LBinary Review 2024 – can they be trusted?

You might have come across recommendations for LBinary in social media, emails and online review sites. LBinary might have proposed very enticing investment opportunities for you, such as NFP trading, "guaranteed" or "insured" trades or large bonuses based on deposit volume.

LBinary is a fraudulent broker. They are not and never have been regulated by a regulator that has the interests of traders at heart (CySEC does not count). There are far too many reports of fraud online, and LBinary were the subject of legal action by the SEC in 2020.

It appears from our as though LBinary is owned and operated by the same individuals that operate Ivory Option - in fact it seems as though they are effectively the same company.

Is LBinary an unsafe broker?

When we research a broker, we look at a number of different factors to determine the legitimacy of their operation. They range from, but aren't limited to the following:

• Can traders reliably get their money out within specified timeframes?
• Does the broker call traders and ask them why they are withdrawing in an attempt to keep their money tied up?
• Does the broker apply unsolicited bonuses with wagering requirements, preventing traders from withdrawing?
• Does the broker perform marketing activities that involve aggressive social media ads and unsolicited emails?

Unfortunately LBinary fails on all points. During their time of operation (which we determine to be from approximately 2012 to 2018) there are reports of consistent fraudulent tactics, which we will expose in this review.

Global offices?

LBinary often claimed to have offices around the globe. They were likely based out of a single office in Israel and appeared to employ a number of different nationalities - there are reports of Arabs, Americans, Israelis and Brits working for LBinary. 

LBinary initially claimed to be part of a company called Chelestra Limited, a company based in the British overseas territory of Gibraltar. It is likely this is simply a fake company established for the purposes of appearing legitimate - many other binary options brokers that turned out to be scams did this.

There have been reports that LBinary also claimed at some point to be part of both of the following companies, but we are unable to verify whether there is any legitimacy to these claims:

• Hortense Holdings
• Targaryen Limited

Both of these companies also appeared to be located in Gibraltar. It's unclear as to the full extent of LBinary's involvement (if there ever was any) in either of these companies.

Withdrawal disputes

Unfortunately we came across a number of very disturbing stories where LBinary simply refused to pay out winnings. We came across one horrendous story which you can read about in detail at Forex Peace Army which involved an LBinary sales agent placing extreme pressure on an unemployed individual to deposit a significant sum of money to buy "insured trades".

Of course - no such thing has ever or will ever exist in the markets. Those insured trades lost, and the individual was not refunded. There was also an accusation that LBinary falsified a bank statement when the individual attempted a chargeback. 

These are not the kind of people you want to deal with when learning how to trade. 

High pressure sales tactics

We noticed a pattern of people who signed up, did not deposit and then were kept on the phone for several hours while LBinary tried to convince them to put huge sums of money in. Once they did deposit, LBinary in some cases fraudulently charged their card for more. Sometimes LBinary would apply a bonus that locked in the user's funds until they had hit an extremely high trading requirement - sometimes up to 30x.

Sometimes then a new account manager would call and berate the victim - saying things like they should "take the loss like a man" and that they "spent more on lunch" than the victim had lost. Sometimes this new person would claim that the previous account manager had been fired, and they would be working together from now on - only to ask for more money for more "guaranteed" or "insured" trading opportunities.

We have a list of supposed "account managers" that have been mentioned numerous times online for this kind of behaviour. If you are approached by anyone using any of the following names, we suggest you hang up the phone.

• Roy Stein
• Stanley Carbone
• Jason Kennedy
• Tony Preston
• Michelle Zappos

This isn't an exhaustive list of people who may have been involved - and these names are almost certainly fake. However, it's crucial that if you are speaking to anyone, you verify that they are who they say they are and that the company they work for is legitimate.

Regulation

We could find no evidence that LBinary has ever been regulated by a Tier 1 regulator (those of the United Kingdom, Germany, United States or Canada). It's possible that they were once regulated by CySEC (the Cyprus Securities and Exchange Commission) but we could find no evidence to confirm this, and as a result there is no evidence of CySEC ever intervening in a dispute or issuing a fine against LBinary. In fact, there is significant evidence of top-tier regulators issuing warnings against dealing with LBinary:

• Securities and Exchange Commission (USA)
• Canadian Securities Association (CSA)

More general warnings have also been issued by the FCA and other European regulators to steer clear of binary options brokers.

Final verdict

Our research methodology

We've been in the industry a long time and we've got a pretty good idea on what makes a scam brokerage firm. As such, we scour the internet looking for genuine trader experiences in the first instance. Often, this is enough to tell us that the broker is a scam - if all experiences are negative, or if there are suspiciously highly-rated reviews from affiliates, that's an indication that we may be dealing with a fraudulent broker. We also like to test the broker ourselves - we deposit with the broker when we can and test that we can get our own money out. We don't tell the broker we're from MobyTrader - we use an account that has no link to this website whatsoever. If we experience problems, we test out their customer support. Unfortunately, if we struggle to get our money out or we're given the run-around, that's an indication that you'll experience the same thing. This is how we arrive at a scam verdict.