IPC (iprimecapital.com) watchlist — The Incidence tracker

In reviewing IPCapital we identified 3 core things that are to be adhered to and can be used to benchmark IPC performance:

a. Validity of trades

b. Credibility of company

c. Soundness of their policies

Any contravention of these 3 benchmark, leads to question on the respective criteria and I consider it as an incident that enters the registry. These is important in order to be alert as investors. Incidence can either be resolved or remain unresolved. Any resolved incident we will recategorize to Risk-Low any pending item will retain it’s original risk categorization.

Our risk category and actions are as follows based on our Risk-First approach:

a) Risk Low :Nothing to worry about

b) Risk Medium : Be on standby/alert

c) Risk High : Go/No go or Stay or No stay decision to be made.

Current Recommendation: High Risk — No Go.

This is based on the following:

1) lack of customer support

2) non payment of profit and bonuses for the week 22nd March 2022 to 25th March 2022,

3) rejection of withdrawals on 26th March 2022

4) loss of funds in USDT wallet on 26th March 2022 and

5) subscribing users to a new bot service on 29th March 2022 that locks 100% capital for 100 days without any contractual agreement in place or their consent.

1. #CompanyCredibility : Terms and Conditions

Company should be transparent in its terms and conditions and ensure information is accessible in it’s back-office

Hidden info:

• Minimum internal transfer — 20$
• Withdrawal charge — 3$
• Minimum withdrawal amount — 10$
• Withdrawal approval time — 5min to 24 hours
• 20% of deposit cannot be withdrawn before 3 months.
• Withdraw from MT4 Trading Capital to USDT wallet has to be in multiple of 50$
• Withdraw from MT4 Trading Capital to USDT wallet cannot be done during weekdays.
• Risk level — Low (Information displayed before doing transaction)

2. #CompanyCredibility: Customer Support

IPC launched an internal chat which they later withdrew and only use email which they hardly reply. There’s a critical need to resolve technical issues to reduce customer enquiry and to open more customer support channels to avoid customers being taken advantage of by hackers due to desperation to talk to support. In the internal chat, I had an experience where it was showing connection lost and advising I check on my internet connection. Even though I used my laptop, phone and tried on Wifi and a different mobile network without any success. When I was finally able to successfully open 2 tickets, no response was given. As a consumer-facing business, they should invest more in their front office operations.

• Risk level —Medium

3. #TradeValidity: MT4 Withdrawals: 14th Feb 2022

MT4 Withdrawals. Slow payout of MT4 Withdrawals due to MT4 Server issues. Company working on each withdrawal.

• Risk level -Low (Resolved and recategorize from Risk Medium)

4. #SoundPolicies: Airdrop: 17th Feb 2022

The company did an airdrop and as they say “no fixed number of users receiving the airdrop as all lucky winners will be randomly picked”. Goes contrary to their equality statement on their website. In a way, it simply means the company can determine who gets more transactions than the rest.

• Risk level — Low ( Marketing campaign)

5. #TradeValidity : Inaccessible MT4 statements : 17th Feb 2022

Slow updates on closed trades. Issue being said to be due to MT4 server congestion and upgrades ongoing. Reports accessible from IPC Back-office “Menu — Report”.

• Risk level — Low (Resolved)

6. #TradeValidity: Excess Funds Credited: 22nd Feb 2022

A technical glitch led to some accounts having excess funds sent to them. Accounts that received glitches of excess funds were audited and excess funds deducted and sent back to the source.

• Risk level — Low (Resolved and recategorize from Risk Medium)

7. #SoundPolicies: Users were unable to generate wallet deposit addresses and fund accounts: 23rd Feb 2022

Upgrade done to create new deposit addresses with 2 extra networks added i.e. USDT (ERC20) & USDT (BEP20) to existing USDT (TRC20)

• Risk level — Low

8. #CompanyCredibility: Delay in withdrawals: 26th — 28th Feb 2022

Takes around T + 2 (48 hours) for withdrawals to go through. I initiated withdrawal on 28th February 2022. It’s now taken 4 days as of 5th March 2022. The transaction shows pending but it has not been sent to the USDT network even though some upline is saying it’s due to network congestion, which isn’t the case as it’s not visible in tronscan.io and just shows processing from IPC backend. It’s good to note that some users have faster withdrawals even when they’re initiated afterwards. So there’s partiality in the withdrawal process.

• Risk level — Low

9. #CompanyCredibility: Customer Support. 24th March 2022

Removal of customer-facing staff and the whole marketing team that was assisting with support. Their support still remains non-operational. Looks like a bunch of techies running a startup who despise the essence of good customer service. This draws a question to their long term commitment on being an ongoing concern.

These were after the following videos by respective people, which personally I found to be okay and true approaching the company from a risk-first perspective:

Eddie :

Nate :

• Risk level — High

10. #CompanyCredibility: Lack of proper accounting procedures. 26th March 2022

Lack of double-entry transactions. The debit of MT4 trading account without a matching Credit transaction in USDT wallet. These contravene the rule of double-entry, making their accountability process questionable. The company may be having suspense accounts from which they pay. This draws questions on the validity of their trading and the ability of the bot to generate profit.

It’s simple if the company has generated profits why is it that they require an approval process to authorize withdrawals. Do they have to check if they have enough money in order to pay? Raises a lot of questions over whether they’re paying from profits generated from trading.

• Risk level — High

11. #CompanyCredibility:Website not reachable. 28th March 2022

Website not reachable. No communication from the company of why the website isn’t reachable.

• Risk level — High

12. #CompanyCredibility:Security breach and loss of funds. 29th March 2022

The company through an official statement purported that a security breach resulted in loss of 80% of their funds and compromise of data and statistical analysis of the bot. The company says it will repay user’s trading capital from its own funds. Well the trading capital from the site that is amount following has still remained over 400m$ so it’s clear, it didn’t lose 80% of trading capital in the platform but rather of profits and bonuses. The amount that is still missing or unpaid is the weekly profits and bonuses, withdrawals are getting rejected. Initially the weekend before, the company said that there will be no withdrawals due to MT4 API upgrade. So for 2 weekends, the first being prior to launch of Master-C bot the next after launching it, no profits have been paid. Now the management is saying that they will be making adjustments to the management bonus definitely a way to get people to recruit more people and perhaps make payment from new deposits.

13. # CompanyCredibility: The Downward Spiral. 26th March 2022

• 20th to 21st March 2022 Weekend: Upgrade on MT4 API withdrawals from MT4 wallet to USDT wallet could not be done.
• 21st March 2022: Launch of new crypto bot system. IPC faired well with Genius bot focused on Forex, they’re a strong performer in a ranging market, crypto was standing to trend. No track record of performance in myfxbook, adoption into the new system was slower than expected despite it having better returns. I think locking your capital for 100% might have been the issue.
• 24th March 2022: Sacking of key marketing staff that were assisting clients with customer support issues
• 27th to 28th March 2022 Weekend: Withdrawals rejected, money in USDT wallet lost, Weekly profits and management bonus not paid. The company claims the Fx bots have been breached and moves everyone to Crypto bot without their consent or any contractual agreement thus locking their capital for 100 days.

March 2022 Performance Conclusion

Validity of trading is now questionable

Credibility of the company is now questionable

Soundness of their policy is now questionable

This is based on the following, it let go some staff based on breach of contractual obligations but the same company is in breach of its own contractual obligations to it’s customers by subscribing them to a new service without their consent. *Credibility of company, Soundness of their policies

It also looks like the company may have incurred significant losses during it’s trading. Most of its trades are counter-trend and venturing into crypto a highly volatile asset class with a scalping strategy wasn’t a good move. Especially at a time the trend was changing. *Validity of trading, Soundness of their policies

To venture to new products like the new Master-C bot and IPCloud while they can’t even manage transactions speed, faster withdrawal and security of systems and funds is a bad move. This is made worse by removing a good service that yielded great returns. What’s not broken don’t fix. So if they say it’s because of data breach of parameters, that means they don’t have even a backup for their core service so where’s the credibility of having a new service.

Links Tracker

1. Transaction Tracker use tronscan.io

Videos of Incidences

Summary

Pending items are as follows:

1. Risk Medium :

• Poor customer service,
• MT4 withdrawals delay due to server

2. Risk High:

• Slow withdrawals from IPC to own USDT wallet

A poor customer service and delays in withdrawals has resulted in desperation among customers making them to be desperate and hence vulnerable to hackers who pretend to be customer service.