50 Words on – Why you can go Broke with OctaFX?

I can think of a few reasons, starting with their shady location (St. Vincent and the Grenadines – where is that?), up to 50% welcome bonus which comes with an army of strings attached and… they are not regulated by a major regulatory body. Did you read that last bit? Let me make it more visible: NOT REGULATED! This for me translates into: Hell will freeze over… twice before I deposit one buck with a brokerage which doesn’t have proper regulation! And even then, I will deposit that one dollar only if I found it on the street…

 

How can you avoid going Broke with OctaFX:

My research: Although reviewing an FX broker and figuring out if they are one of the good guys is a lot of work, with this one I had it easy: it doesn’t take long to see the warning signs and only a newbie would be fooled by a high Bonus; only a newbie wouldn’t consider alarming the fact that they are not regulated. And their location… come on, would you send your money in St. Vincent and the Grenadines? Finding that location on a map took me the longest time. Imagine how long it could take you to get your money out of there… Anyway, here are some rules to follow if you don’t want to get broke with OctaFX:

• Protecting your money is of paramount importance so make sure you withdraw periodically and never allow your account to become too large.
• Read the entire Terms and Conditions Document (you should do this before opening an account with any broker)
• Read the Terms and Conditions of the bonus if you decide to accept one but keep in mind that Forexiswhyimrboke.com is recommending not taking any bonus.
• If you notice slippages, huge spreads or delayed execution, stop trading until conditions are back to normal.
• Don’t trade at news time because that’s when increased spreads and slippages usually occur.
• Make sure you don’t open more than one account so you won’t be accused of trying to claim multiple bonuses.
• Simply don’t open an account with this broker…

 

 

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly Speak

Dude, Where’s My Money?

First of all, let me show you what some traders have to say about OctaFX on ForexPeaceArmy.com and ForexFactory.com, two of the most prolific Forex communities around (take with a pinch of salt please):

“Nowadays the thieves make their laws to rape your money ….” Nah, there’s no need for me to copy the entire comment here because the guy just yaps continuously about how bad OctaFX are [1]. Another trader complains about their support and calls them “fraudulent” and it’s clear that unsatisfied customers are very easy to find when it comes to OctaFX.

Do I believe all of them? No, of course not! Let’s call a spade a spade: we traders often get mad and frustrated for losing money and sometimes we fail to see that we should blame ourselves for the bad decisions, not the broker. And since the human mind is built the way it is, we tend to exaggerate a minor issue and make it bigger than it actually is. That way, one second delay becomes 5 in our mind and a 2-pip slippage becomes 20. What’s next? Rush to FPA and blame the broker… The thing is that almost everything you read online has the potential to be untrue so I tend not to believe it all. Anyway, facts are facts: there are a lot of unsatisfied (to say the least) customers. However, there are also a lot of lovely and cute little comments:

It seems like OctaFX is spreading the love. The guys who are satisfied are… really satisfied. And they burst with love for this broker; everything is superlative and comments including “…this is the best broker that i ever used” are seen all around. [1]

If all of them were true… well, OctaFX should have a sculpture right next to the Charging Bull on Wall Street. Needles to say I don’t believe all of them are true and the funny thing is that most positive reviews/comments are written by traders from Indonesia… maybe trading with OctaFX is profitable only if you are from Indonesia… maybe those users got some “incentives” to write good things, but what do I know, I’m just a writer with bad geography skills. Then again, I might be right about those positive comments not being genuine: check the FPA link at the bottom of the review [1] and see for yourselves that the first positive comment I mentioned above above is posted twice on the same page under a different username (jafar and desta). Need I say more?

 

Located Where? Again?

I have to admit that geography wasn’t my favorite in school (Sorry, professor!) so I had to Google St. Vincent and the Grenadines and the thing is I don’t feel too comfortable with my money sitting in some far away island in the bank account of an unregulated broker. On top of that, the Micro account will only give you the opportunity to trade on 12 currency pairs plus Gold and Silver. Twelve is definitely a low number of pairs for any respectable brokerage and if you need a wider variety, you will have to go for the ECN account which offers 27 pairs, Gold and Silver. However, the low number of pairs is not the main disadvantage of this broker. That “award” goes to the fact that we are dealing with a brokerage which is not regulated by a major regulatory authority. Unfortunately, this raises a big question mark regarding their overall reliability, generates a lot of user complaints and makes The Ugly come out.

 

Bonuses, Awards and Other “Important” Stuff

If you are looking for a Micro FX broker, with a low first deposit, low trade amounts and a high leverage, then you might have just found your “match” because one of the greatest advantages of OctaFX is the very low minimum deposit of just $5 (Micro account) and a minimum trade amount of 0.01 lots, making them a good choice for new traders who are still learning and want to get a feel of real-market conditions and money management. OctaFX also offers an ECN account with a minimum deposit of $50 and a low trade amount of 0.1 lots. If this account is a true ECN, thumbs up for the extremely low deposit.

Some might consider their promotional offers attractive but I’m not one of them because all bonuses come with strings attached and I would rather trade my own money the way I want instead of having to abide to extra terms and conditions. Bonuses aside, OctaFX offers tight spreads, scalping, EA trading and hedging are allowed so we are dealing with a rather non-restrictive brokerage which also won the award of Best Broker - Central Asia, Central & Eastern Europe at the 2013 World Finance Foreign Exchange Awards. To be honest I don’t really pay that much attention to awards for a number of reasons which I won’t mention here but hey, this is “The Good” and awards are good, aren’t they?

 

 

Editor’s Note – Is OctaFX a Scam?

Well, calling them a scam is stretching it a bit and I wouldn’t go as far… But when their spreads widen and slippages occur, I am not sure how much of that is generated by market conditions and how much by their attempt to skim something off the top.

 

Would I trade with OctaFX? Nope…

I am not impressed one bit by their awards or by positive comments made by the same person under different usernames. It seems to me OctaFX do their best to keep your money in their backyard and the bottom line is: wake up, smell the coffee and get proper regulation before I would consider opening an account. For the time being, I don’t see a single reason why I would trade with them… after all, it’s not like we don’t have enough good brokers to choose from.

 

References

1. OctaFX on FPA