My emails
While I am working on the video, i decided to share my correspondence with MBT. I will edit out all of the headers etc, and will leave only relevant text. The last message (on the top) was ignored by MBT.:
Dear Mr.France,
I am unpleasantly surprised that you don't even know what kind of "spreadsheet-type" files are (or should be) archived by your own program. It is hard to imagine a specialist of your kind can comprehend the details such as the records in the .dat files, but only these might explain what has happened and why my orders were not executed in intended time.
I think that I have about exhausted my patience trying and trying without any result to attract your attention to the fact that your platform doesn't work in reliable manner. The errors in your software resulted in my monetary loss but I will give you another chance to remedy the situation before taking it to other authorities and to public forums. I am glad that all of the errors I mentioned can be reproduced (and I have recorded a video just in case).
There are a lot of competent people that will be glad to answer all questions that I asked you but did not get an answer on. And there are a lot of traders who will benefit from learning a bit more about your company via reading the log files and our email communications. And thou I feel it is my duty to the community to report my experience, I was your loyal client for years and was generally satisfied by the service so I'll wait a few more days.
Date: Thu, 18 Aug 2011 17:35:35 -0700
Subject: Response: Software failure resulting in loss
Dear Mr. Popov,
With the trade log e-mail that was sent there were .DAT files, and there should also be a couple of spreadsheet-type files, like .CSV or .XLS. The information on those files should be pretty self explanatory. As far as the issues you are having with the "Warning with positions on exit" I cannot explain, but my platform here seems to be working fine with those features. For any technical issues such as settings and why they may not be working, please contact our Customer Support department, also CC'd on this e-mail.
Kind Regards,
Eric France | Registered Representative | MB Trading
On 8/16/2011 5:43 PM, Alex Popov wrote:
Eric, you'll have to explain to me what is reflected in Apopov-MbtOrders080311.dat. I see quite a few orders there but i don't know what is what. Also I do not understand what is in Apopov-MbtOrders080411.dat. It looks very strange when compared with any other such file. And the last question will be: when I am selecting to cancel all orders and close position there should be a record, how would it look like?
Thanks
Date: Tue, 16 Aug 2011 13:49:41 -0700
Subject: Response: Software failure resulting in loss
Dear Mr. Popov,
Thank you for your patience during this lengthy review process. After a thorough review of the trade logs that my colleague helped to retrieve from your computer, the information we gathered matches what we show on our side as far as the orders you placed. I show a Stop-Limit Buy order for 0.1 lot GBP/USD, a Buy Limit order for 0.1 lot EUR/USD, and an additional 0.1 lot of EUR/USD purchased with a TTO order. Unfortunately I do not see on our server logs or the logs from your own computer that there were any closing transactions on these orders, until our trader here closed them for you the next day. Based on the research and the evidence that we have collected, we will not be able to offer you compensation for any loss(es) that occurred as a result of those trades. My apologies again in the delay in getting you a response on this matter. Please let us know if there is anything we can help you with in the future.
Kind Regards,
Eric France | Registered Representative | MB Trading
On 8/11/2011 8:02 PM, Alex Popov wrote:
Sure Eric. I decided to try the new software on the 5th. (A bit of history: I used to trade via NinjaTrader before, than later you offered the new software with graphical interface that was supposed to allow a user to adjust orders from the chart. I tried it but it was unstable. After that I would install every new release and try it on a demo. None of them worked as I expected up to the very last release. I tried it on demo and decided to try on a live account.) I selected the smallest size -- 1 minilot and placed a few orders on pound and euro. I tried to adjust them and cancelling and replacing them with different ones. Finally, satisfied I left 2 outstanding orders a limit for 1 minilot and a stoplimit for 1 more minilot to see how they are executed etc. Later at about 1 a.m. my time I checked on my experiments and found both of them executed as expected. I tried a few more orders without opening new positions and completely satisfied with the platform closed both of my positions and cancelled all outstanding orders. The platform showed me as flat in all open windows. At that time I had a very small loss on the flat balance window and there were no open orders or positions on my charts. I am always using setup options that must notify me if I have either open orders or positions on exit -- I only daytrade never longer. I closed my platform without any notifications showing up.
On the next day i opened my platform and to my great surprise noticed running loss on my balance window. I did not see any open positions nowhere on the systemso could not close them and had to call "trader". Trader told me that I had "connectivity issues" but was kind enough as to close "my" positions that manage to grow to 3 minilots likely because of some outstanding order that was left unclosed. He also told me that the log on your server doesn't correspond to my story. That leaves us only 3 possible explanations to the mystery : 1) I am lying; 2) I am crazy and shouldn't be allowed to trade; or 3) Your platform is malfunctioning -- reporting to the client that he is flat while there are outstanding orders and positions left on his account.
That is why I would like you to help me locating the log file on my computer to see if I had hallucinations of some sort that night -- because I know that I wouldn't lie. Than we will compare my computer log with your server log, you will return me my money and all will be as good as before.
Regards, Alex Popov
Date: Thu, 11 Aug 2011 17:27:54 -0700
Subject: Response: Software failure resulting in loss
Dear Mr. Popov,
Thank you for your inquiry below, and our apologies in the delayed response. I did some preliminary research on the orders you mentioned, but they do not seem to match what I show in your order history for that day (August 5th). If you could elaborate on what order types you placed and at what times, we can further explore why or where there may have been a potential disconnect or misunderstanding in what transpired that day.
--
Kind Regards,
Eric France | Registered Representative | MB Trading
