AAX exchange is the first cryptocurrency exchange built on LSEG. It also offers very high staking and savings rates on cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin, Tether, USD Coin etc. The rates could be up to 80% APY on these coins.
It also provides a sign up bonus (up to 50 USDT), but about the bonus you can read some negative reviews on Trustpilot. The bonus can be claimed after getting trading volume of 10,000 USDT. If you count the fees (about 0.1%), the fees will cost you 10 USDT, so the bonus is now only about 40 USDT.
Personally, I was only interested by those high APY on stablecoins, so, I started my research.
First, I went to the AAX Telegram Group. I asked the admin about the negative reviews on Trustpilot. They were mostly about KYC and withdrawal.
For example:
One person deposited some assets to AAX, because he thought that they are non-KYC users friendly, but when he tried to withdraw, they forced him to do KYC 1 (documents, informations...) to complete the withdrawal.
He wrote that he don't want to send his ID to scammers like AAX.
The admin on Telegram said that if you withdraw less than 30 USDT (or equivalent value in other crypto), the transaction is marked as a risk and sent to their "risk control team".
My first question after I've got that answer was:
Why? What kind of risk do you wanna find in a small transaction?
And he recommended me to ask their support.
And there the story begins.
I formulated my question to in-app support and after about two minutes, somebody called Xindy answered:
Yes, you need to complete verification on this situation due to KYC 0 users are valid for trading (Spot and Future), deposit and withdrawal, (2 BTC value every 24 hours without risk control)
Once the small-amount withdrawal is subject to risk control, it will need to complete KYC 1 as per transaction monitoring team requested.
I asked him why a withdrawal lower than 30 USDT triggers the risk control.
However, due to user privacy, it is inconvenient for us to disclose the information that triggered the risk.
I wasn't even able to get any information about topic this from him.
However, then I've got an important information:
If your account contain risk, there will be not able to withdraw no matter you complete or not complete KYC.
I was a little bit frustrated, because he cannot give me a definition of risk, but he is also telling me that if I do something that he don't want to tell me what is, my account can be banned and I can lose all my money without any way to get them back.
My question looks a bit angry, but I need to place it there to give you a context:
So when my account contains something that you can't tell me what is, you can block my account and take all my money?
Was that in your terms of service?
And he surprisingly answered:
yes, you can refer to this : https://www.aax.com/en-US/legal-privacy/terms-of-use/
I found the article in the terms of service with this information and it looks like that:
that you broke our rules, we can freeze your account forever.
that you are a chinese cat drinking gas on a wing of an airplane, they can ban you. They didn't even name all the reasons for banning an account. There are only some examples in their terms of service.
Then I've got an information which means that if my account does some kind of unusual activity, then I can be also banned.
However, again, when I asked for examples of unusual activity, I was informed that:
We are unable to disclose such information.
Later, when I was trying to get this such information from them, a guy named Cong told me:
A normal user will not be interested in our risk management system too.
I was a little bit scared of this answer, so I stopped my research with a clear decision.
Their terms are a kind of terms which you don't want to accept. I don't say it is a scam, but remember, they can anytime freeze your account for unknown reason and your assets will be lost.
