eToro scammed me, taking 7500 USD. Fraud.

[The Reaper of F]

That is some high-level scam right there. I wouldn't open up an account or deposit a huge amount to a low tier broker though. Just saying.

 

[limbonick]

Sad case about this awful brokerage company called etoro.

After using etoro trading platform for two years, on March 30th 2017, I realized by myself that my account was completely blocked, strange situation since I had not been given any notice. I couldnt open new positions, withdrawals were automatically rejected. Panic! I tried to get in touch with the company but it was in vain, I was ignored every time. At some point I thought their servers had been hacked.

Many days later, on April 3rd 2017, I discovered almost 7500 USD had been silently wiped out from my balance. I got really worried. I attempted many times to reach the company’s customer support to get an explanation about what had happened since I did not have a single clue, but I was told nothing.

After being ignored by the etoro for more than a week (absolutely unprofessional!) I received the first reply from the company on April 7th, in which they took responsibility for both actions, alleging they had suffered delays on their price quotes during the days 20 to 24th of March 2017, alleging that I had supposedly used a strategy based on those delays and that, enabled by their terms and conditions, they had blocked my account and had taken the total profits I had made during those dates.
etoro only gave me the list of the trades that were apparently involved and refused to show me any other information. They further threatened to void all my transactions and terminate the relationship if this trading behavior continued.

This is total fraud. I was never aware of any delays during dates 20 to 24th of March on their platform, and I certainly did not develop a strategy based on them.
Can't get any more unfair than this.

I know this is an old post but I'm facing the same situation today. I cannot withdraw funds, I cannot open new positions or even deposit money.
How did you solve this problem, did eToro unblocked your account, did you get your money back?

 

[FxMaster]

I know this is an old post but I'm facing the same situation today. I cannot withdraw funds, I cannot open new positions or even deposit money.
How did you solve this problem, did eToro unblocked your account, did you get your money back?

Open a new thread in scam folder along with the details of your problem with them.

 

[RooKiED]

I know this is an old post but I'm facing the same situation today. I cannot withdraw funds, I cannot open new positions or even deposit money.
How did you solve this problem, did eToro unblocked your account, did you get your money back?

Hey Limbo.
I'm very sorry to hear you suffered a similar situation. My case, unfortunately, is still unresolved. Ill explain below and update the thread.

 

[RooKiED]

Here's the update on this thread for you guys, I'm sorry I didnt post here, it could have helped people.
I also opened a thread on a different forum/website, I will try to keep both up to date.

Following advice from this forum and other amazing communities I contacted most financial regulatory bodies:
CFTC / NFA (US) FCA (UK) AMF (France) and explained my situation. 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 that only responds in case of a collective complaint; for individual complaints like mine the mediation/investigation is done by the FOC -Financial Ombudsman of Cyprus-. The bad thing is they cover all Europe and thus they hardly keep up with all the complaints they receive, they really have a bad reputation in general with their service and that is why I tried to avoid them in the first place.
But since I didn't have any other option, I went ahead and contacted them.
The Financial Ombudsman of Cyprus told me they would accept my case, and so I filed a complaint with them and attached a very detailed report of everything that had happened.
They accepted the complaint May 30th 2017 and the case has been under investigation since.

 

[RooKiED]

It's been almost 470 days already since my case was accepted by FOC. This only shows that my suspicions about them and their bad reputation were correct.
The Financial Ombudsman of Cyprus service has been very impersonal to me.
A couple of secretaries/assistants have only replied to my inquiries with textbook / semi-automated messages asking me to wait, and simply refuse to share anything about the case or hand me contact information from any investigator that is supposedly handling my case. Luckily my initial report was very complete, but it sucks that I do not receive any feedback or followup on it. I understand though that their behavior is consequence of the pile of complaints they receive and cant keep up with.
Still, I am expecting and hoping for a resolution from them soon, Q4 2018.

 

[RooKiED]

I've been bugging them every month hoping for the decision to come.
This is their last response I got last week:

In reply to your email dated 23 of August 2018, I would like to inform you that your complaint is in the final stage of the investigation. Kindly note that I do not have a specific date to give you, but once the final decision is issued we will inform you immediately.

Kind regards,
Andria Papandreou​

And so I'm waiting .

 

[Pharaoh]

The Cyprus Financial Ombudsman was created without considering the massive avalanche of complaints that would come crashing in because Cysec did such a poor job vetting brokers a few years ago. Gentle persistence combined with large amounts of patience seems to be the best way to deal with this, based on the reports I've ready here.

I hope they aren't blufffing. Just keep it up with gentle reminders and questions like "Is there any more info you need from me?" every 4-6 weeks and you may get a final ruling sometime between now and Spring 2019.