When a broker blocks your withdrawal: the first 72 hours
A "technical glitch." An "account under review." The excuses vary; the pattern does not. The broker is playing for time, and time is working against you. Here is your 72-hour timeline.
Hours 0–3: put everything on the record
Screenshot your account dashboard. Save every exchange with support. Capture your withdrawal requests, with the dates and amounts. Evidence tends to vanish the moment the website does.
At the same time, verify the broker's licence directly in the BaFin, CySEC or FCA register — never through a link your account manager sends you. A licence issued in one EU member state is valid across the entire Union under the "passporting" regime (MiFID II, Directive 2014/65/EU), so look at who granted the original authorisation, not where the local office happens to sit. That is what determines which compensation scheme will protect you — EdW, FSCS, ICF — or none at all, if there was never any authorisation to provide investment services in the first place (§ 15 WpIG).
Day 1: is the regulator already acting?
Check for official BaFin, CySEC and FCA notices suspending the broker's licence. If a decision already exists, it obliges the broker to return your funds — use that leverage immediately.
No decision yet? Call your bank: the window to recall a SEPA transfer or file a chargeback is narrower than the regulator's timelines. The compensation scheme guarantees a minimum of €20,000 per investor, applied identically in every EU country (Directive 97/9/EC). It makes no difference whether you are a client from Germany, Italy or anywhere else in the Union.
There is no cast-iron guarantee. But there is almost always a way forward.
72 hours: never pay to "speed things up"
Is someone offering to unblock your account for an upfront fee? That is a second layer of fraud. No compensation scheme and no court ever demands an advance payment from the victim.
