Beware! Exon Trade 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.
Exon Trade is an offshore broker we can barely call reputable. In fact it looks like some other scam firms we have covered for you, so it’s very probable that this firm is run by one and the same fraudsters.
One is for sure – Exon Trade is not regulated and offers financial services without being authorized by any watchdog. The highly insecure and shady payment methods don’t speak well about its credibility either. On top of that this broker provides a very insufficient trading platform and risky trading conditions, so investing here is certainly an awful idea. So if you are about to trade forex, stocks or indexes with Exon Trade stop right away and read the following review – you’ll thank us later!
Regulation and safety of funds
Exon Trade claims its website to be owned and operated by Prevail Ltd with a registered address in St. Vincent and the Grenadines. At this point we don’t need to search any registers or whatsoever, since it’s pretty obvious that this broker is not authorized nor regulated. There is a simple explanation for that – St. Vincent and the Grenadines is an offshore zone that doesn’t license forex brokerage activities in general. It’s popular as a scam haven so any broker based there is probably up to no good.
There’s a more detailed description of the topic on the official website of the local Financial Services Authority (FSA). There you can read the full notice which is meant to warn potential customers of the danger ahead. Take a look at it:
Here FSA clearly states that this country does not regulate or authorize forex trading brokerage activities. Don’t risk it all by dealing with such illegitimate brokers as no entity would be able to help once you get scammed.
The only way to avoid such unfortunate consequences is by trading with regulated brokers. Look for firms with proven reputation and legit forex licenses issued by some of the most prominent financial authorities like FCA, CySEC or ASIC for example. These jurisdictions are quite strict and demand brokers to meet a ton of requirements in order to be granted a license. For instance all EU and UK regulated brokers must have at least 730 000 EUR of minimum capital and must also keep their clients’ funds in segregated accounts. If you trade with legitimate firms in the EU or the UK you can also benefit from compensation in case the broker goes bankrupt. The amount is up to 85 000 GBP in the United Kingdom and up to 20 000 EUR for most of the countries from the EU.
Trading software
Exon Trade doesn’t explain what trading software it offers. There isn’t a single word on the topic and you can’t even preview or download the platform beforehand. So we were quite sure that there is something fishy about it, that Exon Trade doesn’t want you to know.
After we registered we were unpleasantly surprised to find out that our account is all in Russian. This is typical for scammers – we have faced multiple websites like this one.
But the worst thing happened to be the software itself. We rarely see such a poor and awkward trading platform which lacks even basic tools and features. See for yourself:
This “platform” can hardly be used for trading, as there are very few features that can be useful. Not to mention that the broker’s claim to offer “more than 250 different types of assets” now seems rather absurd and even deceptive.
Trading with this broker will lead to no good – not only that its platform is truly ridiculous, but you may end up being deceived and stone broken. For this reason better choose a reputable firm who offers advanced software like MetaTrader 4 or MetaTrader 5.
MT4 and MT5 have been preferred by most of the reputable brokers for a pretty good reason. You can benefit from a whole bunch of fantastic features that ease your trading experience. For example the so-called Expert Advisors can perform the trading for you – you just have to set certain conditions – the moment the trading bot finds them, it will start trading right away.
In fact MetaTrader 5 and MetaTrader 4 are very easy to use even for novices. You can download the app and start trading right off the bat, no matter where or when. You should know as well that this piece of software is really safe – all transactions are encrypted, as well as your IP address.
You can effortlessly install MT4 and MT5 on your smartphone, computer and tablet. Note however that the apps can’t be downloaded on any device anymore, since Apple has removed them from its AppStore. So if you use an iPhone or iPad and you wish to install one of these platforms, unfortunately it won’t be possible. Do not get down however because all of you who have already downloaded the software can go on using it (without any further updates however). You can still download MT4 and MT5 from Google Play Store.
Trading conditions
Exon Trade claims to offer three account types – Start, Standard and VIP. Take a look at them:
The Start account requires 200 USD of minimum deposit, which is exactly what most reputable brokers tend to ask for. All in all, you can find a much more trustworthy firm who offers the same or even better minimum deposit – micro accounts usually require around 10 USD.
The leverage is said to be 1:100 which is not fine if you ask us. In short, this amount is too risky and is forbidden in most of the countries that regulate forex brokerage activities. The usual volumes of leverage that are approved by the financial authorities are up to 1:30 (in the UK/ the EU) or 1:50 (in the US) for example. If you still want to invest with higher leverage however, you can pick some of the offshore subsidiaries of reputable forex brokers here.
The spread this broker offers is not specified. On the trading platform there was a spread of 0.1 pips which may seem quite appealing at first. However don’t fall into this rabbit hole – not only that this broker is a total scam, but there might be some commissions ahead that you aren’t aware of. That’s why it would be much better to look for legitimate brokers – they usually offer tight spreads below 2 pips anyway and are completely transparent about their trading conditions.
Deposit/Withdrawal methods fees
Exon Trade doesn’t mention anything about its payment methods – again one more red flag.
After we registered there seemed to be two deposit options – Visa/Mastercard payments and crypto transactions. Take a look:
However, things are definitely not the way they look. When we tried to use the Visa/Mastercard option a message appeared saying that these payment methods are no longer available.
On the other hand, the crypto transactions, which include Bitcoin and Tether, can be used without issue. Seems rather suspicious, don’t you think? On top of that payments with crypto coins are completely irreversible and anonymous, so there’s a fat chance to retrieve your money. How convenient for the scammers!
Be extra careful with such impostor brokers and don’t invest here no matter what!
How does the scam work
Remember that usually scammers want to make you invest with them no matter what it takes. This means that they might try to contact you via email or phone in case you provided them with this information. They’ll try to convince you to deposit as soon as possible, advertising their platform as very advanced and their trading conditions as risk-free and advantageous. Don’t believe them however as these fraudsters don’t intend to trade your money at all – they just manipulate their software.
Very often scammers like to fake your trading results as well, just to lure you into investing more and more until you realize it’s all a huge lie.
Before you find this out however you may face some more bad surprises. For instance it may turn out that you are obligated to pay a certain fee if you want to withdraw your funds – sometimes the fee can exceed 20%. Note that reputable brokers don’t ask for a fee upon withdrawal request or even if they do, the amount is insignificant.
We don’t advise you to deposit or pay fees with such offshore brokers, as you may find out that a withdrawal is impossible no matter what you try.
What to do when scammed
If you realize you have been a victim of financial scammers, don’t trust people on the internet who suggest helping you restore your funds in exchange for a certain fee. It’s very probable that they are also fraudsters, possibly the same who tricked you the previous time.
Still, you can try to retrieve your money if you have paid with credit or debit card – you can turn to the bank that issued your card and file for a chargeback in 540 days. In case you used PayPal or Skrill you can also open a dispute. Unfortunately crypto currency transactions are irreversible as we already stated.
