Universal-FX.com Review

1.395 • 8 REVIEWS
Out of business
Updated: Apr 13, 2022
August 2013:  There are now two Guilty votes from the FPA Traders Court.  The FPA strongly recommends against doing business with this company unless this and the other issues named above can be resolved.
January 2013:  The BVI Financial Service Commission has issued a warning against Universal-Fx for falsely claiming to be licensed by the BVI-FSC to carry on investment business.  CLICK HERE to read this warning.
December 2012:  Universal Investments GmbH is in liquidationCLICK HERE to see their entry in the Commercial Register of Canton Zurich.
June-July 2012:  Multiple fake positive reviews submitted for this company.

 WARNING:  November-December 2011.  It appears that an employee of Universal-Fx has left fake reviews promoting the company at the FPA.  This sort of abuse is sad, but common.  What is not common is that a review attacking another broker was left from the same location.

The FPA considers this to be a very severe breach of ethics.  We warn traders to treat this company with the highest level of caution dealing with Universal Fx.

Other websites of this company include universal-invest.com

DECEMBER 2013:  Website is closed.  Universal Fx is finally out of business.

Universal-FX.com
Out of business
1.395 • 8 REVIEWS

Recent User Reviews of Universal-FX.com

O
Oze
Sydney, Australia,
Dec 14, 2012,
Guest

I came the Forex world from shares, fell in love with Forex from the first sight but was hit by a scam right from the start.

I opened a corporate trading account with Universal-FX on 1 Nov 2012, despite of the fact that everything inside of me was shouting DO NOT DO IT as everything about Universal was so suspicious. I supressed my feelings, and the common sense for this matter, converted AUD 10,000 and wired as CHF 9,531 to fund my account on 6 Nov 2012.

Universal would not confirm the receipt of CHF 9,531 for days; I had to arrange for a bank tracer to locate the funds. The trace positively established that the CHF 9,531 actually arrived in their account in Zurich on the same day as posting from Sydney but Universal suppressed this fact and would not respond.

In the meantime, heaps of follow-up Emails was sent to Universal, to no response. I tried to call them but none of their phones is actually alive, just a voice box massaging system.

Then out of the blue on 22 Nov 2012 Universal sent me an Email that this amount has been successfully (sic!) credited. And what a success it was! (Cannot help of being ironic). All I got was just a 9,531 figure fleshing on my MT4 terminal, that’s all it was. No base currency was designated to this amount (as CHF). My EA refused to work, of course, as it was a boggy set-up. But still in parallel, they sent me an electronic statement, also without the base currency designation.

Given this bogus set-up and the bad experience to date, all I wanted was to cut my losses and at least partly recover my funds. I decided to sacrifice some amount in a hope of get majority returned back to Sydney.

So on 28 Nov 2012 I sent them a signed withdrawal request (on their proper brokerage form) just for CHF 8,000. I also indicated an EA issue and that I will still trade with them for the remaining amount manually (CHF 1,531). There was no response to this withdrawal request from Universal.

Then a few days later they disabled my account all together. I was totally cut off – even the MT4 terminal would not work, never mind that it was on the boggy set-up. I re-send them the request for the restatement of my account on MT4 and also the transfer back CHF 8,000 as previously requested.

After a few days on 7 Dec 2012 they sent me Email in which they advised that they had changed their banks. Therefore, in order to receive my funds they invited me to sign their pre-typed letter (in German) and send it to Credit Swiss bank.
The letter read:
SehrgeehrteDamen und Herren,
IchhabefälschlicherweiseeineÜberweisungimBetrag von 9‘531.00 CHF, auf die obengenannte Firma getätigt. Das war nichtmeineAbsicht. FälschlicherweisehatteichmitverschiedenFirmen den Kontakt und habewohl die falsche Firma wieauch die falsche Bank alsbegünstigeneingesetzt.
IchbitteSie den obengenanntenBetrag so raschwiemöglich auf meinKontozurückzubuchen! Vielen Dank für die Mithilfe und entschuldigenSiemeinVersehen.
Translation:
I have mistakenly undertaken a transfer for funds of 9,531.00 CHF to the company named above. That was not my intention. Mistakenly I had contact with several companies and must have used an incorrect company as well as incorrect bank as receiver.
Please transfer to amount stated above back to my account as soon as possible. Thank you for your assistance and apologies for my mistake.”

This attempt by Universal was a criminal act to fraudulently extract money from Credit Swiss, and my true money was still in Universal’s care and custody. At that time I consulted with legal professionals and they confirmed this finding.

On 11 Dec 2012 I wrote to Universal stating that I will not act on their fraudulent instructions and that they have committed a financial crime by inducing me to falsify the true nature of the transaction. I requested a total withdrawal of funds CHF 9,531 and set an unbreakable deadline of Friday 14 December 2012 at 17:00 Australian Eastern Time for the receipt of these amount in our account in Sydney. This letter was addressed to Fabian Gaspar, Vladimir Krecmer, Dragan Djordjevic and Bojan Djukic.
My letter concluded:
“Should the requested amount not be received on our side by this deadline we will place this case with international police authorities through the Australian Federal Police to pursue the above mentioned four (4) individuals for running a criminal organisation on the international basis.”

On 13 Dec 2012, Universal sent me an Email still insisting that I should send them the signed letter to Credit Swiss. I reply re-stating my position that I will not sign any fraudulent letter and re-requested the return of the total funds as per the attached signed withdrawal form.
My letter concluded:
“Please be advised that the criminal dossiers for the above mentioned four (4) individuals have been alreadyprepared in readiness.These dossiers will be released to the relevant international criminal authorities just one (1) minute pass thedeadline on Friday 14 Dec 2012 at 17:00 Australian Eastern Time. I urge you to act immediately to avoid this overrun.”

As Universal failed to transfer CHF 9,531 by the set deadline I am releasing the set of documentation, FPA included.
A
Alex
Russia, Russian Federation,
Nov 29, 2012,
Guest

live since 2 weeks, i saw the spreads on myfxbook and they are identical with my account..
N
nc
Athens, Greece,
Oct 26, 2012,
Guest

Seems this broker is black listed by FINMA


http://www.donnaforex.com/forum/index.php?topic=5215.msg219829#new

2012-02-012Star I checked this broker and it looks OK, ecn, swiss bank all ok. But I could not open a demo account. Tried 3 times on different days to call them via various networks and chat with them and there was no answer either by phone or chat. I can not find when the company was registered, registration number.

It looks good but support and organization nil. Hope the fix it if they are serious. I am staying out from this one until they short out and I see some good reviews.

NC
O
Oskar
Moscow, Russian Federation,
Oct 16, 2012,
Guest

Good broker with tight spreads, always 0.2-0.4pips in major pairs.
I just have a MT account but i want to trade powertrader too.
G
Gytis
, Lithuania,
Sep 27, 2012,
Guest

Everything looks fine until first withdrawal request. I never got my money only explanation that they sent it but they don't know where it dissappeared. Stay away. Total SCAM.
N
Nick
Zurich, Switzerland,
Sep 18, 2012,
Guest

Issue escalated to Traders Court Nicknick vs. UniversalFx.com | GUILTY
I transferred $52K USD to UniversalFX. I traded on it for 1 month. Made $5K and asked for a broker to broker widthdrawl. They said no problem. Sent me a screen grab of the wire details. 2 months has gone by and the money has not arrived. I have contacted the received broker numerous times and had their bank try to locate any rouge wires - nothing found! I call UniversalFX daily - only the sales guy Vladimir answers and always tells me the others are not in. Universal only has to request a wire trace from their bank Credit Suisse to prove where the money has gone to - but THE HAVE NOT DONE THIS - and not once apologized or made any effort to be pro-active here. I have also went to the office location they post on their site Limmatquai 84 in Zurich. There is no office here, they are not listed on the door - in fact its a store that sells clothes! I would post the pics here cause you cant see them on Google Maps but there is no place to upload on this form.
Anyway UniversalFX - if you are reading this - you know who I am and all you have to do is send me my money!
Today is September 18, 2012
This is a complete waste of my time now that I have to fight with this broker to get MY Money back!
G
GRJ
London, United Kingdom,
Jun 18, 2012,
Guest

OK, so I was looking for an ECN and a key criteria for me would be that they were appropriately regulated. Being in the UK, I know about the FSA, so was interested to find this company through other searches. There web pages looked very professional, commission seemed tight, spreads even tighter, trading with MT4 and appear to welcome EAs, and even actively promote that Beeks VPS is based in the same location as their servers.

Next stage was to test out their customer service, having seen some of the comments here. 9.35pm GMT and their on-line support appeared to be offline. I posted a question and received a response at 10:15pm. OK, so they are at least online.

So I asked about this posting at the FSA (UK regulator whom they are not registered with, and was from some time ago, but still ...) http://www.fsa.gov.uk/pages/Doing/Regulated/Law/pdf/universal_17jul07.pdf There response was that this company was nothing to do with them, although I found it under a search based on their postcode from their website.

The customer services representative I was chatting to claims they have 2,000 customers now. I've asked for details of their British Virgin Islands registered number and their repsonse was "our company reg.number is 1676003 issued from BVI business registry". So I asked if this was a financial services register or simply company register and the response was "this is our certificate of inc. number, we are still waiting for FSC license number

}10:26 pm all client fund are 100% safe at segregated accounts in our credit suisse bank in Zurich, CH"
V
Volker A.
, Germany,
Mar 24, 2012,
Guest

Since 19th Januaray 2012 I do have a real money account with this company.
Ever since they were not able to make it possible for me to enter the client area. Support was always telling me, that client area will be accessable the following week due to website changes. Until today they were not able to help me in this case.
I told them, that I will not make any deposits unless I can log into the client area.
After that I received an e-mail- that my account will be closed, if I do not make a deposit.
The only thing I replied was "Go ahead and close my account"!

I can not recomment a broker, with such a bad support!
P
Phil
Nice, France,
Feb 20, 2012,
Guest

Regarding the post " I checked this broker and it looks OK, ecn, swiss bank all ok. But I could not open a demo account. Tried 3 times on different days to call them via various networks and chat with them and there was no answer either by phone or chat. I can not find when the company was registered, registration number.

It looks good but support and organization nil. Hope the fix it if they are serious. I am staying out from this one until they short out and I see some good reviews."

It's true they are not yet registered. On communication side I cannot buy what you are claiming. I ALWAYS had immediate responses and support from Universal FX. Regarding registration they told me this is on going. So far I'm waiting to receive final number before to send money there. Outside this pending issue ( and hoping there is no game ..) I believe Universal FX is going to become the best place to trade.

2012-01-26 No Rating I'm a bit surprised by lack of positive reviews on this broker. I'm using it since few weeks ( demo only ) and I'm really happy with it. Very low commissions , very tight spread, no freezing ...all what we all dream about. I compared several best ECN Brokers recently and I came to the conclusion this one is the best. Please inform us if you have any doubts or warning of any sorts as it's a new comer.
A
Alex
, Czech Republic,
Jan 17, 2012,
Guest

They told me they are regulated by BVI FSC but this information is not present on their web site and no registration number is given. When I tried to email them about some IA conditions using the email address posted at their website I got the error

Delivery to the following recipient failed permanently:

partnerships@universal-fx.com

Technical details of permanent failure:
Google tried to deliver your message, but it was rejected by the recipient domain. We recommend contacting the other email provider for further information about the cause of this error. The error that the other server returned was: 553 553 5.3.0 ... No such user here (state 14).

Their spreads, comissions, all look good but I can't avoid a feeling there is something under the carpet. Can be wrong though.