geektrader
Private
- Messages
- 29
I´ve signed up with them 03. June 2014 and have made some great profits with them (turned 30$ into 400$ in 7 days).
(Instant) Execution was fast at first! My EA measures it and it has been at average of 70ms for opening and closing orders.
3 days ago I have been trying to withdraw money ($250 USD). They offer Yandex / Bank Transfer and Qiwi Wallet for withdrawals. So I opened a withdrawal request via bank transfer (I am from Germany). A day later I got a message that they can´t process international wire transfers. There was NO mentioning on their website that this is the case and I have withdrawn money from other Russian brokers without problems to my German bank account in the past.
Be it so, I opened a Yandex account especially for withdrawing my profits from them. Then opened another withdrawal request via Yandex a day later, just to get another email from them now saying that I have to withdraw with the method I deposited (in my case Mastercard). I asked them how I should do this as they don´t have an option to withdraw via Mastercard on their site. They said I must open a merchant account with express-merchants.com (the payment processor they use to process their credit cards) and they will send the money there.
I told them that this is a very hefty request just to withdraw, but opened an account with Express Merchant (costing me 26$ total just to open it). On top, you pay 6% commissions for receiving payments with this service, but Hippo Trade told me that if I want my money that´s the only way to go.
So after I opened my merchant account with https://www.express-merchants.com/ (which luckily do allow withdrawals to German bank account), I asked them to send me $250 there now. All I got a day later from them were 5$, along with the message that because of my account balance they have to "upgrade" my MT4 trading account to a standard account.
After login in again I noticed the pairs do now have different names (EURUSD.GW instead of EURUSD), and also I just had 5 symbols left for trading. I also noticed that the execution type is now "market execution" instead of "instant execution" which it has been before. I tried to execute some orders just to test what´s going on, and execution now took 2 to 10 seconds each time, instead of 70ms before, with a lot of complete rejects by sending me "Off Quotes".
There is no way that you are able to make any money with such a trading setup anymore, so I now asked them to withdraw all my money and close my account as I am not interested in continuing to do business with them if they play such tricks (not that the withdrawal process isn´t already hard enough).
Now comes the next bad joke by them, they say I can withdraw my money, but they will take off 30% "tax" that they have to charge for Russia. This is a complete joke as I have accounts with several Russian brokers and tax is not payable by the broker but the CLIENT in his own country. Not one broker, be it international or Russia, did ever charge me any tax, and if they do, they do it during the trade, not when you try to withdraw. It´s also to be noticed that on the first withdrawal they sent me, although it was just 5$, they didn´t charge any such tax (if this would be legit, even the withdrawal of 5$ should have been charged with 30% tax). They just started to mention the tax once I tried to withdraw my complete money:
"Ok our company withdraw 8500 RUB - 30% (НДФЛ) = 6000 RUB (Your net profit for subtracting all taxes)"
I replied:
"Sure, OK. Please send me ALL the money in the account (401,71 USD) to XXX via Express Merchants now,
afterwards you can close my account.
You are the ONLY Russian broker who is charging me tax for
withdrawing. I have accounts with Alfa Forex, Forex Club, World Forex, NONE of them charge any "tax" of 30% !"
They replied:
"We are tax agents and taxes paid in full (to the state tax service) in profits."
I now told them to again to send me the full amount via Express Merchants, which alone will cost me 6% commission that Express Merchants charges, which is completely not acceptable in itself already, but even taking of 30% before withdrawing makes it even more worse.
In my view this company is a complete SCAM, first worsening trading account conditions after making profit and after me noticing this and asking them to withdraw all my money, they come up with 30% tax and on top ask me to withdraw via a non-acceptable payment mechanism while they offer Bank Transfer / Yandex / Qiwi for withdrawing.
I want my complete account balance back, 401,71$, then want to stop trading with them.
(Instant) Execution was fast at first! My EA measures it and it has been at average of 70ms for opening and closing orders.
3 days ago I have been trying to withdraw money ($250 USD). They offer Yandex / Bank Transfer and Qiwi Wallet for withdrawals. So I opened a withdrawal request via bank transfer (I am from Germany). A day later I got a message that they can´t process international wire transfers. There was NO mentioning on their website that this is the case and I have withdrawn money from other Russian brokers without problems to my German bank account in the past.
Be it so, I opened a Yandex account especially for withdrawing my profits from them. Then opened another withdrawal request via Yandex a day later, just to get another email from them now saying that I have to withdraw with the method I deposited (in my case Mastercard). I asked them how I should do this as they don´t have an option to withdraw via Mastercard on their site. They said I must open a merchant account with express-merchants.com (the payment processor they use to process their credit cards) and they will send the money there.
I told them that this is a very hefty request just to withdraw, but opened an account with Express Merchant (costing me 26$ total just to open it). On top, you pay 6% commissions for receiving payments with this service, but Hippo Trade told me that if I want my money that´s the only way to go.
So after I opened my merchant account with https://www.express-merchants.com/ (which luckily do allow withdrawals to German bank account), I asked them to send me $250 there now. All I got a day later from them were 5$, along with the message that because of my account balance they have to "upgrade" my MT4 trading account to a standard account.
After login in again I noticed the pairs do now have different names (EURUSD.GW instead of EURUSD), and also I just had 5 symbols left for trading. I also noticed that the execution type is now "market execution" instead of "instant execution" which it has been before. I tried to execute some orders just to test what´s going on, and execution now took 2 to 10 seconds each time, instead of 70ms before, with a lot of complete rejects by sending me "Off Quotes".
There is no way that you are able to make any money with such a trading setup anymore, so I now asked them to withdraw all my money and close my account as I am not interested in continuing to do business with them if they play such tricks (not that the withdrawal process isn´t already hard enough).
Now comes the next bad joke by them, they say I can withdraw my money, but they will take off 30% "tax" that they have to charge for Russia. This is a complete joke as I have accounts with several Russian brokers and tax is not payable by the broker but the CLIENT in his own country. Not one broker, be it international or Russia, did ever charge me any tax, and if they do, they do it during the trade, not when you try to withdraw. It´s also to be noticed that on the first withdrawal they sent me, although it was just 5$, they didn´t charge any such tax (if this would be legit, even the withdrawal of 5$ should have been charged with 30% tax). They just started to mention the tax once I tried to withdraw my complete money:
"Ok our company withdraw 8500 RUB - 30% (НДФЛ) = 6000 RUB (Your net profit for subtracting all taxes)"
I replied:
"Sure, OK. Please send me ALL the money in the account (401,71 USD) to XXX via Express Merchants now,
afterwards you can close my account.
You are the ONLY Russian broker who is charging me tax for
withdrawing. I have accounts with Alfa Forex, Forex Club, World Forex, NONE of them charge any "tax" of 30% !"
They replied:
"We are tax agents and taxes paid in full (to the state tax service) in profits."
I now told them to again to send me the full amount via Express Merchants, which alone will cost me 6% commission that Express Merchants charges, which is completely not acceptable in itself already, but even taking of 30% before withdrawing makes it even more worse.
In my view this company is a complete SCAM, first worsening trading account conditions after making profit and after me noticing this and asking them to withdraw all my money, they come up with 30% tax and on top ask me to withdraw via a non-acceptable payment mechanism while they offer Bank Transfer / Yandex / Qiwi for withdrawing.
I want my complete account balance back, 401,71$, then want to stop trading with them.
They were recommended to me, but somehow I doubt it too that this will work for long
