PageStoneFX Review – What to Make of this Broker?

PageStoneFX Review

If you want access to the financial markets, an online broker is your stepping stone. They open the doors for you and provide you with everything you need to begin trading. Today, there is no shortage of companies that are ready to facilitate you, but not all of them are genuine, professional and reliable solutions. As a matter of fact, there is a massive number of scam platforms that have popped up and you need to ensure you are not signing up with one, or they could rip you off. This means assessing a brokerage carefully and this PageStoneFX review is one route you can take.

Amongst the many brokers in the market, you will find the name of PageStoneFX and this one will catch your eye. This is because it claims to be a successful trading brokerage that is operating across all five continents and is particularly focused on providing trading services in the UK, European, the New Zealand and the Australian markets. Furthermore, they claim to be catering to not just individual traders, but also institutional clients and this leaves a very strong impression. The problem is that advertising anything on the internet is very easy these days.

Many scam brokers have the habit of making tall promises and claims and when you go deeper, you find out that the reality is quite different. Is that the case with PageStoneFX? This is what you need to find out and the following review can shed some light on it.

Regulation and Licensing

What is the first quality of a legitimate broker? The first and most obvious characteristic of an authentic brokerage is that they are properly regulated and licensed. This means that they follow proper rules and regulations and can be held accountable in case of a problem. Obviously, scam brokers would not fall in this category, so the easiest way to determine the authenticity of a company is to check whether they have a license or not. You can do the same with PageStoneFX in order to know what to make of it.

As mentioned above, PageStoneFX claims to be operating in several markets and it has to have a license to operate in all of them. For Australia, it needs to be licensed and authorized by the Australian Securities and Investment Commission (ASIC), for UK it is the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) and for Europe, it has to have a license from any one of the financial regulators in the 27 member states, such as the Cyprus Securities and Exchange Commission (CySEC).

But, a check of all their registers does not show PageStoneFX listed anywhere. You can also check the name of the company that owns and operates the brokerage, which is either PSG FX Ltd, or PAGESTONEFX Ltd Group. This is also unclear, as the broker itself seems confused about it. Either way, none of these two companies are licensed either, which means you are dealing with an unregulated brokerage.

Moreover, when you go through the PageStoneFX website, you will discover that it is completely anonymous because there is no corporate information available and no genuine address. In fact, you will not even find a phone number listed and that also sends up red flags.

Terms and Conditions

When you are dealing with an unregulated and unlicensed brokerage, it is a must to check their Terms and Conditions because you want to know exactly what you will sign up for. These companies can come up with their own rules and policies and it is best to be aware of them in order to avoid exploitation. When you take a look at the Terms and Conditions of PageStoneFX, you will find that the brokerage is downright malicious.

They charge a monthly inactivity fee, just after 30 days of inactivity, which is quite outrageous. More importantly, they will charge either 2% of the funds available in your account or at least $250. The fee can go as high as $5,000 per month. This is extremely excessive and no legitimate and regulated brokerage would ever have such high inactivity fee, making it obvious that PageStoneFX intends to exploit its clients to the maximum.

Leverage

You need to know what kind of trading conditions a broker will provide to you and this includes leverage. The leverage that you are promised at PageStoneFX is 1:1000, which is quite high. Even though this seems lucrative, you have to remember that high leverage is extremely risk. As a matter of fact, such excessive ratios are not allowed in regulated jurisdictions like Europe, Australia and the UK and is evidence that PageStoneFX’s claims of operating in these markets is false.

Minimum Deposit

A minimum deposit has to be made when you are opening a trading account with a broker. Yes, there are brokers that allow their clients to open a trading account with as low as $10, but if they have a higher amount, this is also acceptable. However, this amount is usually between the ranges of $200 and $250. Therefore, the fact that PageStoneFX asks for a minimum deposit of a whopping $5,000 should alert you to a problem. No genuine broker would ask for such a high minimum deposit.

Trading Platform

There is a funny-looking, oversimplified trading platform available at PageStoneFX and this should also trigger an alarm because it is branded with the name of a different broker called ZurichCorp. It is likely that this brokerage is also operated by the same group of scammers behind PageStoneFX, as these scams usually operate several websites that offer similar services and features. The point is that you will not have access to a professional trading solution like the MT5 that a reputable broker will offer.

Final Thoughts

Along with these gaping holes in their story, PageStoneFX also lies about the payment methods it offers. It only supports a payment provider called Paypound, even though it claims to have credit card support as well. When you go over all these details, it is easy to see that you cannot trust this broker at all.