Beware! Clgstocks.com 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.
Clgstocks.com is just another broker who promises safety but has nothing to show for its promises. This is nothing more than another unregulated enterprise that is out to get your money. Depositing with them will result in nothing other than you getting robbed. Keep this in mind if you are considering investing with Clgstocks.com – read the following review before making any final decisions.
Clgstocks.com REGULATION AND SAFETY OF FUNDS
Clgstocks.com claims to be based in the UK and states that it is guided by the laws of that country when conducting business. However, the broker was nowhere to be found in the register of the FCA, the country’s financial regulatory body.
This simply means that the broker is not authorized to offer services in the UK. Moreover, when we checked the terminal ownership information on the broker’s MetaTrader 5 terminal we found another registered address – one in Vietnam. This is one of the countries where forex trading is actually illegal – there is no way for a broker to be regulated there. All of these facts turn Clgstocks.com into a rather shady enterprise.
The only way to trade safely is to trust a reliable, licensed company – those regulated in the UK, the EU or Australia are probably the best choices since they have to maintain a very high standard if they want to remain in business. If a company is regulated by one other EEA member state, they are also free to offer financial services in all such countries according to MiFID. Brokers must maintain some sort of minimum capital to prove their financial stability although the amount varies – €730 000 for the UK and the EU and A$1 million for Australia. Client money should be kept separate from the broker’s own funds in segregated accounts – this means the broker cannot use your funds for their own financial operations. Additionally, European brokers are obligated to provide money for compensation funds – if a broker becomes insolvent, their clients could receive compensation of up to €20 000 in the EU, £85 000 in the UK, and 100 000 Swiss francs in Switzerland.
For all of these reasons, trading with someone licensed would be a much better choice and could actually lead to some sort of profit – and not just to your wondering how to retrieve your money once you have deposited with the scammers.
Clgstocks.com TRADING SOFTWARE
Clgstocks.com allowed us to trade on the leading platform MetaTrader 5:
This advanced software is a great choice – however, we would suggest turning to a legitimate broker if you want to try MT5. This is currently the platform with the biggest number of clients and for good reasons – although the interface is quite easy to get used to, that is not on expanse of the features offered – with this software, you would get access to preprogrammed Expert Advisors, VPSs that keep trading bots operating at all times, customizable signals you could set up, a market for trading apps, advanced charting tools, and indicators, the possibility for creating custom scripts, and a lot more. A truly great platform we suggest you try as soon as possible if you are serious about trading.
Although the offer of MT5 is always welcome, you should be advised that you should not choose your broker based on the platform alone. Take factors like trading conditions and reliability into consideration before picking who to trade with.
Clgstocks.com TRADING CONDITIONS
Clgstocks.com allows you to start trading with as little as $50. This makes the broker a part of a current tendency – a huge number of great brokers would also let you start trading with $100 or less. What these brokers can offer that Clgstocks.com cannot is trustworthiness and reliability.
Given the fact that the broker allows you to set your leverage as high as 1:500, they cannot be a legitimate UK broker as they claim. Leverage caps exist in the UK – brokers cannot offer rates higher than 1:30 to retail traders. The restriction exists to protect more inexperienced clients from the dangers that high leverage poses – namely bigger, faster financial losses. Although trading with higher rates could also result in decent profits, it is preferable to be careful with your leverage especially if you are just starting out.
Clgstocks.com offers quite standard spreads – around 1.4 pips on EURUSD. However, these are the rates on the demo account – the ones on the real one could be much different. Moreover, the broker has not mentioned if it charges additional commissions – if this is the case, trading with them might turn out to be less than profitable.
Clgstocks.com DEPOSIT AND WITHDRAWAL METHODS AND FEES
Clgstocks.com accepts crypto deposits – in Ethereum, Tether, and TRON – as well as deposits made via the electronic payment solution Help2Pay. Keep in mind that crypto transactions are irreversible – they go into a ledger that cannot be changed or tainted at a later point. This means that you would not be able to get your money back if you transferred it in such a way. Moreover, such transactions are anonymous and can only be traced to a wallet address and not to a specific person. For these reasons, you will often find scammers urging you to deposit using this specific payment solution. Do not transfer money in this way unless you are 100% sure you can trust the recipient – otherwise, you are at higher risk of getting robbed.
Clgstocks.com charges certain fees that should be taken into account. After 90 days of no trading activity, you will be charged an inactivity fee of $15. What is more peculiar is that you will be charged an Incomplete Application Fee of $30 if you have not verified your account after 15 days of trading – even though the broker would still be more than eager to take payments from you.
Finally, keep in mind that Clgstocks.com offers bonuses but has not offered a Bonus Policy. Bonuses are illegal in the UK exactly because scam brokers often attach fraudulent clauses to them. Often enough, you would be prevented from withdrawing from your account as a whole – even deposits and profits – if you have accepted a bonus. With such scammers, there are always strings attached so be extra careful.
HOW DOES THE SCAM WORK?
You might think that not many people fall for such scams but you would be dead wrong – some scams are quite elaborate and have managed to fool a lot of people. That is why it is important to know what to expect and look for in order to spot a scam broker from a mile away.
The scam starts with an ad on the Internet promising you an easy gateway to forex trading or investing – the only thing you would have to do is open an account with the broker. You know that there are people who trade for a job and that even regular Joes manage to earn a nice side income through trading and wonder why not the same, there is no harm in trying. So you give in and provide the scammers with your contact details.
This is the moment when you will start getting constant calls and emails asking you to deposit – even if you have only opened a demo account. At some point, since everything seems legitimate, you do deposit and in the beginning, things might be looking great. The profits you were promised come soon but you should remember that it is easy for scammers to manipulate platforms to make it look like you are turning a profit. But you will be asked to keep on investing – and you would have no problem doing that because you will be smooth-talked into it by people who scam others for a living.
But when you try to withdraw, you will start running into different obstacles – obscure clauses in the Terms and Conditions preventing you from withdrawing, additional fees and taxes, and weird procedures. At some point, you would not be able to deny the fact you have been scammed – but it will be too late. The scammers will disappear and stop answering your calls and emails and leave you wondering what to do.
WHAT TO DO WHEN SCAMMED?
So what can be done in case you have already deposited?
Be prepared that there is a rather high chance that you would never see your money again. There is, however, still hope to retrieve it especially if you have deposited with a credit or debit card – both Visa and MasterCard allow chargebacks within 540 days of the transaction. Moreover, there are some things you absolutely have to do in order to avoid further losses of money.
Change all passwords and banking details you have provided the scammers with and remove all sorts of remote access software if you have installed such. Some scammers would promise to help you trade, or resolve different problems if you only install such software – their actual agenda is to get access to your computer and all your passwords and information.
Don’t trust any so-called “recovery agents” who offer to retrieve your money for a fee – this is just another type of scam targeting desperate scam victims, often conducted by the same people that are behind your “broker”.
Make sure to notify authorities and try to share your story online, or with your acquaintances – the more people know about such scams and how they function, the lower the success rate they will have.
