Beware! STB Markets 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.
Although it may seem to some of our readers that the website of STB Markets seems legitimate, we are here to refute any and all such suspicions, because such lighthearted assumptions will lead you to a sudden loss of funds and a stolen identity. So trust us with the following review, because we know what we are talking about. The likes of STB Markets we come across on a daily basis, and we know how to deal with them.
We registered in seconds, which in and of itself is a bad sign, meaning that anyone can enter and start investing. The resulting user area was a common one that we have seen with many previous unlicensed brokers.
We accessed a web trader, where we got the following trading conditions. The financial instruments are forex currency pairs, stocks, indices, cryptocurrencies, commodities, and NFTs. The EUR/USD cost of trade was 0.4 pips, but with no commission in sight we have no choice but to state that this spread has been fiddled with; there is no way that a scammer broker would ever offer such a good spread value.
The leverage was capped at 1:100.
STB MARKETS REGULATION AND SAFETY OF FUNDS
To claim that you are located and registered in the United Kingdom, being in the position that STB Markets finds itself in, is to fall into the most popular cliché of all, that of unloading all of one’s legal responsibilities onto a very unreasonable UK address claim. It’s sort of a relief for STB Markets to do so, as it thinks it frees itself from the most important responsibility.
Of course, the address is completely unfounded, and there is no reason to believe that STB Markets has anything to do with the UK, at least legally. Illegally though, the broker may be located in the UK, as it happens for these sort of firms. In fact, the time it takes to take down STB Markets is more than enough for the scammers to steal money.
There are no further details. And back to the UK predicament, the UK address is mentioned only once. We need no further proof of STB Markets’s illegitimacy. This broker is fully unregulated and a scam. All invested capital will be lost, and any personal details can be misused.
It would be a big shame to lose all that money to scammers. By registering and investing in an unlicensed broker, you are indirectly throwing your money away for a completely futile and illicit cause. There is no reason to do so. That is why we urge our readers to rely on European, UK, US, or Australian brokers, or any licensed entity for that matter. Licensed entitles are covered by hundreds of requirements, many of them apply financial compensation schemes, and anti fraud practices. In other words, they are the exact opposite of what this broker and others like it stand for.
STB MARKETS TRADING SOFTWARE
Although it looks alright, it barely covers the industry standards set by so much better trading platforms. But still, it may be useful to some novice users.
Yet again, these traders will lose all interest in it very quickly, considering that there are so few options here. In about an hour or two they will want something new and more challenging. Not to mention that STB Markets is unlicensed and a full scam, which is the main reason why you should not bother with this web trader at all!
STB MARKETS DEPOSIT/WITHDRAW METHODS AND FEES
When an unlicensed broker offers a single BTC wallet as its sole payment method, you know that you are dealing with a scam. Not to mention that the BTC payment will become untraceable as soon as it it processed; the main reason why it’s a crypto wallet and not a credit card, for example.
The withdrawal area, going straight against the most crucial anti-money laundering practices, offers bank, card, Ethereum, USDT, on top of the BTC wallet as payment methods.
We usually don’t pay attention to the dormant fee, but when it’s this high – $50 fee per month if the user ahs not been active for more than 30 days – we have to include it.
Moreover, there is a very highly chance that other hidden fees are applicable. But as scammer do, they don’t talk about them, but only mention them in passing.
HOW DOES THE SCAM WORK
Generally, the first step to being in a scam, whether a user is aware of it or not, is to bridge the crucial gap that exists between a user and a broker. With legit entities rarely does this go beyond the limits of formality, whereas with scammers they will try to behave as close friends, and will try to sell you as much as they possibly can.
It easy to fall prey to their sweet talk, because as financial instruments grow more complex, so do scammers, and there are surprisingly advanced swindle techniques that will leave you empty handed faster than you know. So make sure to think before you act, and to ask for professional guidance if necessary.
Contact usually begins at the online ads level, and expands to the telephone line relatively fast, depending on how good the scammer is and how susceptible he or she is to manipulations.
The ultimate goal is reached once a scammer successfully causes an initial deposit to be invested. Once this happens the user has become the victim, and from then on the fraudsters will try to retain the client for as long as possible, draining him/her along the way.
On average, it takes 2 to 3 deposits for a user to realize that something very unlawful is happening. By that point however, the broker will cut all communications with the user and will deny all withdrawal requests.
WHAT TO DO IF SCAMMED
The most common action to take is to file for a chargeback, but this happens only if the user has invested with a credit or debit card. That’s why you don’t get many investment frauds taking card payment nowadays. But the good news is that, if money was invested via a card, the chargeback period for MasterCard and VISA is 540 days.
Wire transfer deposits are harder to get back, and the only thing we recommend is contacting the bank to sort things out if possible. Oh, and make sure to change you bank account user name and password ASAP!
Crypto transactions are lost for good, unfortunately. As cryptocurrencies become more numerous and the systems underlining them more complex, scammer are taking full advantage of these aspects, and the end results are very lucrative. So, never trust unregulated brokers with crypto payments.
And then, we have to mention the other type of scammer, the recovery agents. These are either third party fraudsters or extensions of existing swindles, and will provide the seemingly impossible service of tracing your lost money. All they need is a fee for their effort, a sum of money that will be lost once paid.