Bad/scam brokers list

hi guys,

i am looking for a reliable broker to open a demo account first and work with later.

i’ve heard lots of negative things about having problems with brokers this and that , but it takes so much time to read all these posts and put it all together. Lets put them in one list here for convenience. Explain why do you think they are not good.

also, as i know the most of them are offshore companies and some of them might be nothing more just scammers, the terms are attractive and reviews are paid. If you know such guys, list them here, also explain why did you put them in the scam list

hope this will work for us, newbies
thanks so much

OK seriously why do people make such a big deal about the broker taking opposite positions. I think many people seriously do not understand what hedging means.

Almost 99% of brokers take a position against you. It is not really against you at all when you think properly about it.

Remember they are making profit from the SPREAD, in order for them to minimize any other risk or exposure they MUST take an opposite trade to nullify their risk by YOUR trades and choices, whether they be profitable or losing.

Remember, they post your trades in a larger market on your behalf, this includes mistakes and good choices you make. In order to not suffer or benefit from your trading choices, they must take an opposite position. So this means this means they will never lose when you lose nor will they ever profit if you profit.

If you don’t get it, look at it this way. Using common sense, theoretically if you went LONG and SHORT on a currency pair with identical trade sizes at the exact same time, technically you should have ZERO exposure (i.e. risk), so if the market went up or down, nothing should happen in your profit/loss section. This is what they attempt to do when you trade, any position you open they go opposite so that THEIR profit/loss remains close to zero, why should THEY lose if you make a bad trade and lose? On the same token, they don’t profit if you profit either.

Until people realize this important element of the broker businesss, they will realize this practice of taking an opposite position is not them scamming you, but just GOOD business practice. Trust me, if your broker did not do this, they would be out of business and bankrupt long time ago, leaving you and many other traders destroyed. So really, this practice is in protection of the business and in protection of other traders that make GOOD choices/trades.

This is what keeps them focused on making money off spread only and nothing else.

yes, you are right. business is business, in this case “going against you” has nothing to do with being a bad broker, by the very nature the broker will always go against you.

I will edit my question.

Bad guys are those who delay withdrawals, have awful customer service and any other problems

some information to think over…

A broker which is in the same time taking all your positions in book, might end up using unethical (but still legal though) practices such as provoking prices spike to take out your stops, manipulating the market spread or just the market trend slightly to slow you down in your take profit, or simply close your account stating that you are a sniper.

knowing that your positions are always monitored one should always try to work with the most transparent broker.

okay…so which are these transparent brokers?

Also…reading lots of bad stuff about FXCM…any stories?

Any alternatives that use very similar trading platforms (It really works for me)

Thanks

Have to say fxcm is a good broker. As is fxopen and alpari.

Whoever says fxcm is a scam has to bring some evidence.

They offer two trading software - metatrader 4 and FX Trading station II. Which one are you talking about, FX Trading station II?

But doesn’t one need to pay a monthly fee in order to use Metatrader 4 on a micro account?

The biggest thing I dislike is their constant “selling”. Always, always, short answers over chat and following up with the obligatory, “Are you going to fund your live account soon?”.

It’s a bit too much. Though I do like their FX T S II. I just would prefer Metatrader 4 in order to have a screen that matches some of my friends worldwide.

Also why is it when I compare my T S II charts to my friends, there is a difference between opening and closing candles. A pin bar on theirs isn’t on mine etc. etc…

Dude, I think most brokers will annoy you with this. The few that haven’t are fxopen, and surprisingly ibfx.

Check out Alpari, FXPro, FXOpen, MB Trading.

It is very hard to find good conditions for micro accounts as brokers are market makers in this area, they will do everything to get your money!

I am with GFT and I like them. They dont pressure me at all with my money on my micro account. They dont seem to care if I make or lose money and will do everything in there power to see me gain profits. Even on my demo they are always there to help me with any questions I have. They are a little quicker to respond on my live account than my demo but both are quick and its a live chat witch I think works best for me. No real fees except for a non activity fee of 60 bucks if you dont use your account for 90 days. But all you have to do to avoid that is either deposit money (50 dollar minimum) or make 1 trade. If I am using my demo and dont plan on live trading I just deposit 50 bucks. I figure it is better to deposit 50 to my account to trade with rather than give them 60 for nothing. There trading platform (Dealbook 360) is a pretty decent platform. If there do not offer an indicator that you want just ask them and they will add it for you within 24 hours (most of the time it is instantly) funds get transferred very quick either into my gft account or into my bank account does not matter to them. All in all I have had a great experience using them. The main guy I deal with there is John Featherson great guy to do bisness with.

Exactly my point. All the brokers you mentioned are great, but fxopen is quite possibly the best.

ECNs don’t countertrade. They send your quote out to the Interbank. Whereas a bucketshop market maker doesn’t usually do anything with your position, even to be a counterparty, except toss it together with the aggregate and then they countertrade the net difference. You’re not directly trading the FOREX, unlike an ECN.

For demos I found data quality helps a lot. Go seems to have better data with fewer gaps and less smoothing. OPENFX is smoothed and they kept spamming me for far too much personal data which gave me the creeps. You can get a quick demo at Online Forex Trading | MetaTrader 4 Brokers - GO Markets. They don’t want Americans from the states but they won’t kick you off the demo for a month.

UPDATE Oh well it looks like most of the Metatrader broker prices are smoothed or mangled to the point of sometimes being meaningless. Ducas Copy data seems to better represent the currency market, but it needs a technical person to import to MT4.

i hate all that ‘selling’. I would put these brokers in a separate list. I understand everybody needs to earn money, but this selling practice - way too much (you are right)!!!

Actually, there are annoying brokers out there, but i believe it’s not so much as you say

Actually, i found NordFX? now I am demoing with them. It’s demo account doesn’t expire if you log in at least [U]once in 30 days[/U] in contrast with other brokers. And they do not disturb you with questions 'when are you going to open a live account -this is very important to me

You pretty much answered the question for the appropriate brokers. As for the bad brokers, well there are dozens of them.

I don’t like Finotec’s selling approach. I opened a demo account last month and got at least 2 calls followed by emails trying to convince me to open a live account. I finally wrote them back and said that I wasn’t interested. Hopefully, they will stop bugging me now.

All brokers will ask when you want to open a live account that dont make them bad. Honestly it makes them smart. You got to look at it from there point of view if you are demoing with them you are on there servers taking up space that they could fill with someone actually trading with real money. Look at it like this if you are on there servers and stuff they are investing money in you (there money ) so I dont see nothing wrong with them asking when you are going to return the favor. Its called s#*t or get off the pot to make room for someone that will invest money with them. After all that is what this game is about.

[QUOTE=CheezPip;232705][/QUOTE]

WTF’s with the name man?