Trades cancelled with broker

I am writing to you, community of ForexFactory, with my total disappointment and astonishment about the recent issues happened to me with Alpari UK.
My apologies for my english, I hope it will be clear.
I would like to inform you that all the facts happened ALSO to my two colleagues I work with, with the same exact details, same exact problems.

I have been trading with Alpari UK for a year now,I have a classic account (market maker): everything clear and good till the beginning of this month, when I started making quite unexpected profits and bigger than my average records.

I work on the market as a job, self-employed and I consider trading my primary source of income, so 150-200 trades per day are pretty common if the right conditions happen.

This is one of my accounts tracked on myfxbook : MyFxBook-lorbax001

After a couple of heavy scalping trading days on CFDs, Alpari started flooding my accounts with "requotes" and various other problems with MT4. So I had to reduce my trading activity down to zero.

As soon as I requested a withdrawal from the account to my bank account, this was ignored at first and then, after asking them more details several times on the phone and by email, on June 10th, I received the following email from the Compliance Office:

This is the Terms of Business documents: http://static.alpari.co.uk/docs/terms_of_business.pdf
As you can see with your own eyes, at Section 9 there is no reference about "delayed/latent" prices.

As I consider this behaviour inacceptable, I contacted the FSA (Financial Services Authority - UK) and the Financial Ombudsman Service (uk) and I opened a complaint about this conduct by Alpari, they started and Investigation against Alpari regarding my case.

In the meantime. I spent the week from the 13th to the 19th of June asking more details about this claim by phone and emails and all my requests were ALL totally ignored.

Finally, today I received this last email:

Apart from the fact that my trading capacity is TOTALLY corrupted as I keep getting requoted 24/7, I am totally disgusted of this behaviour, as I am completely sure that if my trading activity generated losses they would have NEVER EVER claimed that I was operating with "delayed prices" or "manifest errors" as this would have led to refunding me.

I would like to ask you if anyone else has been in my same (or similar) situation and how it ended...
And of course I also want to warn anyone willing to open an account with them that this is probably what they would expect if the make to much profits.

As said before, this is the situation for me and other two well experienced traders who I work with. So 3 of 3 with the same problems and same conditions....

Any help, suggestion, idea, comment is very appreciated.
Thank you for your time.

Lorenzo

According to your myfxbook page, you made ~12K on a single DE30 trade (which i assume is alpari's DAX cfd). Your account equity before the trade was at ~4K, and ~16K after the trade.

If you did trade on a clearly erroneous price to archieve this result, you have to expect that this fill will be reversed. Happens on regular exchanges as well.

You should really post the details of this trade (time, price and quantity of the executions) in this thread - otherwise its not possible to judge if your claim has any merit.

Since the trading activity is still under investigation, I would prefer to keep a privacy level and avoid posting detailed trading history, I am sure you understand.

I made scalping on the DAX Cfd, yes, which I hadn't done it prviously on that account.

Erroneous prices ? I traded on prices provided by the broker, at market price ... 7210/7212 ok I like it, BUY 7212 filled , 7214 exit. I really don't get it.
I made a huge volume of trades, yes, is this illegal ?

What's the catch ? If the erroneous prices led me to losing trades would I expect to get voided also those trades ? I have losing trades, I don't think they are giving me back money for those, or at least if they were the majority the problem was only mine, not theirs.

I am really not capable to understand how this is "obvious" or "natural" just simply because it's done by the brokers. How come they would delete or modify trades just because they assume their OWN prices were "wrong" ???
This is insane, come on, seriously!

I have had trades undone that were filled on clearly erroneous prices. By that i mean a spike that is like 500 pips off the market. Both in my favor and against me.

Pardon my suspicion - but if your account trades sideways for a year and then you suddenly triple your equity in a single day, i suspect something is amiss.

I understand that, actually, this is just one of the accounts I use with them, and previously was only used with EAs.
I understand your possible suspect, but it has to be proven, otherwise every profitable trades they like to cancel they would say "oh ya, the prices weren't correct because I say so, and I delete your trades" .... I mean, do you think it's reasonable ?

This is not a spike, it's not 500 pips away, I was making scalping on the market, at market prices. I scalp other securities such as futures and etf, of course never had any problem.

What exactly did they do to your trades ? simply deleting them or re-making the trades at the price they presume it was the right one ?

The European "Mifid" (The Markets in Financial Instruments Directive 2004/39/EC) which they have subscribed, should guarantee that the clients get the "best execution" on the markets, other than several other rights...

Thanks

I am one of Lorbax' colleagues,

I am living the same nightmare even if my history gain was pretty positive since the beginning of this year until I started making more profits which are much less than his. It looks like nothing matters, if you gain too much according to their ‘parameters’ you get blacklisted. This bothers them a lot and the more you gain the more they go against you. The best client for them are for sure those who lose over and over.

what it bothers me is that their explanation are always vague and approximative but i won't be satisfied until they will explain me, with details and numbers, every single trade they contest.

see you

Thats fucked up. Well keep us posted how much cash they decide they want to rob you off. And after that i guess you will close your accounts with these deucebags, they deserve NONE of your spread money or anything else for that matter!

Hi,

Fill a complain with FSA. They can't withdraw your profits as FSA will kill them!

Now they want you to trade again so they kill you with requotes.

Request again withdrawal & they can't refuse that indifinitly. Don't ever bother opening any trade again with them or they will kill you slowly with virtual dealer.

& again fill a complain with FSA with full details.

ALPARI UK are cheaters & using virtual dealer, don't understand why FSA don't step in to ban virtual dealer.

Good luck
13

just report to FSA..and file a case on FPA FOREX PEACE ARMY

im glad i read this i was looking to add more money with them..but this is ridiculous..its your money and they saying there doing an investigation cause u made a lot..


dont seem right!

if money is transferred..and u won how can they refuse to pay u..not like u made it from them..??

a lot of traders don't believe in stronger regulation but im all for it, shit like this don't happen with stock brokers

Heavy cracksmokers with submachine guns is a lot more dependable then Alpari

What else did you expect from broker with Russian roots...?

I would expect them to follow the FSA directives.

Anyone else ever made a complaint through the FSA system ?
Thank you

so are u saying they refusing to give any added gains or what?

I was about to open an acount with them...but this seems ridiculous and unjust....how can they restrict u from withdrawing your own money.

I have to look for another broker now.

any suggestions for any other broker? preferable from UK

Till now they are just claiming that they are investigating on my trading activity and they will remove trades that are against the terms of business, but they haven't deleted anything yet.

I contacted the FSA and they opened a procedure of investigation, Alpari has now 8 weeks to reply to that.

I will keep you posted

I never did - but i suggest contacting an attorney. In the US if you file a claim with the NFA and you get denied by the arbitrator, you have to pay the attorney fees of the broker - if the broker decides to file a counterclaim. Now judging from the sums involved in your case, that can be a multiple of what is under dispute here. For example, here is a case where the claimant got hit with 26K attorney fees, after he got his case dismissed.

I dont know if its the same with the FSA, but you should be well aware of the legal implications of what you are doing. Hence, attorney.