Beware! GXFX is an offshore broker! Your investment may be at risk.
RECOMMENDED FOREX BROKERS
Don’t put all your eggs in one basket. Open trading accounts with at least two brokers.
GXFX is a unregulated forex and CFD broker offering over 50 forex pairs with lots of exotic and minor currencies like Danish Krone, Norwegian Krone, Swedish Krona, Hungarian Forint, Polish Zloty, Turkish Liar, Hong Kong Dollar, Mexican Peso, Russian Rubble, Singapore Dollar, South African Rand and Indian Rupee.
The broker also offers a selection of crypto CFDs with some major coins like Bitcoin, Litecoin, Dash, Ethereum, Ripple, Ethereum Classic, Bitcoin Gold, Bitcoin SV, Monero, Cardano, USD Tether, Stellar, Verge, Swisscoin. NEM. Golem, Tron, Wavecoin, Qutum, Lisk and Babel and promises spreads as low as 1,4 pips.
However, the benchmark EURUSD spread we saw on their web based trading platform was as high as 3 pips and on top of that we have some very serious concerns about the legitimacy of the broker as a whole, which we will discuss in the following paragraphs.
GXFX regulation & safety of funds
Curiously, but we are not sure which is the company operating the website gxfx.com. In their “Terms and Conditions” they refer to GXFX.com as “the Company”, noting that all card payments and billing services are processed by a subsidiary company – SoftGeeks OU, based in Tallinn, Estonia.
All that makes us very suspicious about the legitimacy of the broker, not to mention the lack of regulation, which basically makes all GXFX operations on regulated markets like the European Union, the US, Japan and Australia completely illegal.
Have in mind that proper regulation is the sole factor guaranteeing the safety of your investment. Brokers with licenses from respectable institutions such as the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) in the UK, the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) or the Cyprus Securities and Exchange Commission (CySEC) do provide investors with sufficient protection as they are required to follow strict rules, among which to guarantee clients that they will not loose more money than they have invested, to keep their money in segregated from their own accounts, to maintain at all times a certain minimum operational capital and in some cases even to insure traders funds.
For example, if you are dealing with a FCA regulated broker you will not have to worry about the first 50 000 GBP in your account, even if your broker files for bankruptcy. A similar compensation scheme, covering all CySEC brokers guarantees you up to 20 000 EUR of your investment.
GXFX deposit/withdrawal methods and fees
GXFX accepts payments in plenty of ways – major credit and debit cards like MasterCard and VISA, e-wallets including Skrill, Sofort, GiroPay, SafetyPay, TrustPay, iDeal and Przelewy24, and bank transfer.
The minimum deposit requirement even for the starting Bronze Account is stunningly high – 25 000 USD and it comes with some rather unusual withdraw conditions, as for example the minimum trade volume requirement of 40 times the bonus you have accepted.
On top of that GXFX notes that if you insist on withdrawing your funds before completing the minimum trade volume requirement your will be fined 25% of your deposited funds.
Besides, all withdraw requests are charged 20 GBP, while if the payment method is a credit or a debit card the 20 GBP charge is accompanied by a 1% fee, which is on top of the fee your credit card company may ask.
How does the scam work?
Although scam scenarios vary, quite often they involve the so called robo scam websites like Crypto Revolt and Bitcoin Evolution, where you will happen to watch a video, promising you sound returns, totally risk free and with a minimum investment. All you have to do is fill a simple registration form and leave your e-mail and phone.
Than, you will either receive a phone call or you will be directly transferred to the website of a unregulated scam broker, where you will be asked to deposit about 250 USD. And if you do that the people running the robo scam web site will get their commission.
Note as well that your first trades with the scam broker will be spectacularly profitable. Within a day or two the funds in your account will probably double. That, however will be a result of a manipulation – scammers just want to trick you to invest a larger amount.
And you will receive a phone call as well. It will be form your “senior account manager” or “market adviser”, who will simply explain that if you want to start making real money you will simply have to invest more – like 10 000 USD for a start.
And if you invest those money as well you may not realize that you have been scammed until the very moment you decide to withdraw some of your funds. Scammers will simply refuse to pay you back on the grounds that you have not met some minimum trade volume requirement, possibly linked to the welcoming bonus you have so carelessly accepted. Certainly it could be something else, but the end result will be the same – you will not see a single dollar back.
What to do if scammed?
Unfortunately if you get scammed the only chance to get your money back is by filing a charge back with your credit card company. Currently, if you have made the payment with MasterCard or VISA you will have 540 days to do that.
Scammers might even try to steal money directly form your bank account, if you have given them your credit card number or online banking password. In such case you should immediately block your credit card and change your online banking password.
And do not truest the so called recovery agencies. They will collect an upfront payment without providing any service and will basically leave you even deeper in to the red.
