Beware! EZ SQUARE 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.
EZ SQUARE presents itself as an online forex and CFDs broker, “providing traders with robust technology to access the world’s markets”. However, this is an offshore company that is not subject to regulation and in no way guarantees customer funds. EZ SQUARE uses a questionable payment system, the trading conditions are unclear and the legal information about the company is contradictory. It is therefore advisable to avoid this shady broker.
EZ SQUARE REGULATION AND SAFETY OF FUNDS
The EZ SQUARE’s website states that the company is registered in the Marshall Islands. This alone is reason enough not to trust your money to the EZ SQUARE. There is no financial regulator in the Marshall Islands, which is why this offshore zone is one of the favorite bases of operations for scammers posing as brokers. Their activities there are not subject to any scrutiny or control.
But the legal ambiguity surrounding the EZ SQUARE does not end there.
In the site’s footer can be read that the company behind EZ SQUARE is EZ SQUARE TECH INC. The same company name is listed on the account registration form.
However, the text of the Terms and Conditions states that they apply to “to retail and wholesale clients” of another company – EZ SQUARE Limited.
However, the “customer funds” section of the website states that a third company, SM Capital, is allowed to utilise wholesale client monies “more widely”.
Needless to say, such inconsistencies cast great doubt that EZ SQUARE is a legitimate business at all. If you want to try your luck and skills with capital markets trading, you should by no means do it through shady offshore brokers. Instead, you can turn to one of the many legitimate brokers operating in one of the established financial centres in the UK, EU, USA or Australia. There, the activities of brokers are controlled by powerful regulatory bodies such as Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), Cyprus Securities and Exchange Commission (CySEC), Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), and Australian Securities and Exchanges Commission (ASIC).
Such brokers must meet strict conditions for transparency of operations, financial stability and protection of clients’ rights. Clients of these brokers receive protections such as negative balance protection and segregation of the client’s funds from the broker’s funds, as well as guarantee for their funds in case the broker goes bankrupt. These guarantees amount to up to EUR 20,000 EU and 85,000 GBP in the UK. Regulators also have significant net capital requirements that companies must maintain – EUR 730 000 in UK and Cyprus, AUD 1000 000 in Australia and at least 20 million USD in the United States.
EZ SQUARE TRADING SOFTWARE
While most scammers use basic web trading platforms, EZ SQUARE offers one of the most popular solutions in the industry, Metatrader4 (MT4). Here’s what the platform looks like:
This software is the most widely used in the industry for a reason. The platform offers many benefits such as multiple account usage, extensive interface customization options, and the ability to design and implement scripts for automated trading and back-testing of trading strategies.
However, this doesn’t change the fact that EZ SQUARE is not a broker you should trust with your money. It is highly recommended that you take advantage of these options through one of the many regulated brokers that offer MT4 and the newer MT5.
EZ SQUARE TRADING CONDITIONS
It is noteworthy that EZ SQUARE does not offer different account types – something that is standard practice with legitimate brokers and is imitated even by most scammers. Regulated brokers provide a variety of trading options for both advanced and novice traders, and a micro account can usually be opened with a deposit of USD 100.
Nowhere on the EZ website are the trading conditions offered to customers clearly stated. On the main page, a statement can be seen that they offer “spread as low as 0.2”. On the MT4 platform, however, it can be seen that the spread is set rather at 2.2 pips and above. A spread above 2 pips is considered high and disadvantageous to the trader.
The website also states that the leverage offered is 1:100. The Terms and Conditions state that leverage levels for currency trading go up to 1:500. Leverage levels up to 1:400 can be selected when registering for a demo account. However, all these levels are much higher than those allowed to regulated brokers.
High levels of leverage create the opportunity for large profits, but correspondingly increase the risk of losses to levels that EU, UK and US regulators deem unacceptable for retail traders. In the UK and EU, leverage is limited to 1:30 for major currency pairs, while in the US the limit is 1:50.
EZ SQUARE DEPOSIT/WITHDRAW METHODS AND FEES
On its website EZ SQUARE claims to offer “a wide variety of secure online payment methods to fund your live trading account”. At the same time, only two methods are mentioned – bank wire transfer and the completely unknown payment platform Transfer Union. The minimum transfer amount via bank wire is listed as USD 50 and USD 10 via Transfer Union.
In the deposit menu, however, the only available option is Transfer Union, which is presented as a “payment gateway”. Transfer Union is an extremely questionable, anonymous site that in no way looks like a legitimate payment method. The fact that EZ SQUARE only offers this as a payment method should serve as final proof that this is not a broker you can trust.
Regulated brokers offer clients a variety of payment methods for deposits and withdrawals, including credit and debit cards, bank transfers and established online platforms such as PayPal, Neteller, UnionPay or Sofort.
HOW DOES THE SCAM WORK
It is tempting to be lured by the promises of easy money that we constantly come across on the internet. But behind the vast majority of these promises, if not all, are scammers. In recent years, many fraudulent schemes have consisted of websites posing as brokers and trying to cash in on the excitement surrounding cryptocurrencies.
If you give your contacts to one of these scammers, they will start convincing you that they will multiply your money, with nothing required of you but to sit back and take profits. If you agree to an initial investment of a few hundred dollars, they will start persuading you to invest more and more.
But you will never get the promised profits or the money you deposited. Scammers have many ways to ensure this. First of all, they are hidden behind offshore companies, not subject to controls and regulations. For the money transfers they use shady payment platforms, direct bank transfers or cryptocurrencies that make recovering money very difficult and often impossible. The terms and conditions are always riddled with traps that also block your ability to withdraw your money, such as prohibitively high minimum trading volume requirements or withdrawal fees amounting to tens of percentages of your funds.
WHAT TO DO WHEN SCAMMED
When you find yourself scammed and seek advice and help online, you are likely to receive offers from individuals and companies who promise to refund your money for a fee that you have to pay in advance. Don’t trust such offers or recommendations from anonymous commentators on the internet – this is also a well established scam.
The best chance to get at least some of your money back is to request a cashback, but this applies only if the transfer is made via credit card. It is of course advisable to notify the relevant authorities of the fraudsters’ activities and to spread the word online to warn other people who may fall victim to the same scammers.
