Who we are

Clearmark Desk is a small editorial project with one job: work out whether a trading platform does what it says, using documents anybody can check.

This site covers a single question in depth — whether Pocket Option is a scam or a legitimate platform — across thirty pages that each take one part of it. We are not Pocket Option, we are not a broker, and we are not a regulator. Nothing here is financial, legal or tax advice.

How we work

Every factual claim on this site has to be traceable to a primary source: the operator's own published pages, a regulator's own publication, or a public register you can search yourself. Where a number cannot be traced, we write a range or leave it out. That rule is why you will not find a licence number, a founding year, a review score or a payout time anywhere on this site, even though all four circulate widely and all four would make our pages read more confidently.

Public complaints and forum reports are read in aggregate rather than one at a time. A single furious post proves very little; the shape of a few hundred of them, sorted by root cause and read to their final message rather than their first, tells you a great deal. Where the record supports a criticism, we make it. Where it does not, we say so, even when the unsupported claim is the one readers arrived expecting.

What we have not done

We have not opened a funded account, made a deposit, placed a trade or requested a withdrawal on this platform. Nothing on this site is a measured result, no timings are ours, and we do not publish screenshots of accounts we do not hold. When a page describes what happens at the payout stage, it is describing documented rules and public reports, not our own experience. Any review claiming to have timed a payout to the hour should be asked to show its evidence.

Who writes it

Editorial responsibility for this site sits with Imogen Radcliffe, Trust and Safety Editor, who sets the sourcing rules above and signs off every page against them.

How we are paid

We may earn a commission when a reader opens an account through our links, which is set out in full on our funding page. That is a real conflict of interest, and the way we handle it is to state our test before looking at the evidence, publish what would reverse our verdict, and refuse to print reassuring facts we cannot source. Readers can judge whether that is enough.

Corrections

Conditions in this sector change: restriction lists, payment methods and promotional terms are all moving targets. If something here is out of date or wrong, tell us and we will fix it and say what changed. Write to [email protected].