GrandOption Review
Editor’s Note – Why does GrandOption Suck in 50 Words?
There are lots of misunderstands, FAQ errors and some important area like the “Daily news” and “Week in Review” sections are not updated. The freshest articles I could find were dated August 13 and Week of June 10 – 14. Just for the record, this review is written on the 20th of September. Maybe it’s because they quite fresh, but it doesn’t look good at all.
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Why GrandOption doesn’t Suck?
The look of their website is different from others. It seems they put more work into making it more appealing to traders who are bored with the same slogans and page layout. Grand Options is a new broker and this fact can have some advantages because they will probably try to make a name for themselves and provide a good environment for traders. Of course, this is not a rule and only time will tell.
GrandOption Full Review – “The Biggest Thing To Happen To Binary Options Since Binary Options”… (?!?)
The statement above belongs to Grand Options and is easily visible on their homepage. Such a bold statement has to be backed up by some facts if you ask me, but they fall short when it’s time to put their money where their mouth is. As much as I like to see new brokers being really committed to offering the best trading experience and a variety of tools for their traders, at the moment I don’t see Grand Options as one of them. The outdated market analysis I mentioned above is just the first indication about how much they respect traders/clients. Overall, I found their website to be very confusing and definitely not newbie friendly.
In their Frequently Asked Questions section they say “The payout may range from 80% to over 310% per option.” and in the Glossary: “The payouts with GrandOption may range from 89% to as much as 460%.” Now my brain freezes! What’s the real payout? It would not be such a big deal if the confusion would stop here but they keep giving us mixed information when it comes to minimum investment: in the FAQs they say you only need $100 as a minimum investment but in the Banking section they say $500 is required if you want to deposit via credit card or e-wallet and $1000 if you want to use bank transfer. That is ridiculously high for a new company who has not proved to be a reliable partner for traders. It is actually disrespectful to ask for 1K and have no prior history proving your professionalism. Keep in mind that top brokers in the industry have an average minimum deposit of $200. There is more: they advertise 100% Bonus but there is no additional information about what conditions apply to that bonus and no trace of it in the Terms and Conditions. When I clicked on the “100% Bonus” banner I was redirected to the “Open Account” section and when I contacted Live Chat for more information, they failed to provide any. The operator just stopped talking to me once the question was asked. This can lead me to only one conclusion: they falsely advertise a Bonus and they actually don’t have any… or maybe they will decide to give you one depending on your first deposit sum… and their mood that day. They have 3 different types of accounts and maybe the bonus differs according to the account you open, but that’s not an excuse for the lack of information. Anyway, since we don’t know the conditions that apply to the bonus, I wouldn’t accept one. This is not how things should work and so far Grand Options doesn’t have any chance of seeing a dime from me.
Hoping I can find some positive things about them, I moved to their “Grand Options Academy”. They have better information there than some other brokers but “better” doesn’t mean “good”. It just means that the standard for the industry is set too low. There are some brokers that stand out from the crowd when it comes to educational material but those are the exceptions rather than the rule. Grand Options teach traders that a Straddle is applied “… when a trader buys a call and a put option on the same financial asset at the same time.” But when they try to demonstrate how the trader should apply the Straddle, they use as an example the quotes 1.2360 and 1.2395… clearly they contradict themselves and I’m not sure anybody would want to learn from such “experts”.
Grand Options are a grand disappointment and at the moment I would not recommend them to anyone. They need to get their act together and start providing a normal trading environment where all the information is laid out coherently. Minimum investments should be lowered, market analysis should be up to date, Live Chat should at least answer questions and the traders should be informed about the return they can expect… and all this coming from “The biggest thing to happen to binary options since binary options”…
Is GrandOption a Scam?
Their “About Us” section does not contain any clear information regarding who they really are, or where to find them. All you can read is how good and prestigious they are and how much money you can make trading Binary Options. Sure, I agree you can make a lot of money in this business, but trading with a reliable broker is an important part and I’m not so sure Grand Option is a good choice. Talks around the web suggest that this broker is owned by another well known Binary Options company who stopped working with US citizens and Grand Option was created to address those needs. This is just rumor and cannot be confirmed at the moment, but if it’s true, I hope that American traders will do their best to protect themselves. Banking and Transactions seems transparent, yet no clear answer to the first question – Is GrandOptions a Scam? Or Not? We hope our readers could help. ThatSucks.com (former BinaryOptionsThatSuck.com) team will keep monitoring.
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GrandOption Complaints
Being a new broker, it’s too early for any complaints to surface but I am sure those will start to appear if Grand Option doesn’t improve drastically. We will keep searching for GrandOption complaints and feedbacks, you can do so yourself by simply searching Google for GrandOption Scams, Frauds, Complaints, Etc…
GrandOption Bonus
The advertised Bonus is 100%. However, for the reasons I outlined above, I consider their bonus to be almost inexistent. Other than a simple banner, there is no information on their site about bonus. Probably case based bonus.
GrandOption Withdrawal
A withdrawal takes 7 business days to be processed after all the required documents have been sent and a request has been filed. The minimum withdrawal amount is $100 but this information is not available in the Terms and Condition so it can be changed at any time by them.
GrandOption Extras
No features can be credited as Extra. Videos are nice.
Grand Option Ratings
User Friendly 13/20
The website is available in 5 languages which is average for the industry and the platform used is developed by Tech Financials. Charts are too small but overall it’s a good platform for people who don’t use technical analysis as a primary tool. However, the website itself contains a lot of contradicting information and this makes it less reliable. To be monitored.
Number of assets and expiry times 17/20
Their trading basket contains 24 currency pairs, 6 commodities, 29 stocks and 16 indices which are quite enough for the average trader. The expiry times range from 60 seconds to end of day and there is also the possibility to trade One Touch options with longer expiries.
Commissions, Support and Effective return 10/20
There are no fees for depositing but withdrawals carry some fees: 3.5% of the entire withdrawal is deducted as a fee for Credit Card withdrawals and 2.5% for MoneyBookers withdrawals. These charges are too high and not justified in our opinion. Bank transfer withdrawals carry a $25 fee. The first withdrawal is free. Support is not helpful at all and the Live Chat operative I talked to was disrespectful because I waited for more than 15 minutes to get an answer to a simple question related to their Bonus. In the end, I did not receive that answer and decided it’s time to close the useless chat window. Information about effective return is mixed and confusing; nevertheless, looks very transparent and we appreciate it.
Deposit, Payment and Bonus 14/20
Deposits can be made via credit cars, e-wallets and wire transfer but the minimum amount is another confusing matter: Grand Option mention both $100 and $500 (for credit card and e-wallet) as the minimum deposit and $1000 for wire transfer deposits. Withdrawals take up to 7 business days and incur some fees mentioned above. According to the information we gathered, Grand Option does not offer a first deposit bonus.
Extra features 10/20
They don’t have any innovative or never seen before features. The trading video looks good, but again, nothing new under the sun.
Grand Option Overall Ratings: 64/100
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