Forex Trading Scams In Zimbabwe: How To Spot & Avoid Them 🤔

There have been a lot of online forex trading scams in Zimbabwe in recent years. These scams have led some people to believe that forex trading is a scam.

Forex trading on its own is a legit online business that can earn you money if done well.

Here we will show you some of the common online forex trading scams targeting Zimbabweans so that you can be able to identify them. These scams can also be used in binary and synthetic indices trading.

Types Of Forex Trading Scams In Zimbabwe

• Account Management Online Forex Trading Scam

This is one of the most popular forex trading scams in Zimbabwe. Someone approaches you and offers to trade on your account and you share profits. These people will usually show you screenshots with impressive profits like the one below.

The goal is to make you confident in their trading skills so that you can fund your account and then give the login details so that they can trade on your behalf. 

You invest your capital, they invest their skill and then you share profits. Most newbies like this kind of arrangement because it takes the pressure of learning and analysing the market off of them. 

The danger with this kind of arrangement is that these account managers may not be as good as they claim and they may just want to experiment with your money without any financial risk on their part.

If they get lucky and their trades are successful then you share the profits and they win. If they lose all the money in the account then it's your loss and they simply disappear.

You will come across a lot of these account managers on social media, especially Facebook, WhatsApp and Telegram. They will mostly approach you as you join forex trading groups. 

We would advise you to be very cautious with such arrangements. If you are ever going to try an account management arrangement make sure that you use money that you are ready to lose. It will be more like a gamble at best. This is one of the most popular online forex trading scams targeting Zimbabweans.

Instead of account management, a safer option would be copy-trading. This is where you see and verify the performances of pro traders and you choose the one you want to follow. You do not give your logins to anyone. Instead, you simply sign up for the copy trading service and your broker will copy those trades automatically. You can stop copying any master trader at any time.

You can check out these brokers that offer copy trading services:

• Hotforex
• Instaforex
• Superforex
• FXTM
• Liteforex

You can learn more about copy trading and the brokers that offer it to Zimbabweans in this article.

Forex Trading Scams In Zimbabwe: Fake Brokers

Fake brokers are individuals or companies that claim to be legitimate forex brokers but are actually scammers. They often use fake websites and social media profiles to lure in unsuspecting victims.

Once they have your money, they disappear, leaving you with nothing. These entities are not licensed or registered with any regulatory authority, which means they are not held to any standards or regulations. This makes it easier for them to engage in fraudulent activities, such as manipulating trades or stealing funds.

You may also face challenges when you want to withdraw your funds from these scam forex brokers.

How to spot them:

Look for red flags such as unregulated brokers, lack of transparency, and poor customer service. Always do your research before investing with a broker. As a general rule of thumb, avoid forex brokers from South Africa as they are usually fake. Examples include Jp Markets

How To Stay Safe from this forex trading scam in Zimbabwe

Always make sure to do your due diligence and only work with regulated brokers and companies. Below is a list of brokers that we recommend for you. These ones are regulated and have a track record of reliability. Click on each broker to learn more about it.

Best for synthetic indices

• Trade 24/7 incl weekends
• $5 minimum deposit
• Fund with Ecocash, Zipit etc

Visit Deriv Read Review

Best for currencies

• $5 Minimum deposit
• Low spreads
• Variety of trading accounts offered

Visit HFM Read Review

Best for beginners

• Well regulated
• No deposit bonus offered
• $5 minimum deposit

Visit XM Read Review

Forex Pool Investment Scams In Zimbabwe (Forex Ponzi Schemes)

In this type of forex trading scam in Zimbabwe, the ‘fund managers’ will ask you to invest with them and get a fixed rate of return after a certain period. They will promise you rather incredible returns eg 350% in 5 days or something like that.

They will claim that they are expert traders and they will spin your money through binary options, forex and bitcoin trading.

They may give you your returns when you initially invest small amounts with them as a way of making you gain confidence with them. They will then disappear without a trace after you invest larger amounts with them. 

They take advantage of the fact that most people do not know how online forex and bitcoin trading work. Such people are easy to deceive and scam. 

A lot of people have fallen prey to this kind of online forex trading scam targeting Zimbabweans and you should be on the lookout.

Never even attempt this kind of arrangement. Once someone approaches you proposing something like this you should block them right away.

• Forex Trading Lessons Scams In Zimbabwe

In this instance, unsuspecting but eager forex newbies are asked to pay for forex lessons so that they can get better at trading. In most cases, however, the education that is being sold is found freely online and the scammers are just smart enough to package it as theirs. 

For example, there is this free Price Action Trading Course that many so-called forex mentors want to teach others and charge a fee.

At the end of the forex trading course, you will not be any better than you would be if you had searched for the information for yourself online for free.

Be very careful and sceptical before enrolling with any forex mentor online as a lot of people have made more money from teaching forex trading than from the forex markets themselves.

One way you can learn for free is through demo forex contests. You can learn more about these contests here.

 

How To Stay Safe from this forex trading scam in Zimbabwe

Do some research before you pay for any forex trading lessons in Zimbabwe. Check if you cannot get the information for free online. You can also get free forex education from the following forex brokers.in Zimbabwe.

 

Broker	Link to free forex Educational resources
Deriv	Medium button
HFM	Medium button
XM	Medium button
Superforex	DERIV Visit Deriv HFM Visit HFM XM Visit HFM FBS Visit FBS

 

•  Forex Signals Scams In Zimbabwe

Here some forex ‘gurus’ offer a service whereby they do the market analysis for you and they simply tell you to buy or sell a certain pair.

This is another attractive arrangement for newbies in forex trading as it also takes the hard work from them and they can get to profit by simply following the signals.

A challenge with this arrangement is that the signals may be ‘hit-or-miss’ and in the end, you may find out that your net position is negative.

By that time you would have already paid for the signals and it will be a double loss on your side.

A good signal service should have a trial period of ideally two weeks where you get to see if the signals are legit and profitable before paying for them. 

If your signal provider simply asks you to subscribe without a trial period you must be on the alert. 

• Indicators, Expert Advisors (EA’s) & Robots Forex Scams In Zimbabwe

Indicators, EA’s & Robots are supposed to make trading easy for you by either telling you when to take trades or taking the trades for you.

In this type of scam people will try to sell you indicators or robots that either do not work or are found freely on the internet.

Some of the indicators, EA’s & Robots may even be found freely online and will be useless as well.

The seller will want to take advantage of naive traders and rip them off. 

Forex and binary options and synthetic indices trading strategies can also be used by scammers in the same way.

• Skrill Exchange Scams

This type of online forex trading scam in Zimbabwe was popular before Skrill closed its accounts for Zimbabweans. However, variations of this scam still exist.

This type of scam happens when you want to fund your forex trading account but you only have local money Eg EcoCash & Zipit. You then look for someone who has funds in their e-wallet  (eg PerfectMoney, WebMoney, AirTm or even bitcoin) who wants local money.

You then send the local money but they don’t hold their end of the deal and they block you. 

Fortunately, scams of this type have been declining since Deriv introduced local payment agents and the Deriv-peer-to-peer (Dp2p) platform. These alternatives allow you to deposit using EcoCash and other local payment methods.

Conclusion on Online Forex Trading Scams Targeting Zimbabweans

There are a lot of scammers online who are ready to pounce on any naive newbies in forex. Be very careful before parting with your money. If anything sounds too good to be true then it probably is.

Astronomical rates of returns are not possible on a regular basis in the forex markets and you should be wary of anyone who promises them.

Think twice and do some due diligence before you give your money to anyone in the name of Forex. Do not trust anyone you meet in forex trading groups no matter how helpful and polite they may be.

Performing a simple Google search can show you if you are about to buy something that is free online.

If you get a friend request on Facebook from someone who is always talking about bitcoin and forex you should also decline it.

If you follow these tips you should be able to protect yourself from these online forex trading scams targeting Zimbabweans.

Have you or anyone you know been scammed before? Are there other online forex trading scams targeting Zimbabweans that we have left out?

Share your thoughts in the comments below.