Problem ActivTrades PLC deleting profitable trades

[MauriceW]

I have been with ActivTrades for about 9 months. It took a while to
discover that they are playing the game of being an honest and reliable
broker, while in fact they're white board criminals.

The reason is that at a certain point I entered a (live) trade and made a
nice profit. Several hours after I closed the order, the order (and
profit) suddenly disappeared from my MT4.

I contacted them and they had to investigate the issue. The answer was
that they had given me a wrong quote.

I discussed the matter that it was their responsibility. They gave me a
quote, I acted and entered an order and they accepted this order. A while
later I closed the order and they accepted that too, and I collected the
gain.

They did not inform me about anything, they just deleted the order
without any notice, several hours after I closed the order.

The official result of the investigation was that a 'manifest error'
occurred and that according to the contract we have, they were allowed
to delete the order (in their words 'correct').

It's very simple: At the moment I opened the order, ActivTrades ACCEPTED
the order. When I closed the order, ActivTrades ACCEPTED that too.

Just imagine when I go to a store and buy a bicycle. The seller and I
agree on the price and I buy the bike. I get the bike and the seller gets
the money. The trade is closed. After a couple of hours I suddenly
discover that my bike is missing and that the seller took my bike away
without telling me anything. After this discovery, I ask what's that all
about and he tells me that his system made an error and the price was
incorrect, so he had to get the bike back.

The biggest problem is that ActivTrades hides behind their system. They
blame their system. It's the systems fault. Furthermore they hide behind
the rules they have. They are very polite thieves.

It's a very sad story. They told me this can happen anytime with any
broker. So if this can happen anytime, I cannot longer trust this company because
they don't communicate upfront and they do not prove that an error really
was the issue.

I withdrew my money and closed the account. I will never do business with
them anymore. With ActivTrades it's just IMPOSSIBLE to actually gain,
because at any given time, they can delete your profitable trades without
warning.

I have communicated several times with them and they are not willing to
solve the issue. Be warned about this broker.

Maurice

 

[athenafx]

Maurice,

They belong to a very long list of bucket shops.

They collect money from the supposed traders and they will never give it back.

Browse thru the FPA web site to know more about common tricks.

If you insist they will stop responding. However you should !

File a complaint them invite them to participate to this thread.

Please understand that most traders don't even play a video game. They just give their money to crooks.

Be prepared to file an internet fraud to your local police.

 

[Stony]

Hi Maurice,

I am with ActivTrades much longer and have never experienced deleting a trade after it was closed. Could you specify the trade which was deleted? (which time, which currencies). I would like to have a look at it, in order to understand what was going on, and how the rules of the contract have been applied to the issue.

 

[MauriceW]

Hi Stony,

Thank you for your response. Please see the chat conversation I had with them. Here you'll see the exact time of the trade, the pair and the rest of the conversation.



Monday, 19th of December 2011
Thanks for contacting us. An operator will be with you shortly...

[Maurice] Trade disappeared!???
[Karsten] good day
[Maurice] Hello!
[Maurice] At 12:24:02 today I made a trade with ID #25328784. It was a sell AUDUSD and made a profit. Now the complete trade is disappeared, like it's been erased. What happened?
[Karsten] let me check, 1 sec please
[Karsten] what is the applicable account number plz ( as you have several)?
[Maurice] xxxxxx
[Maurice] Order #25328784 opened at 12:24:02 AUDUSD at price 0.99457, lotsize: 0,40.
Order #25328784 closed at 12:26:54 AUDUSD at price 0.99400, lotsize: 0,40.
[Karsten] 1 second please, quite busy
[Maurice] Yes. It was a 5,7 pip gain
[Karsten] yes the order was opened, closed and then somehow deleted according to my information.
[Karsten] i will double check with our technical investigation what the reason could be
[Karsten] if the fault is on our site we will find a way to compensate
[Karsten] i estimate we can expect internal feedback within 2 hours max
[Maurice] Yes, I see that the order was deleted indeed. The profit I made with it is also deleted. Please send me an email when you have the results of the investigation.
[Karsten] yes whatever the outcome of our investigation, we will inform you asap Mr Wasbauer
[Maurice] Thank you very much. I'll wait for your answer.
[Karsten] you are welcome
[Karsten] I hope within 1-2 hours

2,5 hours later I contacted them again by chat…
Thanks for contacting us. An operator will be with you shortly...

[Maurice] Karsten promised me to respond within 2 hours to resolve an issue with a deleted order. It's been over two hours and I haven't heard...
[Arthur] hello,
[Maurice] Hello Arthur
[Arthur] Could you please give me your account number ?
[Maurice] xxxxxx
[Arthur] A moment sir I have a look into your account
[Arthur] Sir could you have a look into the mail box on your MT4 platform you should have received a mail regarding this issue.
[Maurice] There is no mail in the MT4 mailbos. The last one is from the 16th of dec.
[Maurice] I have it on another mT4
[Arthur] I was checking with my IT and they confirm me you should have received the mail.
[Maurice] I do not care what is said. I got the quotes, Ativ Accepted the order, I closed the order and made a profit. So I want that profit.
[Maurice] I was definitely NOT my fault.
[Arthur] Sir the quoted price was obviously wrong so we had to cancel the order. If the same situation happened and you were loosing you will expect us to correct the mistake.
[Maurice] What kind of an answer is that. The order was deleted long time AFTER I closed it. It'very simple: I did not know about Activ giving me false quotes, I ACTED on the quotes I got. Activ Accepted my order.
[Maurice] If I do not get compensated for this fault, qwhich is 100% Activ's fault, I will have to do 4 things: 1. Withdraw all of my money; 2. Close my account; 3. Inform the FSA, 4; Iform the community on the Internet forums of this form of theft.
[Arthur] Sir in your case the best solution should be to write to the german desk a formal complaint that will be handled by our compliance department. Please find below the german desk mail address :
[Maurice] No.
[Arthur] germandesk@activtrades.com
[Maurice] I have NOTHING to do with the German Desk. I am dealing with you now. I do not speak German.
[Arthur] Sorry I tought you were a german customer as in your country indication I saw german
[Maurice] Yes, I have asked Activ to change that into English at least a dozen of times, but somehow they do not understand that. But as I told you, I have already fsent a withdrawal form to you. You can expect a request to close my account very soon, as well as a formal complaint filed at the authorities. Too bad ActivTrades seems to be a scam broker after all. I am very disappointed and will inform the community on the Internet about this.
[Arthur] Sir it can happen to any broker to get wrong quotation for a few minutes. Let me tell you taht some client were making money and some other were loosing money. We correct the orders for ALL of them. If we do not proceed to such correction we do not treat our customer fairly.
[Maurice] Yes, That I understand. But I do not understand that Activ is not taking responsibility for their customers. Just deleting previous orders, whether they were closed in profit or loss, is not taking responsibility. It's a very rude way of doing something that only looks like 'help', while in fact it's not.

This means that I cannot do business anymore with you because apparantly these so called 'errors' can happen anytime and there is no way of knowing when this happens nor is there a way to prove anything.

That makes Activ unreliable, especially when they don't take responsibility and hide behind 'the system'.
[Maurice] So I am very sorry and I won't discuss the matter. I'll follow the procedure at the FSA and inform the community. And believe me, there are MANY, MANY people reading all those forums.
[Arthur] Sir give us until tomorrow to provide you a definite answer. We will investigate once again in order to check that everything had been done correctly. I will be at the office at 13 pm german time so you can contact me via the chat. Do you agree with this procedure ?
[Maurice] Yes, I can agree to that procedure. I will contact you via Chat tomorrow after 13pm. Thank you.
[Arthur] Your welcome

The next day around 13:15 PM…
Thanks for contacting us. An operator will be with you shortly...

[Maurice] I made an appointment with Arthur to chat today after 13:00... Here I am. Is Arthur available?
[Ricardo] Hello
[Ricardo] One moment please
[Arthur] Hello,
[Maurice] Hello Arthur,
[Arthur] Sir after investigation from our technical team we cannot reopen the position. As the quoted price were wrong we could not accept the order. Please note that such case are included in our client contract
[Arthur]


[Arthur] paragraph 12.1
[Maurice] At the moment I opened the order, Activ ACCEPTED the order. When I closed, ACTIV ACCEPTED it too. Just imagine when I go to a store and buy a Bicycle. I agree on the price and buy the bike. The trade is closed. After a couple of hours I suddenly discover that the seller took my bike away without telling me anything. After this discovery, I ask what's that all about and he tells me that his system made an error and the price was incorrect, so I had to get the bike back.

This is exactly what ActivTrades did and does. It's very bad manners and very close to criminal activity. The sad part is that you put this legally pickpocketing possiblility in your contract. It's absolutely disgusting.
[Maurice] So if you think this is normal, you may read about it in the forums, where I will publish this 'nice' story. Unfortunately ActivTrades seems to be just another scam broker. Too bad.
[Maurice] And please know that it's not about the money. It's about the trust that's being voilated. Activ has proven yesterday to me that it cannot be trusted. It's a company who steals money and hide behind a so called 'system'.
[Maurice] So my account closure request will be sent today and the rest.. You 'll find out.
[Arthur] Sir you opened your order @ 0.9945 the correct price at that time was 0.9940.
[Maurice] Was it MY fault that Activ sent me wrong prices?
[Arthur] We had to correct this mistake as some client were loosing money on this error.
[Maurice] Again: Was it MY fault?
[Arthur] I know but we had to correct the mistake : we treat our customer fairly.
[Maurice] WOuld you please answer my question: Was this MY fault?
[Arthur] No but from a legal point of view we had to correct the mistake.
[Maurice] So if it was not My fault, it HAS TO BE ActivTrades' fault. It's ActivTrades pricefeed that comes to mee, I just acted upon it and Activ responded by ACCEPTING the order. Activ also accepted the closing request of this order.

IF Activ REALLY correcting this, they would have taken the loss. Now they are just reversing everything, no matter what.
[Arthur] You cannot sell a financial asset @ 100 swhen the market price is 99. It is unfair for the other participant
[Maurice] I sold an asset at the price that was quoted by Activ and Activ accepted that. We made a trade!
[Maurice] So if Activ gave me a wrong price, it should be fair that they pay for it, not the cistomer.
[Arthur] Sir I am going to provide you a link that explain you the procedure to fill a complain.
[Maurice] No, you don't have to do that. I already know the procedure for filing an official complaint and how to report this to the authority and Ombudsman.
[Arthur] http://www.activtrades.co.uk/documents/en_GB/customer-complaint-aug-2010.pdf
[Arthur] You should have a quick look to our procedure. This will provide you all the information needed
[Maurice] I hope Activ will process my withdrawal request today.
Goodbye.
[Arthur] I will personnaly take care of it!
[Maurice] Thank you.
[Arthur] Your welcome.

 

[athenafx]

"The Financial Services Authority (FSA) has today fined ActivTrades Plc, a foreign exchange broker, £85,750 for failing to protect clients’ assets adequately.

Under the FSA’s client money rules, firms are required to keep client money separate from the firm’s money in segregated accounts with trust status. This helps to safeguard and ring-fence the client money in the event of the firm’s insolvency.

Between 14 April 2009 and 2 September 2010, the amount of client money held by ActivTrades ranged between £3.4 million and £23.6 million and averaged £12.2 million. ActivTrades failed to ensure that this money was fully segregated; putting some client money at risk should the firm become insolvent.

ActivTrades’ failures were discovered as part of an FSA thematic review into the management of client assets and money held by firms. Based on the initial findings of this review, the FSA required ActivTrades to engage a skilled person to review its client money arrangements. The skilled person’s report highlighted that, on several occasions, client money was mixed with ActivTrades’ funds. In particular between 29 January 2010 and 14 June 2010, client money totalling €800,000 was held in an account used for ActivTrades’ own funds, which meant that it was not adequately protected.

The skilled person’s report also identified a number of other serious failings including failure to perform client money calculations or reconciliations accurately and failure to pay interest on client money. ActivTrades was also unable to monitor and assess the adequacy of its client money arrangements due to weaknesses in the information provided to senior management.

Linda Woodall, FSA director of small firms, said:

“It is essential for firms to adhere to our client money rules and our recent action in this area shows our continuing focus on the importance of managing and protecting client assets adequately.

“Ensuring the necessary client money safeguards are in place is a key element of consumer protection, and firms of all sizes must ensure that any client money they hold is properly segregated.”

ActivTrades co-operated fully with the FSA in the course of its investigation and has taken significant steps to rectify its client money issues."