Winoptions Review
| Broker | Winoptions |
|---|---|
| US Traders Accepted | |
| Company Name | ChargeXP Investments Ltd. |
| Headquarters | Nicosia, Cyprus |
| Regulation | No |
| Bonus Type | Match bonus |
| Bonus Size | 50% |
| Max Payout | 88% |
| Out-of-Money Reward | No |
| Trading Platform | Pro Trader Platform |
| Deposit Options | Credit/debit cards, Skrill, Perfect Money, CashU, LibertyReserve, wire transfer, AlertPay |
| Deposit Currencies | EUR, GBP, USD |
| Minimum Deposit | $350 |
| Minimum Trade | $5 |
| Maximum Trade | $4,500 |
| Online Since | 2010 |
| Trading Instruments | Currencies, commodities, indices and stocks |
| Number of Trading Instruments | 80 |
| Binary Option Types | One Touch, Call/Put, Long Term, 60 Seconds |
| Customer Support Types | Live chat, phone (not toll free), web form. Their live chat refused to talk to us and demanded to email them. Actually, their live chat is a robot. |
| Education Offered | FAQ, glossary, brief section on technical analysis, a section on "Features" (types of binary options trades), and a Markets Review section with daily overview on news. There iss a free trading guide in the email when you join the site. If you open a VIP account, you can get 1-on-1 training and a free online course. |
| Commission | There is a fee to withdraw via Skrill or Alert Pay ($5) and wire transfer ($25) |
| Languages | English, French, Arabic |
| Demo Account | No |
WinOptions is a Cyprus-based binary options broker that offers services to traders around the globe, including US traders. If you’re trading in the US, however, you can only trade stocks and indices (you’ll notice this to be the case among many different brokers). WinOptions seems to be a mix of very good and very bad; they do offer a lot more flexibility in terms of trade amounts as well as some very nice bonuses, but there are a lot of reasons to consider steering clear as well. Customer service is poor, the site itself is questionably built, there is still no mobile trading, and there is no indication that the company is regulated.
Opening an Account with WinOptions
Opening an account with Options is easy using credit or debit card, Skrill, Perfect Money, Liberty Reserve, CashU, or wire transfer. Opening an account is free, but you cannot trade without making a deposit. There is a “Demo” area on the site, but it isn’t a demo testing platform, just a video. It’s important to try and demo test before you trade with real money, even if you do it on a separate platform from the one you end up using. So keep that in mind if you decide to trade with WinOptions.
The deposit minimum is 350 USD, GBP, or EUR, which is a tad higher than the minimum offered by many other brokers, but still not very high. The bonuses are great; you can get up to 50 percent match bonus for every deposit you make up to 10,000 EUR, GBP, or USD. The more money you deposit, the higher tier your account and the more freebies you get. If you open a Mini Account with $350 or the equivalent, you’ll receive $105 as a bonus. If you open a VIP account with $20,000 or more, you’ll receive $10,000, a free online course, ten hours of 1-on-1 training, and a free iPad. That’s a very substantial bonus!
The maximum payout per trade is 88 percent (pretty good), but there is no out-of-money reward; you lose 100 percent of your investments when they go against you, which isn’t great. There don’t appear to be any trading fees (just fees for certain withdrawal methods), and there is a lot of flexibility for trading. You have around 80 assets to choose from, and you can do long term trades or 60-second trades. Call/Put and One Touch are both available. You can trade as little as 5 USD or your equivalent currency, even on Call/Put trades, not just the 60-second options, which is fantastic if you’re starting out small. There is a limit on how much you can invest in a single open option (2000 USD or equivalent) or on a single asset (4500 USD), but there is no limit on how much you can invest at a time overall, which is great if you’re going big.
Customer Service and Resources
So why WinOptions is still not a broker we’d highly recommend? Despite all this flexibility, it’s the company itself that seems questionable. There is very little information available about ChargeXP Investments Ltd., the operator of WinOptions, and whether the broker is regulated. The website itself, while well enough organized, is in poor English (it is available in French and Arabic as well). While this in itself doesn’t point toward shadiness, it is a bit odd that they haven’t found the money to get someone to go through and edit their pages to professional caliber.
Resources are minimal; there is a glossary, FAQ, a brief section on technical analysis (nothing you could build a method around by itself), a “Features” section that tells you a bit about binary options types as well as rollover and some of the other features the company offers, and a Markets Review section with a daily overview on news. You’re sent a free trading guide in an email when you join the website. If you open a VIP account you can receive free 1-on-1 training and a free online course.
Customer service was where WinOptions really seemed like it could use some work. When you’re investing your money with a company, you expect that company to deliver top-notch customer service. Anything short of that doesn’t show the proper respect for your resources or your business. WinOptions offers customer service via live chat, phone (not toll free) and web form, as well as an email address. The company says that it responds to emails within 24 hours.
We tried to use the live chat feature to get in touch with customer service about several of our questions. The first time we talked to someone, we were told by the live chat agent to send an email instead of use the chat. That seemed a bit strange; other brokers have patiently and kindly answered our questions directly on chat when we contacted them. Why make us wait 24 hours for a response? A few minutes later, we tried live chat again, and this time we asked a specific question about regulation. A moment later, the chat agent replied “If you want to register at WinOptions, please …” followed by instructions for registration. This not only didn’t address our query, but made no sense in light of the fact we were already registered.
So apparently the “live chat” is staffed by a robot and not a human being, which gives automated responses to questions. There is something a bit dishonest about this; it would be much more sensible and reasonable to simply state that live chat is offline when no one is staffing the desk. The live chat robot introduces itself by a random name and pretends to be human. This makes us wonder whether anyone ever staffs the live chat desk at WinOptions.
WinOptions gets top marks for flexibility; it’s great that they include a number of different binary options to trade, plenty of underlying assets, rollover and other helpful features, and flexible trade sizes. Their website’s poor wording and their dubious customer service however cause us to question whether the company is trustworthy and reliable. They may be worth your time and consideration, but they have a bit of work to do before we can give them a recommendation.