Problem This how ICmarkets scams and mislead clients. I lost $28000 (Evidences )

[compu-forex]

Ok good, so let's clear up a couple of things........

I openly admit that I generally find myself on the side of the broker. I have a pool of about 12 brokers that I use regularly and IC happens to be one of my favourites. I support the brokers because so often I see here people that do not understand what they are doing, maligning the brokers. If we do not stand up and argue the case in an honest way, we will never be able to figure out who are the great brokers, the average brokers and the absolutely evil brokers. In other words this website will just become a blur of all bad brokers and the losing traders can just pat themselves on their collective backs believing they were victims and poor trading never came into it. That said, I have an open mind but you need to convince me that you have a case......so far I'm not convinced and lets look at why.......

1. What was your drawdown when you leverage was reduced? That one trade alone seems to be sitting at -110000??
2. Yes before leverage reduction you were using $110, so stopout would have been at $55. After the reduction, you would have needed $6565. Stopout would have occurred at $3282 or an increase of $3227. Given the size of the account, this does not appear to be a huge problem, but sure not very nice.
3. Do not take your trading lessons from "chat". They are a first level of support not trading mentors or even legal experts. Your trading terms are governed by the terms and conditions you signed up for, not what chat tells you. Frankly, I often find chat is run by a bunch of idiots. If that is where you take your information from then you are heading for problems. They said leverage changes were rare......what is the definition. I would suggest they have hundreds of thousand trades per day, of which a tiny percentage might be affected by leverage changes. You, on the other hand, chose to trade a product that had become seriously dangerous and were exposed to it on your first trade. Doesn't mean they were wrong.
4. Leverage reductions happen all the times. Swaps change all the time. It happens with all brokers.....go read what I had to say about RoboForex who changed swaps on me 23 minutes before rollover. IC markets at least seem to do it at a reasonable time of the day. The fact that IC Markets changed their swaps to negative does not make them a scam, it points to the fact that you don't know that swaps change, a basic trading fact.
5. I see the hedging was done last minute, probably in a panic. Here is a thought, instead of hedging where you had 15 lots buy and 10 lots sell, on 23rd, you could just have closed the 10 lots of sell and left yourself with the exact same position of 5 lots long. It would have required a fraction of the margin and you would have less swap issues to worry about.

The fact that they may or may not have offered someone else a certain leverage means nothing in your case. It agains brings up how you interpret things said by chat. The chat operator simply said your friend can have the maximum leverage offered by the company. He probably does not know that there is a temporary leverage limit on oil.

You should also upload a complete account statement because I am still trying to see where your $28000 loss came from?

As I said before, take it, don't take it...... but look at yourself honestly and ask if you could have done better here....

 

[compu-forex]

What I can see from your screenshot:
You traded with very high risk; 5 lot per trade on a 30k account is just way too much, especially if you don't use any SL. You already had a drawdown of more than 60%

@marco_mmbiz , in fairness, ICM oil is only 100 barrels per lot, which is 1/10th of what most brokers offer. 5 lots here is equivalent of 1/2 a lot at FP Markets for example, but still a valid point about the stoploss.

 

[forexteamau]

Thanks for your reply. I've already mentioned in the beginning some might come to their rescue .You sent good screenshot it shows I had about $12300 and 12000% free margin. Does it change the fact that broker misled me about swap rates ? does it change the fact that they lied about leverage ? I don't know know where you live but you should have pretty relaxed consumer laws there! Anywhere else in the world it is called misleading.

When a business advertises to contact them for help and assistant then gives false and misleading information this is misleading and deceptive conduct. I trusted and relied on their support team for information. If they had not changed the swap rate against me or reduced my account leverage to from 1:500 to 1:10 I would not have any problem with any drawdown.

I'm from Australia and any exchange Kiosk can get registered with ASIC. This company is a Seychelles, Cyrus based operating under ASIC umbrella. You gang up against innocent people who lost money and suffered financially and mentally and you think that's morally accepted ? I remember you accused Vanessa of money laundering in your posts now it's my turn ? now I'm a gambler next one is drug addict perhaps !

 

[marco_mmbiz]

Wow, okay. It seems you don't wanna resolve your issue with the broker then, because "any exchange Kiosk can get registered with ASIC" and "This company is a Seychelles, Cyprus based operating under ASIC umbrella" and I'm only here to "gang up against innocent people who lost money and suffered financially and mentally".
Why did I upload the PDF from ASIC then? There you have IC Market's Australian offices and regulators btw. (not in Cyprus or Seychelles).

 

[forexteamau]

Lets be honest no one comes here and write a long boring letter defending or bashing a company. Imagine if ICmarkets would let me win my trades and I was in 10 K profit. I would not even bother coming here and writing a review. People write reviews defend or bash when there is some loss or benefits . Now I lost money and come here and defend myself. Everyone defends or protest for a reason .

I have online banking with a well known local bank. They always advertise to chat with them for information and assistant and It never went wrong and even I could reverse a transactions which was transferred to another account by mistake only on a live chat! .Asked about their interest rates and fees.That's what financial firms do these days. if ICmarket is unable to provide correct information by live support, they should stop adverting this and admit it that they are unable to provide such a service. People rely on the information they provide and their advertisement specially when they call themselves "Financial Firm" !

It is crystal clear to me that their live support manipulate and lie to clients. You can read our transcript and see it by yourself. I'm not a teen in my 18s to be manipulated or accept a wrong fact even if 100 people team up to tell me otherwise.

I asked them simple questions, they gave me false and misleading answers . I trusted them and relied on their answers and traded based on that information .Simple as that! . I'm in my 40s. My kids might be your age and I have family to support and I have responsibility as a father who lost his job .I'm sorry to tell you that but what you telling me is not going to help me in anyway.

 

[forexteamau]

Wow, okay. It seems you don't wanna resolve your issue with the broker then, because "any exchange Kiosk can get registered with ASIC" and "This company is a Seychelles, Cyprus based operating under ASIC umbrella" and I'm only here to "gang up against innocent people who lost money and suffered financially and mentally".
Why did I upload the PDF from ASIC then? There you have IC Market's Australian offices and regulators btw. (not in Cyprus or Seychelles).

All their support team are located in Cyprus and Seychelles . I've been in contact with them and we almost exchanged more than 30 e-mails and conversation during our negotiation. I have solid evidences about that .
.
I contacted the ASIC office .unfortunately they do not get involve in these cases. They send templates to all complainants. Financial regulators are not very strict as places like western Europe . that's why it's brokers heaven here !

I read your comment long time ago when you said this about Vanessa and she is a victim of ICmarket as well.

"I guess IC Markets and all the connected banks/liquidity providers in this scenario are preparing a filing (together with her local courts) against her because of money laundering right now. lol"


Marco my dear, if I cooperate and listen to what you have to say. do you have authority from ICmarkets to resolve my issue ?

 

[compu-forex]

@forexteamau, please upload the trading statement when you get a chance.

 

[forexteamau]

I closed my trades in loss on 28th of April after waiting for resolution for a month. They went further and restricted my account leverage from 1:500 to 1:10 after I complained about swap rates.

On 17th of March only 3 days after my investment I contacted the company again because I was worried about leverage reduction as you may note. If they had told me the truth as they are telling me now that " Margin requirements are highly likely to change continuously" I would definitely take my investment elsewhere because I opened a trading account with my local bank as you can see . They gave me false and misreading information for their own benefit and told me it is "rare" and "never happened before"

My local bank offered a flat fee for holding CFDs which I regret not accepting to deal with this reputable bank and trading with this dodgy broker instead.

I know market was in my favor. Brent does not crash unlike WTI due to characteristic of this instrument so Draw down was not my concern . Negative swaps and leverage restriction from 1:500 to 1:10 was killing my account. If I had waited more, they could have reduced it to even lower or increase the swap to $300 a day according to what they claim now that they can do whatever they want!

Long position swap went from almost + 50 cents a day to -$100. They reduced the leverage to 1:10 as a bonus so finish my account. Now look at the support transcript when they offered the same high 1:500 to my friend the same day!

I have issue with false and misleading information they gave me not my trading statement. I do not have any doubts that this is unlawful. Anyone else who reads and witness these evidences can feel the same unless we are trying to argue to save their public image and sweep everything under the carpet!

This is what I got in reply after I complained about false and misleading information!

"Margin requirements are highly likely to change continuously"

“IC Markets has discretions under the Account Terms which can affect your Orders
and positions. You do not have any power to direct how we exercise our
discretions. When exercising our discretions"

"You should consider the significant risks that arise from IC Markets exercising its discretions"

I know people are from different jurisdiction here but it is a common law. This is against the law everywhere at least in law abiding countries.

Now some come here and tell me I should not have listened to customer support it is like I contacted a local business and the gave me wrong information about their product because they didn't want to lose me as a client or I had chatted with my bank and they gave me wrong false and misleading information about their fees and charges . This is all normal ? I lost other opportunities and even lost my savings due this fraudulent action which is not acceptable at all.

People from other countries comment on how important is to be registered with ASIC . Here is the screenshot how you can apply your E licences online. As long As you have ABN number, Australian Business number and a business address in Australia and other paperworks you can register and get your licences online . Many brokers open in Australia everyday. It is a laid back culture here. I will send you the screenshot of ASIC reply in my next post and show you how they handle your report

ASIC response is interesting after you report a misconduct.

They say it takes many years to prove a business is not legitimate. We cannot take action against any financial firm! Thanks for contacting us and you do not need to contact us again! if you keep trying to reply back you will basically get no reply at all!

 

[Pheniox123]

I am with you on this one forexteamau . The matter of the fact is that the change of leverage from 1:500 to 1:10 is something that would have killed most accounts. Most traders have some sort of drawdown at one point or another; no one can operate without drawdown and leverage plays a crucial part in this. Yes the drawdown was big but it was going to the right side slowly and it doesn’t make sense to suddenly reduce the leverage to drastic measures of 1:10...that is pretty much a kill order on a platter.

I am all for people voicing their opinions but the onus should be on the broker to defend themselves on here.

I say request a response from IC Markets on here.

Thanks and best of luck.
Phoneix

 

[compu-forex]

I closed my trades in loss on 28th of April after waiting for resolution for a month. They went further and restricted my account leverage from 1:500 to 1:10 after I complained about swap rates.

I'd like to see that correspondence.

My local bank offered a flat fee for holding CFDs which I regret not accepting to deal with this reputable bank and trading with this dodgy broker instead

Outside the scope of this discussion but for interest please show me evidence that your local bank is providing you with 1:500 leverage, or any leverage for that matter on the CFD's that you hold with them.....and without financing if it is on margin.

Negative swaps and leverage restriction from 1:500 to 1:10 was killing my account.

This statement alone indicate you do not understand how the leverage works on your account. ICM does not offer Oil at 1:500. CFD margins are calculated differently to your account leverage. ICM typically offer the XBR at 1% margin which equates to 1:100. They restricted your account from 1:100 down to 1:10, not down from 1:500.

That means the total effect on your position would have been an additional $1200($600 in practice). Instead of depositing $600 and carrying on, you panicked and start opening orders randomly thinking you can hedge your position.

They gave me false and misreading information for their own benefit and told me it is "rare" and "never happened before"

It doesn't matter what country I am from, and yes, I don't really know the Australian law, but english is my first language, and I know misleading when I see it. I have read your transcripts and there is no misleading there. You pushed the chat guy into a corner and he misspoke. In the same sentence he says "it never happened......and when it does we keep it to a minimum." I am not seeing a used car salesman there, I am seeing the guy you pushed into a corner. He told you several times that it is possible and it does happen. To make matters worse, you were clearly aware that it can and does happen which is why you were asking about it.

You then jumped into the most dangerous trading instrument during the biggest crisis the world has ever seen and blew up your account. It was not because they needed an extra $1200 of margin......

"Margin requirements are highly likely to change continuously"

“IC Markets has discretions under the Account Terms which can affect your Orders
and positions. You do not have any power to direct how we exercise our
discretions. When exercising our discretions"

"You should consider the significant risks that arise from IC Markets exercising its discretions"

Read that statement over and over again. It is like that with every single broker. Once you understand the statement and learn to work with it rather than fight it, you will begin to understand how this market works.

Para 16.4 from their terms and conditions states the following :-

You agree that for different Financial Products there will be different Margin requirements and they may be displayed on the Website. The Margin requirements are subject to change without notice to you so you should make yourself aware of the Margin requirements.

That is it in black and white, and you agreed to it.

I have not yet seen any evidence where they mislead you about the swap rates. As I said before, the fact that swaps change is one of the basic facts of trading. I'm sorry, I can't say it any simpler.

I also have not seen any evidence of $28000 loss. I have seen a $21 000 drawdown caused by your own hand.