Option-xpress Key Facts
🔴 Option-xpress offers questionable high-yield investment opportunities – a clear sign of a scam!
🔴 Option-xpress is quite coy with crucial contact information – beware!
🔴 Option-xpress lies about having a license for the provision of its services – a huge red flag!
🔴 Option-xpress's domain has been registered extremely recently – another off-putting detail!
Option-xpress products and services
Option-xpress provides what is widely regarded by the term High Yield Investment Programmed scam – how the scheme works is by providing investors with highly profitable investment plans that have incredible interest – the most modest claim that Option-xpress makes is that it will be able to double your deposit. This is quite clearly something that it does not intend to and cannot achieve.
People should always be cautious when dealing with businesses offering enormously high yields because it's scammers' trait to promise big and create unrealistic expectations. In reality, regulated financial companies cannot secure more than a few percents annually with their fixed-income products. There is a huge discrepancy between these offers and the regulated companies standards. Judging by the products and services they sell, we suspect it's a scam, so beware.
Option-xpress company and regulation
Option-xpress claims to be a licensed company with the CFTC in the States. However, a quick search with the database of the US regulators showed that Option-xpress lies – it does not have a license to operate in the States.
The US financial services regulation is very complex in the USA. Derivatives markets regulation is a responsibility of CFTC and NFA. Forex brokers and most of the investments companies have to be NFA members and CFTC registered to operate in the USA. On the other hand, securities markets are controlled by the SEC, a government independent agency responsible to maintain the integrity of the financial markets.
While SEC focuses more on the procedure regulation insisting on financial reports and management discussion and analysis, NFA and CFTC impose pretty straightforward requirements. To become authorised the companies have to provide 20 million USD in paid-up capital, which is considered a guarantee that the businesses can survive in turbulent times and pay whenever they have to.
Other customer protection measures include clients’ accounts segregation and leverage restrictions for forex brokers- 1:50. Also, CFTC brokers’ clients are not allowed hedging, which is one of the very unique US features. Unfortunately, the cryptocurrencies regulation is still inept, so traders and investors should be wary when dealing with crypto offers.
Option-xpress address and contacts
Option-xpress provides us with incredibly insufficient contact information – a phone number. The thing is, the number is probably fake as well – numbers can be generated using specialized software by the hundreds and that is something that scammers often do, as they value their privacy immensely
Transparency is crucial when talking about brokers and investment companies, and it's part of the regulatory framework. The regulated companies are open to financial authorities following certain transparency rules, so it's generally unlikely to conduct fraudulent activities. They are also bound to provide the public with crucial information about themselves, making it easy for traders and investors to confirm the company's legitimacy.
Option-xpress website info
Option-xpress's website was registered in November 2020 – this would make it less than a year old. However, this does not stop the broker from claiming to be a mainstay on the market – something it clearly is not.
Additionally, the domain is hosted on an IP from the States – 162.0.235.219. This address co-hosts 273 domains, none of which connected to Option-xpress as far as we could tell.
The website does not even show up when looked up on SimilarWeb – usually when investing money online you want it to be with a company that has a serious amount of traffic, unlike Option-xpress.
Finally, the owners of the website have taken extra steps to remain anonymous from WhoIs lookups – this is a common practice, yes, but it also means that we have no information on them, once again undermining the important principles of transparency outlined above.
Scam warning
We paid utmost attention to the regulation and transparency in the sections above because it’s mandatory for trading and investments. Pretty much each company offering financial services have to be authorised by the local financial authority.
However, some entities operate unlicensed and intentionally run investment fraud. It would be best if you only dealt with companies authorised by the regulators, so always check to make sure they are. Bear in mind that if you trade with unauthorised businesses, you won’t be protected, so it’s very likely to suffer losses almost impossible to recover if things go wrong.
Online scam is trending nowadays with fraudulent websites popping up literally every day. The financial authorities increase the number of warnings issued year after year, but the dangers are still out there and growing exponentially. You’ll realise the hazards when you consider OneCoin scam- it’s still impossible to calculate the total loss, but it’s regarded as 15 billion worth fraud. Make sure to trade with licensed and regulated companies to avoid off-putting losses.