PowerStox

Investigating PowerStox: A Comprehensive Review

PowerStox is yet another CFD broker that boasts about its immense advantages to traders and attempts to convince potential clients that it can be trusted. Its arguments presented include official registration in an offshore jurisdiction, 10,000 available trading instruments, and ultra-fast order execution on a modern trading platform. However, we decided to investigate whether the project is another creation of scammers, with a high likelihood of being a scam. Read on to find out more in the review.

Overview of PowerStox

How to find out if a broker is another scam? It’s quite simple — carefully examine all the available information about it. Therefore, let’s start our acquaintance with PowerStox from its official website and client workspace.

Broker History

Firstly, we inquire about the company’s history. There are several reasons for this. The tenure in the market will tell us not only about the team’s experience but also about the trust clients place in them. Achievements will demonstrate how ambitious project creators are and whether it has prospects. Legitimate brokers are well aware of this and strive to publish as much relevant information as possible.

In the case of PowerStox, they either forgot about such obvious things or didn’t find materials worth publishing. In either case, we reasonably suspect that we are dealing with scammers. The first scenario implies that the platform lacks client trust and knowledge of their interests. The second suggests that the broker simply lacks a history, achievements, a team, and future plans.

Powerstox.com Website

About the broker’s official website, it can be said that it is definitely not like most of the scammer creations found online. It’s distinguished primarily by its unpretentious design — PowerStox’s developers probably decided to pay more attention to content. The main menu is also original, and one of its sections is entirely devoted to instructions for working with the broker.

Overall, it could have turned out well. However, the idea was spoiled by appalling content management. It turned out to be not better, and in some cases, even worse than what colleagues-scammers offered.

For example:

• Instructions for depositing an account and general questions about financial operations not only lack the conditions for their conduct but even a list of available payment methods.
• Behind the loud name of “Analysis” menu hides an entire economic calendar, and even that seems borrowed.
• In “Our Company” section, you can read anything, but there’s no information that really concerns traders — the company’s history, its licenses, financial reports, etc.

The content received not a low but a negative rating and created serious problems for the broker. It immediately becomes clear: the interests of users here are either unknown or ignored. It’s evident that the people who ordered and created PowerStox’s website are very far from trading. Who else could it be besides scammers?

Registration Process and Personal Account

There were assumptions that a client workspace of PowerStox is organized somewhat better. However, the registration process quickly dispelled this notion. At first glance, everything looks perfectly normal. Users are required to fill out a substantial form.

In addition to the usual name, surname, and contact details typical for fraudulent projects, it’s necessary to provide your date of birth and full residential address. The list of documents for review looks somewhat unusual. It lacks the obligatory Privacy Policy, and there’s no mention of KYC and AML, but Conflict of Interest and Execution of Order Policies have appeared.

However, as it turns out, these external differences don’t mean anything. A user still cannot complete the process independently. After filling out fields and submitting the form, an error message awaits, suggesting to try again (futilely, as any set of data, even passing strict verification, leads to an error) or seek help from customer support.

This was somewhat expected. Scammers have a well-established, effective approach, so why wouldn’t PowerStox make use of it? Potential clients are forced to contact customer support. Its specialists, in turn, will create an account only for those who prove they are ready to trade specifically with this broker and fund open accounts with real amounts.

Due to the inability to complete the registration, we were unable to access PowerStox’s dashboard. Naturally, an assessment of its functionality and the execution of available operations will not be included in the review.

Trading Platform

The PowerStox trading platform also turned out to be inaccessible. Although its official website has links to download both desktop and mobile versions of the terminal, only registered clients can actually download and install the software on their devices. The problem is that all links lead to the login page, which cannot be accessed without a valid account.

Therefore, we couldn’t verify claims about ultra-fast order execution and maximum trader comfort, even in the current situation. However, we still have a few questions for PowerStox:

1. Why doesn’t the broker offer a demo account for users to familiarize themselves with the platform? Its existence would allow a customer to assess all the advantages and disadvantages of the platform and make an informed decision about trading with this software. We believe that restricting market participants in testing trading programs is only done by those who are aware of critical software flaws and are confident that it will not compete with leaders.
2. Why can’t PowerStox’s mobile apps be found in the official AppStore and GooglePlay stores? Does the software not meet the requirements of the platforms, or is the developer/broker violating their rules?

We can assume that the quality of programs is much lower than what PowerStox claims. This is precisely why users have access to the software only after opening an account. After transferring funds, clients will have no choice but to use the platform imposed by the broker.

Contacts

On “Contact Us” page, PowerStox offers traders the following contact options with broker representatives:

• Filling out the feedback form.
• Email at customersupport@powerstox.com.
• Calling the phone number +18007061196.
• Engaging in an online chat.

In addition, in the page footer, the broker displays the registered address of some company PowerStox Ltd, under whose management it operates: Carenage Bay Canouan Island, VC0450 Kingstown, Saint Vincent & Grenadines. Traditionally, for fraudulent projects, this address doesn’t include office numbers, and in this case, scammers didn’t even bother to reveal which building their “office” is in. We don’t even doubt that this is a virtual office (a mailbox and phone number), only indicating the company’s presence.

Links to PowerStox’s social media profiles are also placed in the header and footer of the pages. More precisely, their icons are not drawn, and the attached links lead to pages on the broker’s official website. It’s hard to imagine that a genuinely operating company would refuse such a communication channel with clients and attracting new users. However, for a scam project, whose lifespan will be a few months at best, the extra hassle with social media is unnecessary.

Analysis of Services Offered by PowerStox

The broker has done everything to convince any visitor that the site belongs to a scam project. It’s interesting to see what to expect from the list of services and the conditions under which they are provided?

Funding and Withdrawal

We have already mentioned that the main menu of the official PowerStox website has a whole section with instructions for users. There’s also a point about funding an account. It’s incredibly informative (oh, not):

• There’s no mention of available payment methods. It is only stated that they are diverse and safe.
• The instructions instruct to go to the Deposit Funds section of the personal account and press the Proceed button. Next, choose the funding method in the Secure Cashier interface.

Since we don’t have an active account, the options offered by the mentioned Secure Cashier and the data it contains remain unknown. However, we have no doubt that users will not be able to see the transfer details until after completion. There is even less information about withdrawals — it is not mentioned at all. However, scammers are forgivable to forget about it, as no one intends to pay funds to clients.

PowerStox Trading Conditions

The broker decided that creating a “Trading Conditions” page on the official website could meet users’ requests regarding trading terms. This could have happened if they had actually published what was promised. However, the broker limited itself to talking about 10,000 available assets, 4 types of order execution, and their own trading schedule.

PowerStox somewhat improved a situation on the page with types of accounts. Here, they indicated the minimum deposit amount for each, and for some, limits of trade volumes and spread sizes.

The broker offers 5 tariff plans:

• Mini. Minimum deposit is $250, trading micro lots (0.01 standard lot) with leverage up to 1:400 and spreads from 3 pips.
• Advanced. With a deposit of $2,500, leverage is up to 1:400, and the maximum position size is 10 lots.
• Executive. Intended for professionals with a balance of $25,000, offering access to MetaTrader 5 terminal and advanced analytical tools and educational materials.
• Prime. Available to depositors of $100k, opening the opportunity to trade the entire list of assets offered by PowerStox with fixed, narrow spreads.
• VIP. More details about the characteristics and advantages of this tariff plan can be obtained from a personal manager.

Overall, using the provided information, a trader can wisely choose the most suitable account type. However, characteristics are still not detailed enough for developing effective strategies and trading plans. Moreover, the offered leverage is very high, significantly increasing the level of risk in trading.

Is PowerStox Trustworthy and Reliable?

Doubts about the project being created by scammers are practically nonexistent now. A conclusive proof of this fact can be found by checking the official information about PowerStox.

Assessing Legitimacy

Literally on every page of the official PowerStox website, information is provided about its operation under the management of the financial investment company PowerStox Ltd, registered in Saint Vincent and the Grenadines. Founders even publish its address and registration number 25308 BC 2019. Checking this information is very simple: all local companies (indicated by the BC code in the registration number) must be included in the registry of the financial regulator SVGFSA.

However, the search yielded no results, indicating the absence of registration for this company. In general, the number are quite interesting. For example, it shows that the company was registered back in 2019. However, its main “quirk” will be revealed when searching for it online. It turns out that with this number and address, there’s another financial investment company — ProfitiX Ltd, managing (an unexpected coincidence) a CFD broker named ProfitiX.

Moreover, its official website (https://www.profitix.com/) is similar to the one we discussed earlier as a twin brother. In short, we have two identical brokers, whose legends differ only in name, created by the same group of scammers. Are there still those willing to send money to their accounts?

Established Track Record

Completing the portrait of the PowerStox scam is information about the time it appeared online. Since it doesn’t provide such information, and believing in its creation in 2019 based on the registration number is simply laughable, let’s check the domain registration date using “whois” service.

As you can see, its domain was registered only in September 2023. There can be no talk about any work in 2019-2023. However, the age of the domain indicates that scammers from PowerStox are actively attracting clients, and traders should be cautious not to fall for their trap.

Implications for Traders

There can be no doubt that PowerStox is a project created by scammers to collect and misappropriate traders’ money under the guise of a CFD broker. It lacks registration, licensing, an informative website, and transparent conditions for trading and non-trading operations. We would not trust our funds to this platform, and we do not recommend others to do so either.

Strengths and Weaknesses