An investor just wanted to apply for a withdrawal at Hengchang Forex, but instead of receiving the expected withdrawal, they received two consecutive notices from the platform: one about the restriction of account usage and another about the payment of taxes for the trading account. In their complaint, the investor stated, "I'm not even asking to withdraw all the money from my account, I just hope the platform will return my initial capital of 42,000 yuan."
Hengchang's Two Collection Notices:
Exposing that the investor primarily engaged in gold trading on the Hengchang platform, with a current account balance of 193,983 yuan, of which 42,000 yuan is their principal.
Not long ago, the investor applied for a withdrawal at Hengchang. On August 14th, they received a notice of account usage restriction (as shown below), citing the reason for the restriction as "the trading order volume has exceeded the account balance," and the platform required them to "make a deposit to replenish the excess 94,592 yuan margin" before the account restriction could be lifted.
This is an unheard-of reason for blocking an account. Normally, if the margin is insufficient, the platform would prohibit the creation of new orders, and existing orders would be forcibly closed due to market fluctuations. However, the platform would not block the trading account for this reason. Unfortunately, the investor did not realize the issue.
On August 16th, the investor received another notice from the Hengchang platform. Ironically, the platform claimed that the funds had been withdrawn normally but also requested the user to pay a 5% personal income tax on the total funds before a successful withdrawal could be processed, creating a contradiction in their communication. After reading this notice, the investor likely didn't understand which country's tax Hengchang was asking them to pay, and it's unclear if this was intentional obfuscation or the result of limited skills by the fraudsters.
Three r
egulatory authorities, all in confusion:
When a platform demands additional funds for withdrawals under various pretexts, it is undoubtedly entering a fraudulent trading platform. Investors are strongly advised to remember this and avoid falling victim to repeated scams.
Upon investigation, it was found that the domain of the fake Hengchang platform was created on June 28th of this year, making it one of the newest fraudulent platforms to emerge. It claims to belong to HengChang Foreign Exchange Finance Co., Ltd and is regulated by the New Zealand FSP, Saint Vincent FSA, and the U.S. NFA.
After verifying with the regulatory authorities in these three countries, it was discovered that all three have registered HengChang companies. However, it's essential to differentiate between company registration and financial regulation. Company registration is akin to business registration, while financial regulation pertains specifically to the financial industry. The entities claimed by HengChang, namely the New Zealand FSP and Saint Vincent FSA, are not financial regulatory bodies. In New Zealand, the financial derivatives regulatory authority is the FMA, and in the U.S., there were no search results related to "HengChang." Therefore, HengChang is, in reality, an unregulated fraudulent platform. Investors are strongly urged to steer clear.
