you didnt cheat in any way. I am not working for etoro but also placing bets as you folks. I would like to give some countrary thoughts to the idea that its a scam and looking forward for other oppinions. You can check my account Frozzen1 on Etoro and see that I joined around 2014 and lost money in the beginning, stoped and then gave it another try.

I have to say that I lost in the beginning because of own mistakes and lack of experience to much risk taking and so on… Then I remembered the fact that only around 3-10% are actually long term winners as daytraders.

So lets put the hat on as if we would be a shareholder of such a company:

1. Zero Sum games with spread
Whenever people make small bets on zero sum games (forex, futures, options,…) the company will get the spread no matter what person wins or loses the trades. So etoro is just acting as a dealing desk “Market maker” same like sportbetting or casino. And eventually most “investors” will slowly lose to the company because of the spreads they pay.

2. Earnings from spread margins
Big bets, for instance when a successful trader with many followers places a bet together with all his copiers money, bets are forwarded by NDD (No dealing desk) to the liquidity provider. And etoro will just charge a biger spread than he pays to the liquidity provider thus earn the difference on each trade. The result is that even if the trader is a long term winner etoro will as well profit the more that trader has followers and wins. And thats the difference to brokers or betting companies who ownly act as book maker and have not interest on long term winners.

3. High frequency trading, latency and hacking
HFT is allready very old but really started when rapid-fire computer-based HFT developed gradually since 1983 after NASDAQ introduced a purely electronic form of trading. So since then many parties (banks, traders, brokers, programmers,…) tried to get an advantage over each other with low latency strategies, spoofing, automated News-based trading,… you name it there are hundreds of possiblities. So thats why companies have to protect them selfs from the events of network and hardware failures, either because of sabotage/hacking or a technical failure. So thats why I guess your money got confiscated. If they wouldn’t have such clouses in there terms and agreements, any hacker could try to slow there system down with DOS attacks or in other ways try to manipulate Etoro in order to place no risk bets.

4. Software problems and support
As a software programmer I know that there allways are bugs, crashes, system overload, design flaws and so on. So I fully understand, and rather have these flaws corrected instead of having a system online casino like where a random generator decides if you lose or win and some predesigned chart is displayed. You ask why other big brokers dont have that? I guess its just because its a start up company and nobody has invested 100s of millions into it yet.

I made recently the experience also with other well known brokers, that they dont answer for long time even when you want to add money to your account because of such a great boom, I dont blame them as I think there is really a massive run since the cryptocurrencies got so much discussed in non economy circles. -> of course as self imployed myself I would just hire many more people and outsource (Tunesia? why not) not to miss out on the action, profit and growth.

5. Conclusion, thoughts and question
Even dow its really bad luck for you to lose this money, I dont think they really try to stop people trying to cash out and risk bad reputation in order to lose the profit from 100 of million transaction yearly on them they earn constantly. On the otherside they have to protect themself from potential cheaters. (again I am not saying you are one of them)
Of course I dont have any proves that they are honest or not, just it seems to me that they wouldnt need to cheat as they are generating allready so much money anyways.
So thats why I started just to copy traders as I am a loser myself, I have to find a good mix of traders for my portfolio.

Did I miss out something? Again I am neutral individual and also just a gambler or investor how ever to name it and looking forward to more oppinions as I plan to invest longterm much more.

47

tibitcoin did not reply to this. Like expected there is no proof of this ludicrous accusation. Now let’s wait for izzzzzz6 to never come up with proof of another utterly weird accusation…

48

you had given them your phone number already when applying for the first time. They even verify your number by sending a code. Leaving the phone number in a ticket is of no use at all. Did you ask the scam caller how he got your number?
Buy a referee whistle and blow it as hard as you can next time.

[quote=“izzzzzz6, post:43, topic:85317”]
The site is full of charlatans posing as customers but they have no time for customer service.[/quote]Can you refrase this? I have no clue what you mean.

[quote=“izzzzzz6, post:43, topic:85317”]
To be honest the list go’s on and i would like to try to get my money back including what they cost me when the site was bugging and tricking me.[/quote]I asked you if you were Dutch but after reading this I even suspect your last name is van Gaal, is that correct?

49

Hi guys.
Thanks for all the supporting comments.
I’m really sorry to read other cases where etoro does not honor withdrawals or delay them without explanation.
If you used a credit card to fund your account you may be able to do a chargeback if the funding was relatively recent (up to 2 months I think). This is not my case.
If you had a problem, I’d encourage you to post more evidence and information so that its easier to point you in the right direction, and your post also gets visibility and more persons may avoid having headaches by signing up with this company.

I wanted to bring some good news in general.
https://www.esma.europa.eu/policy-rules/mifid-ii-and-mifir
MiFiD 2 legislation is now required on brokers and this should provide more protection against european brokers working with CFDs, so itll be harder for companies like etoro to scam you, and if theyll do it, they will lose any dispute quite fast.

In relation to my case in particular, there are no updates. Im just waiting to hear from the Financial Ombudsman the next few weeks or couple months. They are analyzing my case and probably coming soon to a decision or asking for more details to do so.
I will keep you up to date, and whenever this is resolved, I will also publish the full report that I sent them and make a tutorial on how to properly to file a complaint. Theres little information on all of this even though the number of cases is insane. So I’m happy to help by making public my whole experience.

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50

I have been with Etoro since 2011 after trying many other platforms and have found, to date, Etoro to be one of the most user-friendly platforms, it is great for beginners and as reliable as any other I have used.
I must admit however that their customer service has deteriorated over the years, there used to be live chat that was very efficient.
Due to all the newbies coming in to trade the cryptos with no trading experience what-so-ever in many cases (obvious when listening to them in the forum) there is now a slight delay in withdrawals at times though I myself have not experienced it (usually 3-5 days to withdraw).
Crpto trading has brought out a new breed of trader (if you can call some of them that perhaps more so gamblers) many will panic at the slightest fall and have no idea about technical and fundamental analysis, they don’t want to learn how to trade just make quick money. But as frustrating as they are in the forum this is not what this thread is about - just needed to get it off my chest :slight_smile:
I have always found Etoro a reliable, honest platform, sure there can be times when it may freeze and yes that can be most often at high volatility times which by the way I have noticed occur on my FXCM account as well.
For every newbie jumping in the forum complaining that it is a scam because they lost some money or they couldn’t withdraw because they hadn’t verified a new withdrawal account, you will find dozens of seasoned traders jumping in supporting the platform…

I regularly recommend Babypips school to new traders who are asking for advice on how to trade - keep up the good work.

51

Hi guys, good day! Need your opinion on something horrifying that just happened to me on Etoro. I have escalated and will not let this matter go unheard. Despite persistent login issues with Etoro and many other negativity that surrounded the platform within the last couple of months, ive always thought Etoro is not too bad until recently. So let me give you a little background.

I first started trading with Etoro in August 2017. Back then we didnt have too much traders on Etoro because Crypoto have not grown to what it is today. And let me set this straight, i’m purely a forex trader.

When i first started with Etoro, things were very much simple and efficient. When you create an account, you submit your documents to verify your account. This verification basically is for you to make withdrawals and remove any deposit limitations. This is good because it protects the business as well. Verification was done really quickly. I was verified in September 2017. So i was trading with very few problems. The only ones that i can think of that really bugs traders is:

  1. Withdrawal takes longer than usual (But you still receive your money at the end of the day)
  2. Persistent login issues. At times, you will just get log out as Etoro faces network problems. They will occasionally update on their twitter to let members know that there is some problems with their network.

So just about a week and a half ago, i had really big positions opened for a few weeks. I received an email from Etoro suddenly stating that i needed to “Verify my account, proof of address missing”. I opened a ticket with their customer service asking what is going on? I have been verified months back and have an email proof from Etoro stating “Dear Mr XXX, you have been verified, any deposit limitations have been removed”.

I got a very template reply from the Customer Service stating that my document provided was insufficient. I wrote back to them asking not to give such vague information and requested them to clarify what is going on. The document i submitted months ago was accepted and i even received an email from them. And, im a “platinum” member with Etoro as i have deposited more than 20k with them. So about 4 days later, another representative replied again stating that the bill i submitted in the past was insufficient. Really? months later you’re saying that i submitted the bill was insufficient. And to be precise, the bill which i submitted was a legitimate bill from my government and its not some unknown company in my country. It bears the government’s logo.

So a day or 2 later, in order to prevent a Stop Loss from being activated, i wanted to deposit some funds to further extend my stop loss. To my horror, i received a notification from them that until i am verified, i can not deposit any funds. And verification takes up to 5 Business Days. This was an absolute disaster, i had to close my positions and some even reached my SL. What i can not accept is how can they reverse my verification status? Especially, when you are an active trader with big trades open. This will highly affect your trading experience. If it was a network issue, i have no choice but to accept because it happens not just to me but a whole bunch of people. I emailed Etoro on this matter letting them know this matter will not rest until i receive monetary compensation. The Account Manager called me and was puzzled too as to why my verification status was reversed for no reason and mentioned that even if it was to be reversed, usually it will be 6 months or more where they might request a new bill.

Customer service emailed me to apologise for the misinformation given previously. As you can see, this is highly unacceptable. The total lost i made for not being able to extend my SL was close to 20K USD.

I am still waiting for them to come up with a resolution as they escalated this to their manager. But guys, i want to know your thoughts. Please share and spread the word so everyone can be careful moving forward. I am really disappointed with Etoro. And i do not think i will be trading on their platform in future.

They were once really good, but probably due to their expanding customer based, they forgotten that every customer matters. Trust me, im very objective in analysing, but this is unacceptable. When you are verified, means you are ready to jump into the big pond.

SIGH!

52

This is a true horror scenario. I hope you will get your money back and I think you have enough proof to hand over to financial authority in case they refuse to compensate you.

It’s also 21 days ago Rookied updated us for the last time. It’s sad that the ombudsman does not go faster with his case.

53

Hi there! Just some updates. Etoro is working a resolution with me on this matter. Although the process is a bit slower, but at least they’re doing something. So a couple of days ago they got in touch with me on a resolution but it’s not something that would appease me. To further add on, they’re reason is that I closed some of the positions manually and it did not hit the stop loss (about 10 pips away). My reason was that if all my positions hit my SL and Etoro does not want to compensate me, then ill be left with nothing. Besides, if they did not downgrade my account for no reason, we wouldn’t be in this predicament. So hoping we both can work something out soon. I’ll let you guys know alright! But my honest experience with Etoro now that this happened, it’s not too bad like what others make up to be. They do respond, just give them some time. The account manager is really good! Rachel in particular.

54

Let us know IF IF IF IF IF - you get any money back (in money!)

Otherwise - stop giving them "Benefit of the doubt "

55

Probably you’re in a bad situation but until this case comes with a resolution, I have to be objective. So thus far, they are in touch with me just that the process is longer than usual. Probably share with us your case?

56

ME ? - LOL - I don’t HAVE a “case” - I wouldn’t go near them with yours ! :laughing::laughing::laughing:

I just want to hear how “wonderful” they are - AFTER you get your money - NOT just because they are talking to you ! LOL

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57

Damn brother, you sound weird LOL! I hope you are in a healthy state of mind. Take care!

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58

Hi guys, I am very surprised to read everything you wrote here about eToro. My research in the Net showed that this is one of the most reliable currency trading companies that’s why I opened an account there. At first everything went very smoothly, my deposits were accepted instantly, just amazing. Apart from the many flaws on their platform and sometimes the difficult logging everything else was ОК. And everything went on like this until I decided to withdraw money. We had about two weeks of correspondence and phone conversations with my personal manager who is in Israel, although the company is registered in Cyprus it is Israeli, until they finally agreed to transfer the money to my credit card, all my deposits EXCEPT ONE! From then until now for about three months already, we have been exchanging emails with them, they ask me several times to send them copies of the transfers I have received and everything ends there. I am pretty sure already that they’re just running around and they have no intention to refund my money. Please give me some advice on what I can do in my case.

59

I had a similar issue.

They silently sold my bitcoins, and then silently emptied my account.

I bought bitcoin back in Jan 2014, went to check on how they were doing last year, but Etoro had closed the trade, without warning in Dec 2015, at a loss.

I asked them why they closed the trade, and where the money had gone as there was no money in my account either, but they keep making up new different excuses;

First they said they closed the trade because of ‘a period of inactivity’ on the site, but after I challenged them to show where there was such a requirement to regularly trade in their terms, and that six months between trades wasn’t really that long anyway, they came up with a new reason number 2; ‘revoking a promotion’ from back in 2014 when they had given me $100 for inviting a friend, and this had meant closing the BTC trade to recoup the $100. (Now aside from it being uncouth to take back money once given), the Etoro terms say that were asked to discontinue future promotions by the regulators from 2017, so using this as an excuse for closing my BTC trade in 2015 was another nonsense excuse, so I challenged them. Now they say that the real reason for selling my BTC position was that I hadn’t verified my account! But this too is a lie; I had had my account verified in 2015 in order to make a withdrawal. They claim to have sent me email warnings, but this too is a lie. No idea where my BTC is, why they did what they did or where the money following the trade is. Very unhelpful.

60

What does account report show the day before the btc trade was closed? You should pull that report EVERY DAY for obvious reasons. In case you don’t know: every mt4 broker around sends you these reports by email every day. Etoro is utter crap so you realy need to get those reports each day…

Right now they are acting funny once again…

We’re Experiencing
Technical Difficulties

We are currently down due to technical difficulties, and working to resolve these as soon as possible.

We apologize for any inconvenience and appreciate your patience.

To view our current status please visit our Status Page

For further assistance from our customer service, please refer to our Help Page

If you wish to request to edit or close your trades, you can use our special Offline Tool:

https://offlinemode.etoro.com/

they keep referring to that dead link

61

If they are regulated you should be able to bring this to remediation. Check to see who they’re regulated by. (NFC CFTC for the US).

Moving forward, I would recommend screen casting your trading sessions and keep a record of them on a hard drive.

Also while trading, have a few other Currency Price Quoting programs running alongside your Etoro platform. This will:

  1. Notifying you if something wonky is going on
  2. If nothing is, will prove that you did your due diligence and their actions were unfounded in withdrawal of funds.

Eyefondue is right in their user agreement, they have all sorts of safeguards that side with them, so I’ve read lots of these stories and you need to protect yourself by essentially recording everything you do, while putting fail-safes in place.

Just how i’d approach your situation. Still sucks though, sorry to hear that man.

Cheers

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62

Lol… Just yesterday i read reviews about Etoro and i was really sure it is a good broker… Never trust reviews.

63

Hi guys. I hope everybody is doing alright.

Absolutely. Companies invest a lot in hiding the bad reputation and all the complaints.
Go ahead and make a google search with company name + key words of typical complaints. You will find that all the top results are paid shilling blogs and marketed sock puppet posts with closed comments, using these key words in rhetorical questions to rank high.
I’m happy that at least this post’s visibility is helping out some people.

Regarding my case:
The deadlines for the investigation have ended a couple months ago but The Financial Ombudsman of Cyprus is still working on the decision. They are taking so long, this institution is overwhelmed by work. Hopefully it comes out soon. I’m emailing them regularly. Never give up.

64

Thanks for your encouraging words papy-bibs.
Ive kept a record of things on a daily basis as part of my accounting and of course screenshot everything that happened that was odd. I was able to write a very detailed report which I think is solid but unfortunately the companies claims are hard to irrefutably disprove on my end. It’s like you are guilty until you can prove otherwise but you are not the provider of the services. Tough one.
I contacted most regulatory bodies including the ones you mentioned:
CFTC / NFA (US) FCA (UK) AMF (France) responses were lightning fast, accurate, complete, personalized, incredible follow-up. Just great. Couldn’t be happier with how they rolled, too bad I ended up dancing with none of them.
The only regulatory body in charge in this case is CySEC in case of a collective complaint and the mediation for individual complaints is done by the Financial Ombudsman of Cyprus. The bad thing is they cover all Europe and thus they hardly keep up with all the complaints they receive.

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65

Keep going man. Will wait for the results.

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