I agree that it’s important to get legal advice from an attorney who actually works in the area in question.
Earlier this year, or perhaps late last year, this same question came up. Clint posted something on the topic by Robert Green, an attorney who specializes in traders’ issues, and I posted an excerpt from Green’s latest handbook on tax issues for traders, which showed that his opinion has not changed. Green actually talked to people at the CFTC about their enforcement practices.
Here (again) is what Green writes in his 2024 handbook:
These U.S. rules have upset many forex traders with their trading programs, and they’ve
considered all possible angles for working with offshore forex brokers or banks. CFTC rules don’t apply directly to customers but rather to forex brokers. [Emphasis added] It might not be safe to do business with an unregistered foreign forex broker who might become subject to CFTC enforcement actions. Offshore companies don’t help evade these rules, according to a CFTC enforcement attorney.
CFTC is a big fckig joke, The reason why unregulated offshore brokers exist is due to the rules they have put on U.S. forex brokers.
catering to their bread and butter financial markets, retail spot forex trading in the U.S. was becoming too big, so they had to slow that process down.
LQDFX calls trader with $100 accounts, but not this guy with $600 accounts, could it be your lack of movement / trading?
When it comes to offshore brokers, I would hope traders are being honest. We rely on each other’s experience to make decisions about offshore brokers, but something doesn’t add up and we need to hear from other traders like yourself who have an account with LQDFX, thanks for posting about the lack of phone contact from LQDFX.,
Took less than 4h to receive it (requested at 7:00 London time)
The bad news:
From $500 I got only 464 USDC. Gas fee was 2.50 so they took aprox $33.5 for “processing”, which is more than 6.5%.
Looking at my dashboard it seems to me that they converted 500€ into 454.01€ at a rate of 1.10129 when EURUSD is at 1.07405 (2.5% markup). I don’t know what is this conversion about because all my previous withdraws are showing in USD and my withdraw was USDC.
I’ll contact them to get an explanation but I’m not happy.
I was not using them much and I think I will drop them for now because these cost for withdrawing are too high.
funny you would ask. midas is the demo feed I began using for mt4 mobile once lqdfx lost login privileges. it’s the same feed, or at least was when i initiated it.
That is a huge fee in terms of percentage. Did you withdraw using the Crypto or Confirmo option?
BTW you have to have made a deposit via the particular option before you can use it to withdraw. After they told me fees were lower with Confirmo, I tried to do a test withdrawal of the equivalent of 10 USD via Confirmo. They declined it, because I had not yet ever made a deposit via Confirmo.
I chose crypto as I don’t even know what Confirmo is. As both are presented in the site as fee options I just chose the crypto option and insert my self custody address.
I’m waiting for a clarification about these costs. The thing about withdraws from USD to USDC is that they can’t argue about fluctuations and all that BS that they can use when a BTC withdraw is made. Here we can compare apples to apples, in a transparent way, unless USDC would be depegging, which is not the case.
-I suspect that the 6.5% is just coincidental. But $33 is still a lot to process a simple transaction that probably took less than 60 seconds. If they actually used a percentage rate to calculate fees, then they would make $650 off of a 10k withdrawal, which would be totally insane.
This is the email they sent. It’s quite heavy this conversion with 4.5% fee.
Thank you for your response.
We would like to begin by emphasizing that it is our utmost priority to assist you in having your funds returned to you, in the best possible manner.
Please be informed that the fees are not listed on our website, as they are not charged by us directly and they are charged by our Payment Service Providers.
Kindly note that this information is stated in our refund policy; ‘‘The Company does not charge any fees for deposits or withdrawals. The fees are charged solely by the Payment Service Provider, Bank or Credit Card Company.’’
Upon your account registration with LQDFX, you agreed to our Terms and Conditions, which include deductions for fees during withdrawals.
In regards to the fees that were charged, your withdrawal request was for the amount of $500 which was converted to EUR (at that day’s rate), and a fee of 4.5% + 18 USDC was then charged by our Payment Service Provider, which we do not cover.
Kindly also take into consideration that your withdrawal is converted to EUR (at that day’s rate), then into Crypto, then once again quoted in USD to the value pricing on your Crypto account. This may lead to a slight change in the exchange rate, which can also work in the favor of our clients.
We remain at your disposal for further assistance required.
Kind Regards,
And it’s a bit misleading saying in the withdraw page that there is no fees and then have that in T&C in some hidden way.
-This is just another example of a brokerage not giving priority to their clients. There is no need for 3rd-party involvement when processing crypto transactions. It seems that LQDFX does not wish to handle this themselves, and has chosen to outsource it, but on their client’s dime.
Charging percentage rates like that is criminal. Can you imagine trading for an entire month and doing 10% profit on the account, pulling everything out, only to lose nearly half of your profits to some unnecessary service that probably uses automation to process a transfer that only takes seconds?
It should be, anyway. But with companies like that, many of their customers are so naive and gullible about the whole subject that they appear to be able to get away with it?
