inDirectFx: a broker from hell that does not like winners....

4evermaat

2nd Lieutenant
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I initially decided to work with a client that opened a forex trading account with DirectFx Au as part of a trading contest where you can win additional trading capital as an allocation from the TopTradr bi-weekly contest. But you could only use brokers that they partnered with (only DirectFx at the time). I was convinced to give them a shot despite some reservations about them possibly being a [naughty] market maker.....until I started noticing several discrepancies:

1) Chart prices consistently did not match terminal/market watch prices:

DirectFx SCAM 03 May 2016 chart incorrect prices chart and terminal.png
DirectFx SCAM 29 Dec 2016 chart incorrect prices chart and terminal 1 of 2.png
DirectFx SCAM 29 Dec 2016 chart incorrect prices chart and terminal 2 of 2.png

It appears bid is always 0.6 pips and ask is 0.7 pips wider than the chart. So you get "instant slippage" of up to 1.3 pips when you try to execute based on chart analysis. The spread is always 1.3 pips wider than 'advertised'. Even if you use EA and set it to monitor market watch prices, it still creates accounting issues when the order is misaligned on chart vs terminal prices. What if there was an execution issue and a screenshot needs to be sent? Even if you trade manually, especially from the chart it would be difficult if not impossible. But there were several of these instances where I was supposed to be executed, but was not and I couldn't figure out exactly why. I have one screenshot:

DirectFx SCAM 03 May 2016 order not triggered because market watch spread wider than chart.png


I attempted to ask why this was the case with inDirectFx chat support and they claimed that the charts are a "...trend indicator, not a market entry tool" and "...the chart is indicative, we can not have different feeds for the chart; only one....it is an operations limitation...." But I still couldn't understand why they would volunteer to have 2 different price feeds showing 2 different prices ? How does showing [fake] prices that always appear better than they can actually be executed at promote fair execution or is otherwise in the best interest of clients?

DirectFx bull**** chat 02 May 2016 chart prices different than market watch.png

I thought these excuses were inadequate so I went to a couple of different brokers and ask them if they would stream 2 different prices to chart and market watch, and why they would do it that way. Here is an example of a different Australian broker who correctly has chart/terminal price feed matched perfectly:

DirectFx SCAM 03 May 2016 Global Prime Au showing correct prices chart and terminal.png
DirectFx SCAM Dec 2016 Global Prime Au showing correct prices chart and terminal 1 of 2.png
DirectFx SCAM Dec 2016 Global Prime Au showing correct prices chart and terminal 2 of 2.png

Along with notable chat session. "....I don't see why we'd want them to be different. Everything wouldn't correlate time-wise then..." I agreed fully with this:

DirectFx SCAM chat 03 May 2016 Global Prime comments on chart prices different than market watch.png

2) Staff operates odd business hours. DirectFx seems to almost all operate out of Chicago, IL, USA, but I didn't find this out conclusively until shortly after the trading account was opened. I honestly don't care if you outsource to Antarctica, but they should be able to cover all account-related requests during Australian business hours. The broker is regulated in Australia and reports an Australian business address. I did attempt to discuss this with chat support and the excuse was that "We have quite a few people that answer live chat....there would not be a difference talking to someone in the Australian office....":eek:

DirectFx SCAM chat 17-18 Mar 2016 opening account and staff in Chicago vs Australia.png

I didn't see the full negative effects of this until the withdrawal requests were submitted (see below).

[Continued in 2nd post.....]
 
[...continued from post 1 above because of 10 attachment limitation....]

3) Client portal needs an overhaul. My biggest complaint was that support tickets generated through the client portal had no threaded history and were often not answered for over 2 weeks in some cases.

DirectFx SCAM email 21 April 2016 testing client portal ticket system response time.png

DirectFx bull**** email 05 May 2016 support ticket human response 1st time after weeks.png

Email and live chat was generally much quicker I found out later. So even though they eventually started to answer support tickets faster, I just followed up most support requests with email, or just used email. It didn't make any sense to have a ticket system setup like this.

DirectFx bull**** email 05-06 May 2016 support ticket client portal flawed and withdrawal delay.png

I also discovered later that they had 3-4 different timezones going on.
- mt4 trading platform was using GMT +2/+3 depending on New York daylight savings time,
-Chicago, USA timestamps often used in live chat to refer to when administrative staff is available,
- client portal used GMT or some other default timezone of their webhost.
- And Australian timestamps that I used as they are under Australian regulation (dfx would refer to Au as well in some correspondence) :confused:

Usually there is only 1 timezone for the platform, and one timezone for all administrative things, usually located where they were regulated (Australia in this case). Much less confusing this way ;)

4) Withdrawals took longer than they were supposed to for an Australian brokerage (or any regulated brokerage for that matter). This particularly made myself and client upset because of all the things a broker can try to get right, it's got to be when they are handling client funds. Mishandled funds caused by carelessness or nonchalant attitude of broker staff causes a ton of undue stress on the client, and any related parties that must then hear all the bs until it is either paid or worse.

They originally stated 1-3 business days to process a withdrawal, which I thought 3 days was a bit much to hold on to client's money.

DirectFx SCAM chat 03 May 2016 inquiry about wire withdrawal cutoff times.png

And I followed up by email just to be sure.

DirectFx SCAM 05 May 2016 2nd important followup about withdrawal request done via client portal.png

Then they claimed that they did not receive part of the withdrawal request.

DirectFx bull**** email 05-06 May 2016 support ticket client portal flawed and withdrawal delay.png (look at 2nd half of screenshot)

They took 5 Australian business days the first time to process withdrawal (to send it from their end). The client submitted the withdrawal request via the client portal on 02 May 2016, but it could be argued that it was after Au business hours, and so would count as the next day 03 May 2016. In that case, it took 4 Au business days. Their initial excuse for taking so long was that all withdrawals have to go through a 'compliance check' and also '...they did not have all of the information necessary to process a withdrawal.

DirectFx bull**** email 07-10 May 2016 claim wire withdrawal sent without screenshot.png

They had ALL of the necessary information in the client portal to send withdrawal. You have to fill it all in and add a bank account first, prior to sending the withdrawal request.

DirectFx SCAM 06 May 2016 screenshot showing dfx had correct bank account info.png

But in addition to this, I had to get several people who knew someone at DirectFx on my behalf to call and get them to process the withdrawal. These friends were also wondering wtf, and I do apologize for having to waste their time also. The outcome might have been worse had others not chipped in or if I didn't keep up with it.

DirectFx SCAM 06 May 2016 support ticket requesting more info on wire withdrawal processing time.png

DirectFx bull**** email 09 May 2016 support response to concerns about withdraw request.png

You [the broker] are not special because you 'decided' to process a client's withdrawal. No different than a bank thinking it is special because it 'allowed' me to withdraw money I deposited with them earlier. Or a car dealer is special because they sold the car 'with tires'. You were just doing what you were supposed to do; nothing extraordinary.

I asked around to other Au brokers and found out that same/next business day withdrawal processing was standard practice. This behavior may also explain why ESMA recently demanded [section 7] that EU brokers process withdrawals on the same business day. I mention this to further prove that withdrawals should be fully processed on the legit broker side without artificial delays; anything outside of this and the broker is likely full of *****.


I remember asking around if they were waiting for other deposits from other people to come in first before processing both of my withdrawals :rolleyes:o_O, as their attitude suggested that withdrawal requests were not something they did often. I had almost doubled the trading account legally and their hands got a bit too sticky for my tastes and I'm sure the ASIC's taste. Oh, and the 2nd time I tried to get a [2nd and final] withdrawal request processed.....well I'll leave that for another post or maybe even the court case. More than enough here and I'm tired. Judging from the DFx reviews since then, doesn't look like much has changed :(. This crap has got to stop.


[----- end initial post -----]
[invite to this thread sent DirectFx support emails]
 
Go ahead and send the link to this thread to all the addresses you have for DirectFx. Ask them to come here to join the discussion.
 
Go ahead and send the link to this thread to all the addresses you have for DirectFx. Ask them to come here to join the discussion.
I already did shortly after posting. I also submitted ticket to FPA regarding some attachments that are missing in first post. They previewed ok, but must have expired. Had the draft open for over 1 week.
 
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