GiroFX – Are They a Scam?

Website URL: https://girofx.com

Founded: 2020

Regulations: No License

Languages: English

Deposit Methods: Skrill, SOFORT, Visa, SafetyPay, MasterCard, Przelewy24, Bank Wire, iDEAL

Minimum Deposit: $200

Free Demo Account: No

Number of Assets: N/A

Types of Assets: Currency Pairs, CFDs (Metals, Indices, Commodities, Cryptocurrencies, Stocks)

Trading Accounts and Conditions

GiroFX offers its customers the following trading accounts:

• Basic: The minimum amount to be deposited to trade on this account is $200.
• Bronze: The minimum amount you need to deposit to trade on this account is $25,000.
• Silver: To trade on this account, the minimum deposit required is $75,000.
• Premium: The minimum deposit requirement for this account type is $150,000.

The leverage offered on all of the above accounts is 1:30, but spreads are not mentioned anywhere.

GiroFX – Advantages

There is only one advantage you will get if you trade with GiroFX – the range of trading instruments they offer. GiroFX has a large selection of foreign currency pairs, as well as CFDs on a range asset classes such as indices, stocks, commodities, precious metals and even some cryptocurrencies.

GiroFX – Disadvantages

Here are the many disadvantages of trading with GiroFX:

• Broker is Anonymous

The first serious sign that this broker is not to be trusted and is in all probability a scam is the fact that they are completely anonymous. On GiroFX’s website, the broker claims that they are based in the UK, but they do not provide the name of the company that owns and operates them.

There are several UK-based contact numbers, but that is really not a great indication of location since you can get pretty much any country code for phone numbers on the internet nowadays.

So, basically, this broker is completely anonymous, and dealing with such a broker is dangerous since you do not know who you’re dealing with.

Plus500

$100

Minimum Deposit

Start Trading

Read Review

82% of retail investor accounts lose money when trading CFDs with this provider. You should consider whether you can afford to take the high risk of losing your money

Plus500 is a FTSE 250 listed brokerage providing online trading services in CFDs, across 2,000+ securities and multiple asset classes.

 

AvaTrade

$100

Minimum Deposit

Start Trading

Read Review

The company was created as a combined effort of financial professionals and experts in web-commerce with the goal of perfecting the online experience for retail traders.

• Unregulated

Since GiroFX is unregulated, we can assume that it is also unregulated. However, we like to be sure of such things, so we went online and checked the FCA’s (Financial Conduct Authority’s) register. The FCA is the UK’s financial watchdog.

Our assumption about this broker’s regulatory status was correct. There was is brokerage called GiroFX listed on the FCA’s online register.

Thus, we are dealing with an anonymous and unregulated broker – a very dangerous combination. Such brokers operate outside the law, which means that they do not find it necessary to adhere to the terms of the contract that you have agreed upon.

• Regulatory Warning Issued Against Broker

We aren’t the only ones to have noticed that this broker is offering its financial services illegally. The Swedish financial authority, the Finaninpektionen (FI), has issued a regulatory warning against GiroFX, and has blacklisted this broker.

The FI clearly states that they have not found any proof that this broker is a going concern, which means that this broker is a scammer. Remember, regulators will only blacklist forex brokers if there have been complaints scamming against them.

• No Demo Account, Unknown Spreads

Another black mark against this broker is that GiroFX does not offer a free demo account to its clientele. A demo account allows traders to check the trading conditions set by a broker for themselves. They can also get to test the trading platform offered by that broker.

And since this broker has not even disclosed basic trading conditions such as the spreads it offers, it is even more worrying that traders cannot check the facts.

So, if you sign up with this broker, you’re going in blind. You will not know what the terms of trade are, which is not a good way to do business.

Furthermore, this is a strategy typically adopted by scammers, so it only goes to strengthen our suspicion that if you trade with GiroFX, you will lose your money.

• MetaTrader 4 Not Offered

While there are many good platforms that traders can use for online trading, the most popular by far is the MetaTrader 4 software. It is easy to use for traders of all proficiency levels, and it offers a wide range of tools to help with trading. Users have charting options, technical indicators and even automatic bots to help with their trading.

And GiroFX does not offer this platform to its customers. What you will get instead is an unknown, web-based interface. While it does have some features and its easy to use, it cannot compare to what the MT4 platform has to offer.

• Low Leverages

This one is a surprise for us, since unregulated brokers usually offer very high leverages in a bid to attract more customers. GiroFX offers its customers a maximum leverage of 1:30, which does, in fact, make it look more legitimate.

Legitimate brokers are limited in the amount of leverage they can offer by the financial authorities that regulate them, so this can be seen as a way to appear legitimate.

Having said that, even regulated brokers are allowed to offer much higher leverage for their professional and institutional accounts. Therefore, professional traders who are used to dealing with higher leverage ratios will be disappointed by this broker’s offering.

• Bonuses Offered

The last thing we would like to point out is that GiroFX offers its customers bonuses. The bonuses themselves are not a problem; it’s the withdrawal conditions attached to these bonuses that are an issue.

With GiroFX (and many other scammers), if you accept the bonus, then you will be required to meet a minimum trading volume target to be able to withdraw your funds. If you do not meet that target, you will not be allowed to take out your money. The problem is that that target is so impossibly high that few traders can achieve it, which means that most traders have to say goodbye to their money.

Conclusion 

GiroFX has all the indications that it is a scammer and this means that your funds are not safe with them.

GiroFX

2.5

User Experience

3.0/10

Payment Options

2.6/10

Security

2.4/10

Support

2.2/10

Reputation

2.5/10

Pros

• Range of Trading Instruments on Offer

Cons

• Broker is Anonymous
• Unregulated
• Regulatory Warning Issued Against Broker
• No Demo Account, Unknown Spreads
• MetaTrader 4 Not Offered