Change at the Top

[timsk]

Its certainly relevant to point out that he had the secret hidden agenda sussed well before most

I didn't think you had one back then!
Tim.

 

[the hare]

I didn't think you had one back then!
Tim.

Only to spread joy and happiness

 

[Steve]

I would guess that if Steve has come in as CEO, then he has a plan and knows how to implement it, otherwise there'd not be much point in taking the job. As the 'CEO' title implies, T2W is a business and his responsibility is to monetize it as effectively as possible for the owners/shareholders. To do that you need to maximise advertising revenues which means the way will be cleared for vendors and if a few obstreperous old members have to be thrown out then so be it especially as the lulz are probably offputting for many of the newbies on whom the revenue generators (advertisers) depend.

So my guess is that the site will be revamped for beginners with the useful threads indexed, archived and tidied up (as our content is T2W's property) anyone posting for lulz or being stroppy (ie everyone on this thread) being banned, and vendors positively encouraged. Or have I got that wrong Steve?

Yes you have got it wrong. There has to be a way for the commercial aspects and the community can co-exist without one ruining the other. I can't prove what I am about to say but from the first time Sharky and me spoke, his concerns were about the community. Yes we need advertising revenue to keep the whole thing running but that does not mean that we can't get this vendor situation dealt with for the benefit of both.

And yes, we may need to look at other revenue streams (or advertisers) as some of you have suggested, it would be naive of me to say otherwise.

As for threads being indexed, archived and tidied up for the benefit of newcomers, no.

Old members being thrown out, why? As long as the various guidelines are worked within then I have no right to throw them out despite what they might choose to say. This is common to most forums. And no, I am not going to write special versions of the guidelines that are so draconian it will be impossible for anyone to work within them. The guidelines need sorting out but they need to be simpler and fewer in my view. Adults should know what is decent behaviour without us writing chapter and verse to try and show them. The kind of people severe guidance is aimed at would ignore it anyway.

As for lulz, our daily lives would be pretty grim without something to laugh about so why would I even consider banning someone for posting the stuff? Once again it is a question of degree and it needs making clear what is acceptable and what is not both in terms of content and quantity.There has to be a workable solution to this.

How about a few of you coming up with the list? Using a local community analogy sometimes the best rules come from the people not the civic leaders. There is much talk here of T2W doing this that and the other so why not say specifically what you would do? (and thanks again to those who have emailed stuff like this already)?

Finally, as to clearing the way for vendors, no again.

As has already been said the vendor 'problem' here is very serious and it will be dealt with. I have much work to do in this area and I don't have all the answers yet but what I can say for certain is that there are no plans to 'clear the way' and there will be no vendor monopolisation as long as I am in charge.

Finally, thanks for the post!

 

[scose-no-doubt]

I think you should join in the Slaggydappyboop lulz as a show of solidarity, Steve.

 

[Steve]

Paul, I wish you good luck in your future endeavors :cheers:




Welcome to the community, Steve

Thanks for the welcome, much appreciated.

 

[Steve]

Earlier in the week I promised to reply to some questions in two areas from Mr Leopard, my views on matters of fraud and my trading activities.

I'll deal with the second one first as it is a shorter answer. Yes I am profitable. I think I mentioned in my long history post that once I started to treat this like a business things started to improve. I work with a good plan, a proven method (our own) and have my head in the right place. I am not profitable all the time and I have poor performing periods but this does not matter as i am working to an overall annual profit target that represents my salary for doing the job.

Moving onto the question of fraud. First of all I must make it clear that I am not going to answer these questions as a Magistrate, because I can't. There is strict guidance about what we can and can't say in public. Over the years, perfectly innocent remarks have been made in public, manipulated by others then seized upon as being the views of the whole Judiciary. Hence the guidance and i'll not put myself in breach of it.

I will however tell you what I think personally and as CEO and arguably that should be of more importance to everyone here as it will no doubt influence the direction I choose to take in dealing with what is before me.

Two important words are used in the original questions, these are 'legal' and 'ethical'. Where fraud is concerned the legal question is an absolute minefield in my experience. The person(s) who make these claims will rarely be attracting people purely on the strength of their own trading record. If they are intending to take money off people under false pretences then you can bet that they will have a whole host of other marketing related actions to include in their offers. They will probably also pay particular attention to publishing all manner of disclaimers that the unsuspecting customer will sign up to.

But is it fraud? I am not a lawyer so I can't say it is or it isn't because I don't know. I suspect if you put an actual case before a lawyer and it was as cleverly constructed as some of the ones I have seen then I reckon the answer would be no. Sadly, the only way you will ever get a definitive answer is to take one of them to court. This then creates case law which then makes the question a whole lot easier to answer.

The ethical bit is much easier to deal with, no it is not ethical. It is disgusting to me and any other right minded person with even a modicum of market knowledge to see some of the promises that are made and the amounts of money that people are relieved of in the interests of learning how to trade.

And yet they carry on doing it and getting away with it.

I know that several debates have raged in these pages about such sharp practices and no doubt there will be more. It is my aim that we will not add fuel to the flames by partnering with firms who may fall into this category.

It will not be easy, a firm that I might think of as OK may be seen as a complete charlatan by someone else. This does not mean that we shouldn't try.

We need to take a long hard look at the experiences we have had with vendors so far and learn from them. We have to figure out how to balance the need for advertising revenue with the needs of the community and we must be much more careful about selecting the products and services that appear on the site.

That's probably enough for now or i'll be here another few hours writing about this stuff but hopefully I have give enough of an ideas of my position on this. Thanks for the post, no doubt we will be discussing this further.

So that's it, my first week over, only another 11 to go according to some predictions so I had better get a move on

 

[DionysusToast]

The ethical bit is much easier to deal with, no it is not ethical. It is disgusting to me and any other right minded person with even a modicum of market knowledge to see some of the promises that are made and the amounts of money that people are relieved of in the interests of learning how to trade.

 

[pboyles]

We need to take a long hard look at the experiences we have had with vendors so far and learn from them. We have to figure out how to balance the need for advertising revenue with the needs of the community and we must be much more careful about selecting the products and services that appear on the site.

)

Fraud may well be difficult to prove but we have several instances of your current or previous partners being fined for a variety of offences such as common law fraud and various breaches of securities laws etc. For instance Gain Capital were fined by the NFA or CFTC (cant remember which) for defrauding their clients yet they are still a rebate partner. There are plenty of other examples.

To be honest all the dodgy partner offers and advertisers were easily spotted, the problem was that nobody cared what went out as long as they paid up.

 

[pboyles]

Fraud may well be difficult to prove but we have several instances of your current or previous partners being fined for a variety of offences such as common law fraud and various breaches of securities laws etc. For instance Gain Capital were fined by the NFA or CFTC (cant remember which) for defrauding their clients yet they are still a rebate partner. There are plenty of other examples.

To be honest all the dodgy partner offers and advertisers were easily spotted, the problem was that nobody cared what went out as long as they paid up.

It seems that this point has been raised several times and totally ignored. Therefore I will rephrase it as direct questions.

1. Will T2W continue to use their rebate scheme to refer members to Gain Capital (AKA forex.com) given the fact that they have been fined for the following activities "Gain engaged in abusive margin, liquidation and price slippage practices that benefited Gain to the detriment of its customers".

NFA orders $459,000 monetary sanction against New Jersey forex firm Gain Capital Group LLC


2. Will T2W continue to use their rebate scheme to refer members to FXDD given the fact that they have recently been charged by the NFA with a number of offences related to their slippage practices and their deliberate course of conduct designed to mislead the NFA.

http://www.nfa.futures.org/basicnet/CaseDocument.aspx?seqnum=3348

3. Will T2W continue to promote FXCM via advertising given the fact that they have been fined and ordered to pay restitution of around $20 million to US clients for dishonest slippage practices.

http://www.trade2win.com/boards/for...-restitution-14-2-million-settle-charges.html

 

[Trader333]

Will you be ensuring that you have no bank account with any UK provider of said service as they have all been fined and made to pay back millions as part of PPI fraud ?

Will you not be using any supermarket as they have also all been fined millions for various issues ?

Will you be not using any utility company for gas or electric as they have also had numerous fines given for various issues ?

If companies are still in business then that is because they have not been considered to have engaged in activities that would warrant closing them down. As such they are free to do business and T2W is free to do business as well.

If everyone adopted your stated approach then commercial activity everywhere would end. The fact that you must be using a utility company to supply the electricity to power your pc to make the above posts means that you will undoubtedly be using the services of a company that has been fined at some point and as such are not practicing what you preach.

 

[the hare]

If everyone adopted your stated approach then commercial activity everywhere would end.

I dont thinks that's actually true.

Its been shown time and time again that companies can be forced to act more ethically when forced to do so by consumers. If there's a demand for an ethical supplier of a particular product, someone will attempt to supply that demand.

 

[R.Charnock]

The fact that you must be using a utility company to supply the electricity to power your pc to make the above posts means that you will undoubtedly be using the services of a company that has been fined at some point and as such are not practicing what you preach.

Some of us have solar panels, water wheels and wind turbines.

 

[timsk]

Some of us have solar panels, water wheels and wind turbines.

. . . and how do you pay for them? By selling back power to the same utility companies that have had their knuckles rapped!

 

[the hare]

If companies are still in business then that is because they have not been considered to have engaged in activities that would warrant closing them down. As such they are free to do business and T2W is free to do business as well.

I think that this is probably one of the occasions where we need to clarify if this is your personal opinion, or official t2w policy.

 

[pboyles]

Buying PPI insurance from a bank is one thing. Using your business to sell PPI insurance to others and collecting a commission whilst all the time knowing the product is fraudulent is quite another.

I might buy utilities from a company but I'm not running round all my neighbors getting them to switch to that provider when I know that provider will rip them off. You are.

Will you be ensuring that you have no bank account with any UK provider of said service as they have all been fined and made to pay back millions as part of PPI fraud ?

Will you not be using any supermarket as they have also all been fined millions for various issues ?

Will you be not using any utility company for gas or electric as they have also had numerous fines given for various issues ?

If companies are still in business then that is because they have not been considered to have engaged in activities that would warrant closing them down. As such they are free to do business and T2W is free to do business as well.

If everyone adopted your stated approach then commercial activity everywhere would end. The fact that you must be using a utility company to supply the electricity to power your pc to make the above posts means that you will undoubtedly be using the services of a company that has been fined at some point and as such are not practicing what you preach.

 

[Trader333]

T2W does not knowing promote fraudulent products. Why is there reason to suppose that a company is continuing in its old ways when it has been fined and instructed to put in place corrective procedures and is monitored by appropriate institutions to ensure so ?

 

[the hare]

Why is there reason to suppose that a company is continuing in its old ways when it has been fined and instructed to put in place corrective procedures and is monitored by appropriate institutions to ensure so ?

a) the institutions monitoring are clearly not fit for purpose
b) Firms & Individuals often re offend

I could go on....

 

[pboyles]

T2W does not knowing promote fraudulent products. Why is there reason to suppose that a company is continuing in its old ways when it has been fined and instructed to put in place corrective procedures and is monitored by appropriate institutions to ensure so ?

I hear Gary Glitter is looking to advertise his new child minding business. There's no reason to suppose he'll continue in his old ways and he is on the sex offenders register so there should be no problem. Perhaps a partner offer targetting the relevant geographical area would be best.

 

[barjon]

I hear Gary Glitter is looking to advertise his new child minding business. There's no reason to suppose he'll continue in his old ways and he is on the sex offenders register so there should be no problem. Perhaps a partner offer targetting the relevant geographical area would be best.

peebee

Even taking your ad absurdum example, how far do you suppose Gary Glitter would get if he even tried to open a child minding business or do anything working with children?

In any event I must say that I was encouraged by what Steve had to say about it (the advertising/partner thing - not Gary Glitter ) - here if you've forgotten http://www.trade2win.com/boards/t2w-announcements/154300-change-top-14.html#post1926788 - but, as he says, I suspect it's all not going to be as easy as it might first appear.

As usual, though, you start smashing away at the fence before he's even had a chance to start building it. Why don't you give him some credit, at least, for thinking right and then see what he comes up with?

jon

 

[timsk]

a) the institutions monitoring are clearly not fit for purpose
b) Firms & Individuals often re offend

I could go on....

Hi the hare,
A) I have some sympathies with your viewpoint (that's my personal view btw, not T2W's official view), but it's not within the scope or objectives of T2W to address the issue. I suggest you write to your MP and/or lobby the appropriate parliamentary committee that monitors the regulators etc.

B) Well, perhaps. Equally, many learn their lesson and ensure that nothing improper ever happens again. If the business world revolved around the principle of not working with someone simply on the grounds that they might do something naughty in the future then, as Paul pointed out, commerce would grind to a halt pretty quickly. Assuming there's no compelling reason to make a special case just for the companies that T2W happens to do business with (i.e. ignore every other company that's ever behaved badly), then I think we can safely say the argument 'we won't do business with you on the grounds that you may re-offend' isn't one that we - or anyone else - could reasonably be expected to factor into their business model.
Tim.