Protecting Yourself From Fraud – XTrade Guide

Fraud happens, it happens to smart people, it happens to experienced people – but it rarely if ever happens to traders who have done their research. Researching legitimate and regulated online trading platforms such as XTrade, can be time consuming, yet vital.

Commodity fraud happens when you trade with unreliable brokers that do not have your best interest in mind.

How can you tell who is legit and who should be avoided at all costs? Well there are many websites out there that offer support, information, and reviews. For example, a reputable platform will have many positive reviews – you can see for yourself by searching XTrade reviews here. Searching sites such as these will offer you advice on which platforms you should choose for your trading needs.

You can also protect yourself by following a few simple rules. Theses are:

Broker scams

Before you even consider funding an account, you need to search for reviews of the broker. Take what is said and base your decision on logic; could this be just a disgruntled trader or a troll sent from a competing broker?

Are there any outstanding legal actions against the broker?

A big issue that you should consider is to ensure that they are no complaints from traders not being able to withdraw funds. If there are, contact the user (if possible) and ask them about their experience. This can be the number one sign of a problem broker!

Online contracts

What happens when we see a legal agreement from let’s say, Google? We see the 24 page “document” pop up. If you are anything like me, you read no more than the first paragraph of legal jargon before skipping to the agree button. You cant do that when opening an online trading account! You must read through all the fine print of the documents before committing yourself and your funds. Incentives to open account can often be used against the trader when attempting to withdraw funds. For instance, if a trader deposits $10,000 and gets a $2,000 bonus, and then the trader loses money and attempts to withdraw some remaining funds, the broker may say he or she cannot withdraw because the bonus cannot be withdrawn.

Read the fine print and make sure to understand all contingencies in regards to withdrawals and whether incentives impact withdrawals.

If you are satisfied with your research on a particular broker, fund an account with a small amount of capital. Trade it for a month or more and then attempt a withdrawal. If everything has gone well, it should be relatively safe to deposit more funds. If you have problems, attempt to discuss them with the broker.

Signal generator scams

Some brokers will sell you services you can’t rely on or even need. They are selling a service to tell you when to enter a trade, and then when to exit. Typically, the trade signals are generated by an automated trading program. This means the service suffers from the same weaknesses as the program, and hence will lose money in the long run. Think about it, if the service really was a long-term winner, then why would they be selling it? The simple answer – they wouldn’t! They would trade it themselves and keep all the winnings for themselves. If you run across a broker selling a signal, it’s time to start walking on.

Sometimes the traders ARE the scammers

Many people claim to be millionaires that made their fortune through forex trading – turning $1000 into 1 million within a year! They have lengthy explanations on why you should believe them. If you actually read their dribble, you will see nothing but empty, meaningless words. They are always trying to sell you their books, or courses at the cost of thousands of dollars. Real educational resources such as XTrade Academy don’t require huge amounts of money to teach you the basics of good trading.