ITRADER Forex broker review
TradeATF, formerly known as ‘ITRADER’ – is a relatively well-known Forex broker. They have some history, and somewhere on its course they decided to rebrand, it seems. The platform is still colloquially known as ITRADER, and as such it gets mentioned in many user reviews. These, by the way, will help you determine just how good of a brokering job TradeATF/itader is doing.
Fortunately, there are plenty of reviews left by users over the years, and they can give you a pretty clear picture of an average experience here if you don’t want to get involved yourself, which is a smart move if you don’t completely trust the company in question.
In case of ATF, you shouldn’t – but that’s the subject for further down the article. If you want, you can skip to the good part – ‘the rating’ – but for now let’s take a closer look at the platform.
What is ITRADER?
This platform has a sizeable assortment of different assets, divided into several well-defined categories:
- Crypto – Bitcoin, Ethereum, Ripple and more
- Commodities – some kind of tangible goods ample for trading
- Forex – real currency market
- Indices – the assets traded in groups
- Metals – metal commodities
Additionally, you get to view an Asset Index – a list of assets ready for trading at any given moment. This one is listed amongst other products so you could access it as you would any other asset – very useful for portfolio-building.
As for places where you could actually partake in trading, you have two software options: Webtrader (a popular web-based market platform) and several mobile apps created or supported by ATF.
As for trading numbers, ATF has several very interesting numerical perks to offer its users, for instance:
- 0.7 pips – a fairly good difference
- 1:500 leverage – it means you can fund your position from partly your pocket and partly broker’s on 1 to 500 ratio, where your investment is represented by the former
- 3-step account creating – it’s definitely a benefit, if it doesn’t imply lengthy verification processes, for which brokers are notorious
- 0.04 sec execution speed – it means that it’ll only take 0.04 seconds for the software to process your command, which is very beneficial
Granted these features are made with quality and that there are no additional fundamental flaws in the system, the platform must be a fairly good one. But you shouldn’t hope for that, and here’s why.
The rating
ITRADER/TradeATF isn’t ranked too high on different popular review aggregators, like Trustpilot, FPA and so on. On Trustpilot, for instance, it has 1.8/5, and that’s a poor result. Now, it’s important to note that TradeATF and ITRADER are treated separately by the aggregators.
However, for the users they are the same, and they keep leaving reviews targeted at TradeATF on ITRADER page. True, it may skew up results, but judging by recent reviews the broker continues to do a very poor job.
Regardless, it’s doubtful that the company behind both platforms changed its ways – most likely they repurposed the software and the approach from before.
The disadvantages
There are several prominent flaws in this platform, as you may guess. Here is a list of just a handful of them.
- Bad customer support
To say that the support isn’t very good is to say nothing. The service here is almost non-existent, really. More likely, you’ll have to wait months until your request is viewed. And then it may not even be approved. So, if you’ll want to inquire what happened to your money, for instance – you’ll probably never get an answer.
- Aggressive calls
It’s probably the only broker company that does that, but they feel you owe them some ‘fees’ or if you aren’t active enough, they’ll start calling you. The once-in-a-week type of calling is alright, but they do it several times a day, and the meaning behind this calls is always very passive aggressive.
You may not even have a reason to be contacted by them. They’ll just call you to ask you for more investments or to repay some fees even if you never did any trading on their turf.
- High fees
They may have (allegedly) tight spreads, but that doesn’t mean that they have likewise low fees for everything else. The withdraw fees are especially atrocious in this sense – depending on the means of withdrawing, you may lose up to 20% of the profits count that you had before the transfer.
The advantages
There is one notable advantage that you may notice if you try working with this broker (which isn’t advised).
- The performance is good
The execution and the comfort you get from actually trading on the platform aren’t fictional. The execution speed is more-or-less as claimed above, and the interface is user-friendly. Additionally, you can enjoy a large variety of assets as well as different ways to trade with them almost without issues.
Still, it doesn’t save you from the fact that, even if you do withdraw your money, you’ll lose a lot of profit in the process. And you want be able to complain about it, too.
Conclusion
In summary, ITRADER (or TradeATF, the company is the very same) isn’t too honest with people. There’s no proper customer support, at least in most cases. High fees eat up large chunks of your earnings, and if you somehow fail you pay these fees, they’ll start harassing you on the phone.
If only for their harassing policy, you should better drop the idea of cooperating with them. If you already do, try to withdraw your funds and apply for account deactivation. Maybe in some months you’ll be able to breathe freely.
Regardless of your decision, thank you very much for reading this article from top to bottom.