ICO Assets – the company describes itself on its own homepage https://www.ico-assets.com/de/ as online trading. ICO Assets offers its clients various services in the segments CFDs on foreign exchange, shares, commodities, cryptocurrencies and indices.
If you have invested with ICO Assets and there are problems with the distribution, the lawyers of the Herfurtner law firm are at your disposal with advice and support.
ICO assets – safe trading with high leverage?
Currently, there is an extremely high number of online trading platforms such as ICO assets. As a result, investing in the volatile financial markets has never been as easy but also as uncertain as it is now.
Especially because there are so many options, choosing a provider can be time-consuming and frustrating. Especially when it comes to meeting your particular investment needs.
Have you already invested in ICO assets? If so, the following points are relevant for you as an investor.
- When trading on the internet, you can use a wide range of order types.
- An optimal contact point for capital investors who want to inform themselves about shares, futures, binary options and cryptocurrencies is a web presence like this one.
- Access to the international stock markets becomes easier and more interesting for investors through online investments.
The following information is basic advice for investors – regardless of the platform you invest in.
Is ICO Assets credible? Identifying reputable service providers for cyber trading
The following considerations should be kept in mind when looking for ways to invest your money online:
- It can be very helpful to ask what other customers are saying about a potential provider, even if it is only on the net.
- In The Federal Republic of Germany, the imprint must include a postal address, the contact details of an authorised representative of ICO Assets and a telephone number.
- Quality seals are often used by fake shops to suggest that they are reputable. To find out if there is a link to the seal of approval website and if the shop is listed there, click on the image of the seal. It is quite possible that the operator of the WWW site has merely copied the seal from another Internet site and transferred it to his own website without the appropriate certification.
- Look for an imprint on the provider’s homepage. If this is not the case, it means: Hands off! However, also note that an imprint can be faked.
- Financial service providers such as ICO Assets must be licensed in Germany by the Federal Financial Supervisory Authority (BaFin). The BaFin’s company database contains information on authorised service providers.
Does ICO Assets have foreign accounts? Be cautious about payments as a matter of principle
Is it beneficial for you to transfer capital outside Europe? Look carefully at what you are doing. Many investors have already lost money in this context. You may lose track of where your money is going and how it is invested.
When capital has been made available to a provider, it has happened that the provider did not invest the transferred amount as agreed or even not at all. There were also cases where the company simply did not exist, although it presented itself in a similar way to ICO assets.
Apart from the licensed service providers, there are countless dubious online trading platforms where a very similar procedure can be observed in most cases. Potential investors are contacted by employees of the respective trading platform. For example, by telephone after the new customer has left non-binding contact information on the service provider’s website.
In many cases, however, they are also contacted by mass e-mails. These entice with seemingly money-making investments.
In the short term, the investor is provided with his own broker who instructs him on how to set up a trading account and make the first deposits. At first, the investor feels well advised and trading begins for the most part with small amounts.
But soon larger deposits are required – often to foreign accounts. Such payments are supposed to increase the possible profits.
Obstacles with dubious service providers finally arise as soon as the investor demands a repayment. This is usually delayed further and further or linked to additional payments such as alleged taxes and brokerage commissions.
In the past, the criminals traded exclusively from dubious locations. Now they operate from completely different places such as the United Kingdom (including London), the Netherlands, Canada, the Kingdom of Spain, Dubai and others.
For many people, it is costly to identify tricky scams. It is not uncommon for companies to receive e-mail orders with immense order volumes that bear no relation to the usual purchase amounts. To lure the German company, they work with big promises of profits.
However, the enormous order volume only serves as leverage in talks with the factory owner to demand correspondingly excessive registration and licensing costs.
It is not always clear whether the recipient of this payment is also the purchaser of the goods. Nevertheless, one can assume that companies operating abroad will not have to pay regional taxes on shipments to other countries in the foreseeable future. Check whether this also applies to investments in ICO assets.
What are the risks in the grey capital market?
Only a small number of financial market participants such as ICO Assets are subject to official regulation and supervision. In the grey capital market, financial service providers trade who do not even need a licence from the Federal Financial Supervisory Authority and have to fulfil nothing more than a few regulatory conditions.
Only invest in the grey capital market if you are convinced of the company’s solvency and know it as a company. As I said, BaFin has no control over these service providers.
The grey capital market holds a wealth of possibilities. There are:
- Loans with a subordination agreement
- Direct investments such as in timber, precious metals or other commodities
- Crowdfunding offers
- Profit participation rights and other hybrid bond forms
- Ordinary bonds
One thing is certain: it is unclear what the final outcome will be for the investor.
Do you find it difficult to keep track of what is on offer? If so, you should gather as much information as possible before making a choice.
Don’t invest in anything you don’t fully understand! When it comes to investments, the more knowledge you need, the more complicated the financial instrument.
It is also not advisable to put all your capital on one horse. Diversify your risk beyond ICO assets.
To avoid being influenced incorrectly, always focus on the product itself and not on the brand name or the presentation of the financial service.
Online broker refuses to distribute? Act quickly & contact legal advice
Investors are repeatedly wooed by an “online broker” or call centre employee the moment they set up an account on the apparent online trading platform. The intention is to encourage the investor to increase their long-term investments in order to maximise their income. This is also a legitimate goal of the financial service provider ICO Assets.
Immediately after the investor has deposited his capital, the first profit developments may be shown on his user account. This should encourage the investor to continuously invest in the financial product.
The operators of the trading platform, on the other hand, can use fraud software to simulate manipulated account movements and earnings without the customer noticing anything.
Check that accounts can be authorised equally with ICO Assets.
In reality, no trading takes place on several online trading platforms per se. Rather, the money transferred is forwarded by the perpetrators to accounts abroad. This is not registered by the investors at first.
The “online brokers” delay the disbursement of the presented money gains by demanding the payment of apparently accruing taxes and commissions from the investors. These manipulations only serve the purpose of increasing profits.
At some point, the contact breaks off completely. The transferred capital is used up. From this point on, the only way to take the necessary steps is to go to a lawyer.
Duty to inform about commissions and costs
Before investing in ICO Assets, find out how much of your investment will be used to cover costs, fees and commissions. This is a good time to examine the information provided by the providers in detail!
Investors must be informed of all costs included and their impact on the profit margin of investment service providers. In addition, remuneration must be presented separately.
Assuming that you request a presentation of all costs, the financial service providers are under an obligation to provide you with this information.
A broker like ICO Assets is normally interested in as many trading transactions as possible for obvious reasons. Often the costs are so high that it is difficult to make a profit. The costs can even devour the invested assets in a very short time.
Therefore, be sure to pay attention to the costs! The broker’s trading fees must be available to everyone. The clarity of the cost structure is also specified in the applicable regulations and licensing.
If an offence is present, the provider’s regulatory licence can be withdrawn.
Repayment of ICO Assets – Hiring a Law Firm
It is advisable to take action as soon as possible if the suspicion is confirmed that an online trading provider is not acting reputably and the risk exists that the broker is delaying its repayments. Apart from a criminal complaint, which our law firm files with the police authority on behalf of our clients, and a report to the tax authorities, the provider should possibly also be held accountable under applicable law.
This involves reviewing the claims against the online broker agreed in the contract and any chances of compensation.
In the case of financial transactions, it is also relevant to check whether financial institutions can be held liable in the event of an error. Claims for compensation against banking institutions can arise, for example, in the case of money laundering or other fraudulent acts. However, this must be checked on a case-by-case basis.
If your online broker delays the distribution, you should contact a reliable law firm immediately:
- Give us the names and contact details of all the people you have spoken to
- Explain the facts of the case to our law firm by e-mail
- Let us know how long the provider has been refusing to pay you
Our lawyers will give you a free initial assessment in relation to ICO assets. We will also let you know in a timely manner whether we believe you have a real chance of recovering your losses.