Hello,
after Alexander Collin´s attacks against my person at
http://www.forexfactory.com/showthread.php?p=8795160#post8795160 saying that I tried to crack Pro FX 4.0 and banned me from posting there, I think I own the Forex community a Pro FX 4.0 review for the short time that I had it and more details that should be interesting in regards to how Alexander Collin / Forex21 deal with customers and the interesting discoveries I´ve made about Pro FX 4.0 in relation to the free Genesis Matrix system which originated at ForexFactory. I will not make any assumptions, you will see that anything I am saying is backed up with forum posts or screenshots, that´s important as I want to be absolutely honest and fair here. So here we go:
After a friend convinced me to have a look at Pro FX 4.0 again, because previously I was not really willing to give it a try simply because of the kind of customer "support" from Alexander Collin (e.g. not giving refunds to customers in the 10 day trial period because they are a few HOURS to late (e.g. bought 10 days ago in the morning, but requested a refund in the evening) see
http://www.forexfactory.com/showthread.php?p=8498449#post8498449), I bought Pro FX 4.0 anyway to finally do a review about it for my fellow trader friends.
The test did go well, the signals on the M30 are actually very good and once confirmed with the H4, lead to successful trades. However, 2 indicators that I´ve been using and that are included with Pro FX 4 expired about a week after my purchase. Upon mailing Alexander Collin about this, he said that some indicators have a hard-coded expiration date in case they get cracked so that they only work for a limited time. Since I am coding all my life already as well, I had a look if the main EA really accesses the both expired indicators since I was wondering why they would work in connection with the EA but not on their own. So I opened my debugger / resource viewer to see if the EA really accesses the indicators and posted about my findings directly and openly in the Forex21 forum. There was nothing to hide from my side and I clearly told that I´ve been using the debugger / resource viewer just to check if the indicators are being accessed by the main EA or not.
A few hours later, the post was deleted and my license disabled and I had an email in my inbox from Alexander Collin, accusing me that I tried to crack Pro FX 4.0 because for what other reason I would use a debugger. I explained to him that I was absolutely transparent about that I´ve been using a debugger (surely I would post it in the Forex21 forum if I´d want to crack their software, that would be smart!) to view the file resources that are being accessed (a thing I ALWAYS do for any new application I install anyway, since I am advanced computer user and coder and have experienced it more than a few times that programs "phone home" or send private files to the vendors). I did get no response to my email with those explanations, instead Alexander Collin / Forex21 decided to post that I am cracker and that I tried to crack Pro FX 4.0 on ForexFactory and, like a little kid, Alexander Collin added in that post "Sorry geektrader, no free ProFx 4.0 for you and your worldwideinvest friends." Yes, what a professional attitude that is. I´ve indeed been active at worldwideinvest just like on almost any other forex forum out there, you can see what I´ve posted here:
http://forum.worldwide-invest.org/search.php?searchid=812557 (about a open source EA and about "Forex Cash Printer", another one of these SCAM EA´s as it turned out later on). I never posted any kind of crack there or anywhere else, I honestly have no idea how to crack a software, I am a coder, but not a reverse engineer and beyond using a debugger / resource monitor to view files that are being accessed on my system, I really don´t have much of an idea how to crack a software.
Anyhow, so now my own license was disabled, will not be turned back on even after I explained clearly that I do not intend nor have the ability to crack Pro Fx 4.0. Of course, no refund was initiated by him either at first. So I contacted DR MyCommerce Ireland (they sell through them) and PayPal and then got refunded by Forex21 a day later and ONLY out of "goodwill" as it was explained to me. I then started some additional research about Forex21 and Pro FX 4.0 (which I gladly did already before they´ve disabled my license in the week before) and here are my findings:
1) There is no address listed for Forex21.com anywhere on their website (per EU laws this is illegal, yet they happily sell to EU customers like me as well). The only thing you can find is some telephone number from the UK, email and Skype contacts - no valid real street address. So I had a look at the DR MyCommerce invoice that I got for the purchase. Besides DR MyCommerce´s address, it says they are acting in the name of:
Lehner Marina
Mironava Street 8b 14
49000 Dnipropetrowsk
Ukraine
So we have a website with no real address on it, a telephone number in the UK, selling through MyCommerce USA and Ireland (if you are from Europe), a address in the Ukraine and we also have some German speaking Forex21 member that contacted me in German as well (also from a @forex21.com email address), threatening to sue me in Germany if I wouldn´t stop to bad-mouth Pro FX 4.0 with my "totally unrealistic" findings (which follow below) since every trend following system would basically have the same entries (of course!). Again, for that German guy contact, no address or name was provided in that email. I replied back to that German guy, asking him to reveal his full name + contact address and also gave him my full address (they anyway already had this) and that he can feel free to sue me as I am sure any court would love to have a look at how this company is constructed and works internally, especially in terms of taxation within Germany/EU, with all the different locations involved and no street address on their site. As well might it be interesting if they have to show the Pro FX 4.0 source code to the court, it might become a boomerang. I didn´t get a reply from that German guy about his address nor his name. Instead: silence (so far, I will update my post if anything changes).
Now let´s get to the really interesting part, the part that seems to disturb Forex21 the most. That is that I have found that Pro FX 4.0 is very identical to Genesis Matrix, a free manual trading system here
http://www.forexfactory.com/showthread.php?t=373796 at Forex Factory and which is also traded on GBPUSD. Let´s have a closer look and see some screenshots:
1) Let´s first look at how Pro FX 4.0 looks "out of the box":
http://s22.postimg.org/5h2q2mwpt/profx_4_0_default.jpg
2) Let´s take a look at the Genesis Matrix "out of the box":
http://s14.postimg.org/3wg15am01/genesis_matrix_default.jpg
For now, let´s notice that both use Heikin Ashi and both display the entry arrows at exactly the same time in this case (they don´t always do, but more on this later on).
3) Now let´s add the Pro FX 4.0 "Multi Analyzes" indicator to the default template, this then looks like this:
http://s7.postimg.org/fz951wnff/profx_4_0_multi_analyzes.jpg
4) Let´s wait a second, that "Multi Analyzes" looks kind of like the Genesis Matrix indicator, doesn´t it? Let´s take a look after adjusting the colours to the same colours as in Pro FX 4.0 (DodgerBlue / Snow) and sorting the GHL / CCI / TVI / T3 in the same order as in Pro FX 4.0 as well, then we get this:
http://s7.postimg.org/mbsvphfvf/profx_multi_analyser_versus_genesis_matrix_with.jpg
5) Let´s also take a look at the inputs section of the "Genesis Matrix 2.22" indicator and the "Pro FX Multi Analyzes":
http://s29.postimg.org/ad7s9ziaf/profx_multi_analyser_inputs_versus_genesis_matri.jpg
As we can see, both indicators paint the exact same results and use the exact same input periods / settings. As far as I see in the Genesis Matrix thread, that indicator was original developed by "Xaphod" in this thread
http://www.forexfactory.com/showthread.php?t=381999 and is called "GMTS-Matrix". That was on September 1. 2012. Now I definitely don´t want to say Pro FX 4.0 has copied it, it might be that this indicator was there in Pro FX 2.0 already (which was released in 2009 as far as I know?) and "Xaphod" might have copied it from Pro FX 2.0 in 2012. Who knows... In any case, they are both exactly the same in what they display.
6) Now if we combine this all together, get rid of the entry arrows of Genesis Matrix, which, as I said, are often the same as in Pro FX 4.0 as well, but NOT ALWAYS, and compare the Genesis Matrix indicator with the entry arrows of Pro FX 4.0, we get this:
http://s24.postimg.org/d4u7yyfpx/profx_4_0_entry_arrows_versus_genesis_matrix_ind.jpg
The arrows in Pro FX 4.0 almost 99% of the time, appear as soon as the Genesis Matrix 2.22 indicator turns all white (sell) or all blue (buy), or, with the original colours of the Genesis Matrix, all white (buy) or all red (sell). Here is another example from last week:
http://s29.postimg.org/yq16lbjvb/genesis_matrix_entries2.jpg
Summarized: if we disregard the ProFX 4.0 "Probability Cloud" indicator (the one with the white / blue shades in the screenshot - which is another indicator they use for confirmation), we can get the exact same entry-signals if just using the Genesis Matrix 2.22 indicator with the original settings from the Genesis Matrix thread at ForexFactory by just buying when the matrix turns all white, and selling when it turns all red - ignoring the arrows the Genesis Matrix system paints as they are rather not reliable. Additionally we also have the Stochastic Oscillator in the Genesis Matrix template as well as some more indicators, which are not really needed to trade the system though (at least from my experience and the way it has been traded on the Forex21 forum last week).
Personally, after not having a Pro FX 4.0 license anymore, I had a look at the Forex21 forum where they publish the daily trade recommendations and have been able to get the almost exact same entries with the Genesis Matrix if just following the Matrix turning all red or all white, ignoring the rest of the Genesis Matrix system and NOT trading against the H4 trend of the Genesis Matrix indicator (I have it running on M30 for the entries just like Pro FX 4.0 does and on the H4 for checking the Matrix there too).
That´s really all I have to say about Pro FX 4.0, make up your own mind about my findings. I can only observe and provide what I´ve found and what I can backup 100% when comparing it to the free Genesis Matrix system and have noticed that I can get 99% the same trade-entries this way like in Pro FX 4.0.
Green pips to everyone
