Beware! Northern Star Equities 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.
Our first impression of Northern Star Equities interface is the projection of success and wealth. Without any doubts, this broker wants to inspire its clients to become rich and successful. If that is truly so, we are about to find out.
Northern Star Equities Regulation and safety of funds
As we saw that the address of this company is in London, UK, we searched the register of the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), the official body that regulates forex brokers to see if this broker is licensed. Unfortunately, as you can see from the image below, this broker does not appear in the FCA’s register. It means that the company is non-legit and could as well be a scammer. So, we caution you not to trade with it.
If you are interested in trading with a licensed broker from the UK, we suggest that you use our link to search the list which will provide you with many options to choose from. To be licensed in the UK, forex brokers must meet many conditions. First of all, they must have an initial capital of no less than 730,000 EUR which among other things will serve as a wall against scammers as they won’t invest so much money just to look legitimate. Licensed brokers in the UK also provide many methods for the protection of clients’ funds. First of all, clients’ funds are kept separately with tier-1 bank establishments. Also, to avoid shady deals and provide transparency on their transactions, they must report on a daily basis. Keeping a cap on leverage which cannot exceed 1:30 and not offering bonuses is another way for guaranteeing the safety of clients funds and it also serves as a way of lowering the risks in experiencing big financial loss. One of the best advantages in trading with licensed brokers from the UK is that they by contributing to the local Financial Services Compensation Scheme will be able to assure that their clients will be refunded by up to 85,000 GBP if the broker goes bankrupt.
In the EU all these conditions must also be met by licensed brokers with the difference that brokers regulated by CySec and contributing to the local Investor Compensation Fund will be able to provide their clients with a refund of up to 20,000 EUR per person if the broker is insolvent.
We hope that this is helpful information and will facilitate your choice of a forex broker that is reliable and won’t run away with your hard-earned money.
Northern Star Equities Trading software
Northern Star Equities is forex broker trading in forex, cryptocurrencies, commodities, bonds, indices, ETF, shares and real estate. The trading software offered to its clients is MetaTrader 4. We must say that this is an excellent choice of trading software because MT4 is still one of the leading platforms in the forex trade world despite its ‘old’ age of 15 years. Many forex brokers still prefer this platform thanks to the many advantages it offers. MT4 is equipped with an excellent package of charting options from which traders can select charts, time frames, colours or even create their own templates. There is also a rich choice of technical analysis indicators that help traders predict the future direction of exchange rates and make a profit, such as Bollinger Bands, Fibonacci retracement, moving averages, etc. But that is not all! MT4 also has an app market, an auto trading option, code base with customs scripts, VPS and trading signals, etc. However, a platform is as good as its broker!
We were disappointed to see the high leverage this broker has set up in its trading system. Depending on the trading account, the leverage can vary from 1:100 to 1:400! Some of you may think that this is a good thing. After all, it adds more trading power to the clients, right? We’d rather you think of the leverage as the cheese in the mousetrap. It’s there to lure you before you get caught. Just think about it – around 70% of the transactions end in financial loss. What are the chances that the dream of a big win won’t become the reality of a big financial loss? Besides, as we mentioned already, in the UK, the cap on leverage is 1:30. So, please do not engage in reckless trading activities and do not risk losing your funds just because someone has offered you high leverage!
Northern Star Equities Deposit/Withdrawal methods and fees
While looking at Northern Star Equities, we saw that there are 5 different trading accounts – Trail, Standard, Business and VIP. As per the information that you see on the screenshot below, the minimum initial deposit for the Trail account is 500 EUR. However, in the Terms and Conditions document, the minimum deposit is shown to be 250 EUR/USD/GBP. As per the Deposit and Withdrawal section, the payment methods for feeding an account are wire transfer, credit card, Skrill and Neteller. As per the same section, there are no deposit fees and deposits are made instantly.
This information is somewhat contradicted, however, when you register an account and click on the deposit button. You see that there are only 2 options available – via credit card or cryptocurrency. We think that the information about deposit methods is purposefully misleading.
If a trading account is not used for up to 91 days, then it is considered dormant and the inactivity fee is 30 EUR/USD/GBP or 1% of the client’s deposit whichever amount is greater.
There is nothing worth mentioning regarding withdrawals, except that the processing time for a withdrawal request may take up to 5 business days.
We also want to mention that unlike licensed brokers in the UK, Northern Star Equities offers bonuses to its traders. You must be aware that bonuses are not free gifts although they may sound as such. They are funds belonging to the broker, not the trader, and are usually offered with some difficult to fulfil requirements. In this instance, as per the company’s bonus policy, once accepted bonuses cannot be withdrawn unless the trader executes a trading volume of 30 times the sum of the deposit and bonus amounts. Do not be lured and also, do not think that this is easy to achieve. Our advice is to be extremely cautious when bonuses are offered, read carefully the bonus policy, think soberly whether you will be able to meet the conditions. In the best-case scenario, do not engage in any trading activities with brokers offering bonuses.
How does scam work?
If scammers make a movie, it will probably be called “Dream on”. They make everything sound credible and build their scam on your dreams of getting an easy and quick profit. People get duped if they decide to deposit money into one of the scammers’ schemes. What you probably do not know is that your hard-earned money goes as commission to the scammers. Next, you get inundated by daily calls. First, the scammers congratulate you for joining their business, next they try to persuade you to invest even more money. After all, the more money you send, the bigger money fall you can expect. This of course is not how things work. By the time you realise that no money is coming your way, it might be too late. All you want now is to get your money back and get out of there but the scammers have other plans for you and they won’t late get away so easily. Now they try to delay you so that you miss the deadline for a chargeback.
What to do if scammed?
If you get scammed, our advice is to act immediately and if you have paid your deposit via credit/debit card you may still have a chance. Visa and MasterCard allow you 540 days time limit to file for chargeback which gives you a fighting chance to recover your money.
However, if you have used bitcoin or bank wire for your payment, the chances of you recovering your money are really slim.
Cancelling your credit/debit card in case you have given the scammers your CVV code may be another good idea. Also, make sure to remove from your PC any software that my give scammers access to your private data stored on your computer.
Whatever you do to recover your funds, beware of the so-called recovery agents. Please make sure that you are dealing with a genuine one by checking their credentials and company’s information transparency. Otherwise, you may fall victim to another form of scam.
