Beware! G44FX 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.
G44FX is a unregulated, offshore broker offering three account types with a leverage of up to 500:1 and the MetaTrader5 platform.
Trading instruments include some 50 currency pairs, many of which exotic like the USDZAR, USDTRY, USDSGD, USDSEK, USDPLN, USDNOK, USDMXN, USDHUF, USDDKK, USDCZK and USDCNH. And there are also a variety of CFDs – on silver, gold, oil, 14 indices, a couple of agricultural commodities and even a few crypto coins – Bitcoin, Dash, Ethereum, Litecoin and Ripple.
As tested with a demo account the benchmark EURUSD spread floated about 1,8 pips – 1,9 pips, which is slightly higher than what traders would usually expect with a starting account and yet this is not our main issue with the broker, but the fact that they are not regulated and are basically unaccountable about the way they handle your money.
G44FX regulation & safety of funds
G44FX is owned and operated by G44 International Limited, which is based in Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, and they say to be regulated by the Financial Services Authority (FSA) of St. Vincent and the Grenadines.
That sounds fine except for the fact that FSA regulates only commercial banks and they have never regulated internally operating brokers. That means G44FX is simply another unregulated, low credibility broker, which most probably is involved in scam.
Just have in mind that your money will be safe only with brokers licensed by respectable financial institutions such as the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC), the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) in the UK or the Cyprus Securities and Exchange Commission (CySEC).
And besides, among the rest of the benefits you will get by trading with a licensed broker, with EU regulated brokers you will enjoy the protection of a clients compensation fund. Thus if you are trading with a CySEC broker for example your funds will be insured up to 20 000 EUR, while with a FCA regulated broker you will not have to worry for the first 50 000 GBP in your account.
G44FX Review deposit/withdrawal methods and fees
G44FX says they accept deposits as low as 1 USD with credit cards like VISA and MasterCard, e-wallets like Neteller and Skrill, bank wire and even bitcoins. The broker also offers trading bonuses of up to 5000 USD, which are for trading purpose only and cannot be withdrawn under any circumstances.
Also G44FX reserves the right to unilaterally modify the conditions of the trading bonuses and that is a serious issue. Be aware that the practice of offering trading bonuses is highly controversial, precisely because of the special withdraw conditions such bonuses are usually associated with. We should note as well that all trading bonuses are prohibited on the European market altogether.
How does the scam work?
People usually get scammed after visiting one of the so called robo scam websites like CryptoContractsApp or Crypto Revolt. There you will be presented with a unrealistic offer for fast and easy returns with no risk and a minimal investment. And if you get hooked and leave your e-mail and phone, you will be immediately transferred to the web page of a unregulated, scam broker, where you will be asked to deposit about 250 USD.
And besides, your first trades will be unexpectedly profitable and pretty soon the funds in your account will almost double. That, however will be just part of the scam, because what scammers really want is to trick you to deposit more.
And you will be getting phone calls too. It will be your senior account manager, who will basically try to convince you exactly this, that if you want to make some real cash you will definitely have to invest more – at least 10 000 USD or so.
And most people never realize they have been scammed until the moment they request to withdraw some of their funds. Than, all of a sudden it turns out they can not, because of some minimum trade volume requirement, linked to their trading bonus. The excuse of course might be different, but in the end it will all come to the same – scammers will cancel all withdraw requests.
What to do if scammed?
Do not waste any time, but immediately file for a charge back with your credit card company. That is your only chance to get your money back. Also the good news here is that both MasterCard and VISA extended the maximum period, in which you will be allowed to do that to 540 days.
And if scammers have tricked you to tell them your credit card number or online banking password, immediately change the password and block your credit card.
And one final note. Do not accept offers by the so called recovery agencies. They will not recover you a single penny, but will simply charge you some money in advance and basically that will be the end of the story.
