Forex Tips: Online Broker Reviews Suck

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Have you ever posted a review for a Forex broker, product or site?

There are heaps of Forex review sites out there that allow any user to post reviews. From the big boys like ForexPeaceArmy.com to the smaller guys like ReviewPips.com and ForexReviews.com. These review sites can be pretty useful when it comes to buying Forex products. However, if you’re looking for broker reviews these sites are worse than useless!

It is not the websites fault, for the most part the review sites themselves are unbiased. However, many of the users who leave reviews are biased or just idiots.

We all know the Forex market is full of people who never make it. And we all know how it goes:

  • They open a live account.
  • They blow all their money.

And then, instead of taking responsibility for their losses (most of the time it’s their own fault) they blame their broker. For some reason they believe their broker is so interested in stealing their $100 account that they were singled out for stop hunting. This is a ridiculous notion when you consider the big boy brokers make tens of millions per year.

forex broker scam

Do you think they really care about ripping off tiny accounts?

Trust me the brokers know the odds. They know most newbie traders are perfectly capable of blowing their own accounts. The broker doesn’t need to do anything but give them the opportunity to trade. The newbies take care of the rest, taking dumb trades and losing money is what newbies do (when I was a newbie I blew my first two accounts in a few weeks).

When these newbies blow their accounts what do they do?

  1. They run to a Forex review site.
  2. They write a review about how they got ripped off by their broker.
  3. They give the broker a very low rating.

So instead of taking responsibility for their own screw-ups they blame their broker for them. This absolutely sucks for the brokers themselves. They have done nothing but offer the opportunity to trade and they get reamed by newbie’s for it. It also sucks for other newbie’s looking for a broker. All you can find online is biased reviews from clueless newbie’s.

The whole concept of Forex broker review sites is flawed. Some awesome brokers like GFT Forex (My fav broker) and MB Trading (another fav of mine) have 3 stars on ForexPeaceArmy.

That is ridiculous!

I have used both those brokers for years and I have rarely if ever had a problem. When I do have issues the support staff are very helpful. For example, MB trading once even handed me the money back for a trade that I took. Their price feed had a problem that day and it went higher than it was meant to go. I entered a trade based on a spike that didn’t really happen. The trade ended up losing. I called up and they apologized profusely and gave me back all my losses.

With reviews what happens is a bunch of newbies sign up with a good broker. Through their own mistakes they lose all their money. Then instead of taking responsibility they leave negative reviews about the brokers performance.

One of the most commonly used accusations levelled against brokers is slippage during highly volatile period. Well yeh…… if you jump in a trade the second NFP is released don’t be surprised if you’re slipped 30 pips. It is the nature of trading, you do not get perfect fills when the market is jumping up 20 pips per second. If you’re silly enough to take trades in highly volatile periods expect to be slipped.

What this all boils down to is that review websites are useless when it comes to broker reviews. The majority of reviews are submitted by clueless newbie’s who blame their broker for their own screw ups. I you’re looking for a broker to trade with ask a professional trader for advice. Professional traders have been around long enough and know their stuff. For example here is my short list of good brokers:

  1. GFT Forex (awesome charts, great customer support and great to trade with).
  2. MBTrading – If you want an ECN instead of a market maker MBTrading is the best out there for smaller accounts.
  3. ODL – If you cannot live without the MT4 platform give ODL a shot they’re a great broker.
  4. Dukascopy – If you want a ECN and you have the minimum $10k account size requirement Dukascopy is one of the best ECN’s out there. With a $10k buy in though it is not for everybody.

I have traded with all these brokers and I personally recommend them all.

However, according to the reviewers on ForexPeaceArmy.com

  1. GFT has 3 stars.
  2. MBTrading also has 3 stars.
  3. ODL has a measly 2 stars.

And surprise surprise!

  1. Dukascopy has 4 stars!

Does that mean Dukascopy are better than GFT and MBTrading….. No! I believe that Dukascopy has a higher rating for another reason. You see, until recently Dukascopy only allowed traders with $50k capital to open accounts. That means that Dukascopy limited its clientele to professional traders (not many newbie’s have $50k). Professional traders leave real reviews because they know what they’re talking about. Therefore Dukascopy has 4 stars. Just goes to show how little cry baby newbie’s screw up review systems.

So guys, my tip of the week….. Take Forex broker reviews with a grain of salt. Newbies have no clue how to trade so they have no right to jump up on their soap box and tell the world if a broker is good or not.

EDIT: I should add that if the scam is very obvious then yes newbies should warn others. What I mean is if it is a simple case of losing pips on a bad trade 95% of times the newbie is at fault not the broker. I was a newbie once too and I always blamed my broker. I thought they had it in for me….. however, I was the one making all the mistakes.