A Wake-Up Call for Traders: Unregulated Imperial Trade Keeps Asking for Deposits

Unregulated brokers are always confronted with client complaints due to withdrawal issues or potential fraudulent practices. Imperial Trade is one of the brokers hit with client condemnation recently for a set of tricks for repeatedly asking for deposits.

The client complaint submitted with BrokersView in early May alleged that Imperial Trade required multiple deposits for unjustified requirements such as taxes, gas money, and conversion fees. Beyond that, the fraud case involved two individuals - Jenny Harplers and Edward Smith, who were allegedly an employee and the General Manager, respectively, of Imperial Trade.

The client’s terrible trading journey on imperialtrade.live, Imperial Trade’s trading website, began when he was contacted by Jenny Harplers on Telegram. Jenny’s message involved forex and bitcoin trading and included a user login site.

Initially, on February 15, the client deposited $1,000 under Jenny's instruction. The next day, Jenny informed the client that his investment was profiting a lot and encouraged him to deposit another $1,000 for trading. On February 16, the client therefore deposited an additional $1,000. 

It appeared to be working as expected, a few days later, the client's account dashboard showed that his investment had generated a profit of $21,000.

However, when he decided to withdraw this profit, Imperial Trade asked him to pay $2,100 in taxes. According to the email sent by the broker to the client on February 19, this was a so-called cryptocurrency regulatory tax of 10% of his total profit. 

This was the beginning of Imperial Trade's constant excuses to swindle money from the client, as $1950 in gas money required by the scammer immediately followed. Jenny said the amount could help release his funds.

The story didn’t end here. The client also started receiving text messages on Telegram from Mr. Edward Smith, who claimed to be Imperial Trade’s General Manager, saying that he should send a conversion fee of $500 to withdraw his profit. After the client paid through the company’s website, the scammers blocked him on Telegram. 

The client invested a total amount of approximately $5,500, and there is little hope for him to contact the company and the individuals. BrokersView has conveyed his complaint to Imperial Trade. 

Unveiling Imperial Trade

Imperial Trade, a US-based crypto trading and forex marketing firm, claims to be regulated by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC).

BrokersView’s investigation into Imperial Trade reveals no matching records in the registers of the CFTC and SEC. 

In addition, conducting such operations in the U.S. must be registered as a member of the National Futures Association (NFA), but the platform is not registered and therefore not subject to the NFA’s oversight.

According to the website, Imperial Trade is self-proclaimed as one of the best, most beneficial, and brilliantly successful companies in the industry of forex trading and investing. However, the domain name imperialtrade.live was only registered towards the end of 2023. 

As a result, neither the statement of its regulatory status nor its self-boasting company description is tenable. In fact, Imperial Trade is an unregulated and highly risky broker.

BrokersView Reminds You

Imperial Trade has failed to disclose information about the operators of its website, and it is likely that the dubious individuals behind the platform, Edward Smith and Jenny Harplers, have been soliciting clients and committing fraud through unscrupulous means. The victim in the aforementioned case has disclosed their phone numbers and investors are advised to be wary of SMS or Telegram messages from the numbers.

On the other hand, we found some email screenshots provided by this client regarding Bitcoin purchase orders showing the sender as Cash App, a payment app that does not, to our knowledge, provide an email address as one of its customer service channels. And, we've checked with the company and learned that it doesn't send Bitcoin notifications to users. This further exemplifies Imperial Trade’s fraudulent tactics.

BrokerView always recommends checking the legitimacy of a broker before committing money to minimize the risk of fraud.