Windsor Brokers. Dormant accounts are charged a maintenance fee!!!!??

viga

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Dear friends and trader..brokers..dealers..etc

i need you opinion in the following case

i hade several accounts with"" windsor brokers ltd ""i open this accounts before more than 3 years and i hade don huge volume with them until now i hade some of these accounts and i hade money but not like before i mean in the past i was transferring big amount of money but now little in comparison with the amount before but i still hade an active one . some of mine account are in active and the balances in thes accounts are bellow 100$ 40 $ …35$
something like this
suddenly they send me an e mail :_

""Your trading account held with our Company is inactive. Please note that clients’ trading accounts that are inactive for a period of 12 months are considered to be ‘‘Dormant’’ accounts""
Dormant accounts are charged a maintenance fee, whereby the charge is effected on a monthly basis, one month after the original notification is provided to you. Specifically, in accordance with your trading account held with our Company, the following maintenance fees are applicable:

• For Standard trading accounts: US$20 on a monthly basis;
• For Mini trading accounts: US$10 on a monthly basis;
• For Micro trading accounts: US$2 on a monthly basis.

Please note that the above-mentioned maintenance fees are applicable in the following conditions:

• Standard trading accounts with a balance of US$100 or less;
• Mini trading accounts with a balance of US$50 or less;
• Micro trading accounts with a balance of US$10 or less.

In addition, please note that the first charge along with other maintenance charges will occur at the beginning of the month. You are provided with one month period, from the day of the receipt of the first notice, to activate your trading account held with our Company otherwise the charges will be applied on a monthly basis.

Note: Balance of trading account will not fall below US$ zero. Once the balance of your trading account reaches US$ zero, your trading account will be closed.

i really don't know what to replay

note that i am in country far away from the company country so if i request to transfer the money it doesn't work because the transfer fees will be greater than the amounts held in my accounts assuming that i don't have working account with them in this moment does this right??
؟؟؟what do you think
Dear all i need your opinion does they have the right to do this???
thanks for all replier
 
I've heard of a few other brokers doing this. It's sad, considering that some brokers pay interest on available funds in your account. Back in the days of paper accounting, this would make sense. With computer records, I can't see it costing them a few cents per month to keep an account live and functional.

Start by leaving them a shiny new 1 star review so that more people will find out about this.

If the money in the account is too small to withdraw because of fees, consider placing some high risk trades. If you win, withdraw everything. If you get wiped out, the loss goes to the market (hopefully) instead of to the broker.
 
dormant acount-?

Thanks a lot Pharaoh for you comment
if you could help to make this post more public so we can get more replays and comments i will highly appreciate that
my opinion is " i think instead of charging me fees i think they have to bay me interest on this money if they are playing fair but for sorry this action is shocking me cause it comes from well-known company it should respect its behaviors towards their clients "

all comment are welcomed
 
Contact their live support and ask them to justify the policy. Post what they say here and in a review.
 
In response to Viga

In reference to the comments regarding dormant accounts, we would like to clarify the following:

1. The reason for Windsor charging a ‘maintenance fee’ to dormant trading accounts is specifically for administrative purposes only. All clients are advised within their ‘Client Account Agreement’ that dormant accounts will be subject to maintenance fees. For your easy reference you may refer to our Client Account Agreement paragraph 19, which states:

Client acknowledges and confirms that any trading account(s) held with Windsor that are inactive for 12 months are considered to be “Dormant Accounts”. Client acknowledges and confirms that Dormant Accounts will be charged a maintenance fee, whereby the charge will be affected monthly. Maintenance fee will vary in accordance with a notification e-mail provided to the client in such cases. Client acknowledges and confirms to pay such maintenance fees if his/her trading account becomes dormant.

2. Regarding the case in question, Windsor will have officially informed the client in advance of the pending maintenance fees, giving the client a period of one month in order to take any prior action of his choice.

3. Clients are free to transfer any funds between any of their own trading accounts, held under the same name and therefore Mr. Viga has the option to transfer any remaining funds from his dormant account into an active trading account and use the funds as he wishes.

4. Clients are free to open a Mini or Micro trading account and transfer any remaining funds from dormant accounts for the purpose of using the funds to trade.

We hope that we have managed to clarify this case and welcome making our reply available to all visitors of FPA as we believe in full transparency. If you have any further questions please don't hesitate to contact us on supportonline@windsorbrokersltd.com,

Regards,

Windsor Brokers
 
personal opinion

I think every legitimate broker laid all the terms and the agreement and have made them available to the potential client prior to being a registered member. They made it clear to every signing client that they understood and agree with the terms otherwise you wont be accepted as a member. Should the signing client agree to these terms, he/she is already bound with it. In this particular case about fees for dormant account, regardless of where this fee goes to, the fact that you sign up on the agreement, im sorry to say but you have to bear the consequence.

One clear lesson is that every potential client should scrutinize the agreement point for point and ask them everything you want to be cleared up before signing up, then use the power of choice in the end.

wish you well
 
Windsor Brokers' response seems reasonable to me. What is the alternative that viga would have proposed? He is not trading with those accounts and acknowledges that there is not enough money left in there to make a transfer. So what did he plan to do with the accounts? Leave them on the broker's books for another year? 5? 10? WB laid out some good options... transferring the balances to active accounts (thus avoiding any fees), turning the accounts into micro accounts (thus reducing the fees), etc. A bad review for this reasonable policy seems unfair to me (unfair to the brokerage, that is).

About the option suggested by Pharaoh about how some pay interest on deposited funds... well, this is not possible if the brokerage has a policy of not co-mingling company and client funds. In other words, the client funds cannot be invested by the brokerage in any way as to produce any profit or interest. In fact, many regulators require brokers to not co-mingle funds. Co-mingling has gotten a lot of the early ones in trouble and even led to scam ratings on here and criminal charges and closures, too.
 
As I suspected, they do have a policy of keeping client funds segregated:

"
REGULATIONS AND SAFETY

* Licensed and regulated by CySec (Cyprus)
* EEA Authorized by the FSA (UK)
* Compliance with the MiFID (EU)
* Registered with the AMF (France) & BaFin (Germany)
* Member of the Investors' Compensation Fund
* Clients' funds held in first class banks in segregated accounts
"
 
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