Note: I am also adding this information to Post 1 of this thread.
Earlier this year, I revised the FPA Traders Court rules.
First, let me explain why the FPA has rules. If the FPA instantly declared scam every time there was a complaint, I'd just tell the Forums Team to instantly mark all complaints as confirmed scams and to tell the Review Moderators to mark the review page as a scam. That would result in large numbers of unfair complaints damaging companies that did nothing wrong. Instead, the FPA's rules were designed to make very sure a company is a scam before such an action is taken.
The FPA had been working hard to help resolve issues between traders and companies. In general, the initial stages are left to senior members, but the FPA steps in when the time is correct.
One of the rule changes was designed specifically with members like AhmedFadl in mind. It says...
10. Don't Waste Time on Conspiracy Theories. Demands containing anti-FPA conspiracy theories are a waste of time. My staff and I are set up to not see banner advertisements by default. Most of the time I find out that a company is advertising because someone says something like "
You are favoring that broker because they advertise. If you don't declare that broker to be a scam now, you've just proven the FPA to be a scam."
The FPA doesn't have time to address the lasted variation on conspiracy claims multiple times this week. If you are just nervous the FPA might have gone over to the dark side, read
THIS and
THIS and
THIS. If the only way I can convince you the FPA isn't evil and corrupt is to obey your demands to throw out all the rules designed to ensure fair play, then there's nothing I or anyone else here can do for you. The FPA can't help you by breaking its own rules. The FPA can't help you while fighting with you. If you use attacking the FPA as a method to try to get more attention in your Scam Alerts thread, your thread will be moved to the appropriate folder and any TC related extra weight on your review will be removed. If you push the boundaries of civilized behavior too far, you will be banned and all reviews you have left will be removed.
The FPA didn't "do this to you." You decided to demand help from the FPA while also trying to actively fight against the FPA. The rules exist for a reason. Open your own site to help scam victims and see how long until some people decide to waste your time fighting you, your site, and your site's rules.
Ahmed made a post that ended up in moderation on a Saturday. If he had bothered to read the FAQ (linked via Contact Us on the bottom of this page), he'd have seen this Question and Answer and would have known that he'd show some patience for a post on the weekend.
Why Isn't my Forums Post Visible?
The answer says it can take 3 business days, but usually it's done in 1 day. On a Saturday, he posted a complaint about how long it was taking after only about 7 and a half hours. The Forums Team added a note explaining things. Ahmed also posted in at least one old thread about the same broker. My moderators asked me to take a look. The thread was old and the OP had abandoned it. Ahmed already had his own thread, so I told them to delete the extraneous post, mark the thread as abandoned, and move it. I also asked for several other old abandoned and resolved threads to be moved. I think one of the resolved threads was about the same broker.
On Sunday Ahmed decided to push into the edge of conspiracy territory by posting...
i traded with many brokers around 5 years i made alot of profits and lot of loses and traded during big news and big events it's the first time something like that happen to me and from who?!! XM!!!
also in FPA they have the biggest promote here
I stepped in and replied with...
XM also has multiple complaint threads that got moved to the Resolved Issues folder. Advertising payments buy banners, not preferential treatment. Would you like the FPA to try to assist you? Would you like to tell me how to pay to keep the FPA running without accepting advertisements?
Since Ahmed had implied a conspiracy I tagged the thread with conspiracy theory. If he behaved himself for a while, I could always remove it later. He seemed to calm down, but not for long.
A few days later Ahmed started complaining about a missing thread. I told my moderators to hold off on adding any comments at first. I was hoping Ahmed would go back to providing details about his issue. Instead, he decided to keep going on and on about how the thread was missing and the FPA was going to make his thread disappear.
The forums team did not make his thread disappear. Instead, they left another note about no threads disappearing. Since Ahmed had sent a TC invitation and there had been no response, the Forums Team sent a formal invitation from the FPA. This is the stage where the FPA gets more directly involved.
Ahmed decided that ranting about an old thread he couldn't find and attacking the FPA was much more important than spending his time trying to get the FPA to help him.
Dealing with Ahmed's paranoia and repeated attacks on the integrity of the FPA means he is no longer. I cannot help a person who insists on fighting me. The FPA cannot help a person who prefers to fight against the FPA instead of focusing on his issues.
Ahmed is free to take his issue to the regulators.
It looks like my modifications to Traders Court were not sufficient to keep people focused on factual information about their cases. I see I will have to roll out some much larger changes soon.
