In popular rumor, there are a huge number of stories about the terrible financial collapses of daredevils who dared to trade on the stock exchange. Many people associate such stories specifically with the actions of the exchange, so there is an opinion that it is better not to contact the exchange.
Indeed, working on the stock exchange, you can lose all your money very quickly, but this is not due to the work of the exchange, but as a rule, due to the behavior of the player himself, although sometimes the situation may look like some treacherous plan for your bankruptcy, rigged by the exchange.
In fact, the exchange does not represent the demon described above. The exchange does a great job of processing applications from many large and small clients around the world, taking a certain percentage for its services. The exchange also monitors the course of trading, initiates market movement, in some cases restricts a strong sharp rise or fall in the price of instruments with unexpected actions of clients, pays dividends and coupons to the owner of shares and bonds, conducts over-the-counter transactions for large clients to buy and sell large blocks of shares or bonds. In general, it seems to be a useful organization.
Since the exchange is a fairly large structure, it is not possible to say unequivocally whether scammers work there or not. The question is what exactly they can do to harm. Given that exchange trading data is transmitted all over the world, it is very easy to track artifacts in the price movement and this behavior will immediately be noted by the largest rating agencies in the world with restrictions imposed on such an exchange up to exclusion from the indices. Trust in a particular exchange is a question similar to trust in a particular bank. I.e., it is very individual and depends on your subjective assessments. As for the Russian stock exchanges (Moscow and St. Petersburg), it is safe to say that for more than 30 years they have shown sufficient stability in the most unfavorable situations, which gives reason to trust them with their money to perform trading tasks.