Questrade - honest review

How to find a reliable broker and what to pay attention to while choosing?

Looking for a broker that you can trust with your money is not an easy task. Many novice traders suppose that it is sufficient to study the forums, watch some YouTube channels, collect a chunk of diverse opinions and, voila, the coveted company to trade with is found. However, by such a strategy they are more likely to lure themselves into a trap. After all, many of them do not even think about the fact that most of the positive reviews may be fake, namely not the opinions of real traders. Frequently, laudable feedback may not have anything to do with reality. Even the popular belief among traders to trust lavishly praised brokers turns out to be wrong quite often. As a result, investors choose usual scammers with catchy and bright websites. However, on the Internet, you can easily find a huge number of negative comments about cooperation with a particular brokerage company. Therefore, it is no longer possible for swindlers to hide obvious fraudulent manipulations.

When choosing a decent company, a trader should rely on independent resources and carefully study the official website of a particular broker. Scammers quite often use very trivial techniques to attract clients. Nevertheless, experienced traders are more likely to understand immediately whom they deal with by looking at the following things:

1) an excessively profitable bonus programs that bring gains almost immediately after traders make a large deposit (if the conditions are not met, all the money is automatically transferred to the broker's account with the penalty interest );

2) "Terms of agreement" may contain a clause where the broker has full control of the clients' funds.

Why is Questrade a fraud?

Сanadian broker Questrade uses all the mentioned fraudulent schemes. By agreeing to their terms, clients start investing in securities, trying to generate a profit. However, some traders do not pay attention to the description of the company's activities and the conditions for providing intermediary services. This is why they risk losing their deposit because the company is not responsible for possible monetary losses. You can find this information on the Questrade website in the section "Limitation of Liability". According to this clause, the client who signed the contract with the broker accepts that the company is not responsible for losses.

We have studied the company's website in detail and found out some dubious conditions. So, we decided to check whether Questrade is a crook. The first thing that put us on guard was very little information about the company's management. Besides, the company's trading conditions raised some questions. At first glance, everything is legal and there are even some competitive advantages:

• no commission for tax-free savings accounts (TFSA) and registered retirement savings plans (RRSP);
• low fees (compared to other Canadian brokers);
• no margin on portfolio;
• opportunity not to pay interest on cash balance.

As we said, favorable trading conditions are likely to attract many clients. However, there is one thing that raises suspicion. We noticed a small text at the bottom of the page stating that the company does not provide a wide range of services but only performs intermediary functions for investors to enter various world exchanges. Having read more about the brief legal information that is available on the company's website, we have discovered that when traders face difficulties, the company will not help or take care of their funds as it has no responsibility in this matter. Let's imagine: the client makes a deposit and starts trading, and the broker pretends to perform some trading operations, although it is difficult to check this. Most likely, the client's funds are in the company's turnover, and the trader may be exposed to falsified quotes. It enables the dealing center to receive additional profit on the price difference. Instead of receiving a percentage from the transaction legally, some brokers try to circumvent the usual trading system and choose a different path: buy when the client opens short deals and sell when the client opens long deals. With the help of this manipulation, the amount of the deposit made by the client is transferred automatically to the broker. Unfortunately, Questrade is not the only company that uses this trick.

Moreover, we also came across rather debatable conditions in the company's privacy policy. Questrade mentions that representatives of the company are allowed to transfer customer private data to their affiliates, who will not be responsible for its safety.

It is quite easy to prove that cooperation with Questrade leads to the loss of the deposit. There are quite a lot of reviews from clients on independent resources who share their negative experience and publish not the most flattering information about the broker. For example, traders say that Questrade forces the client to pay a lot of money for its services. It means that the company has no advantages over other competitors in the market. Besides, when traders open an account with Questrade but do not use it, they are also obliged to pay fees for inactivity.

Questrade’s representatives promise traders a very low commission but later they start charging fees for subscriptions and newsletters. When some time passes, investors find out that their funds are taken from their accounts but it is impossible to get any explanations from the support service.

Questrade scammers take advantage of system failures to get as much money as possible from their customers, and technical support rejects this fact even accusing the very victims of dishonesty.

Judging by the numerous comments of deceived traders, it becomes clear that all the pitfalls appear when clients start trading. A detailed analysis of the documentation and conditions of cooperation with Questrade, the negative reviews from real traders on independent resources leave no doubt that Questrade lures money from its customers. Questrade is a fraudulent organization that does not help its clients make a profit but makes them incur large losses.