With ref to the dispute indicated below that I had with a spread bet company some days ago.
I did get a reply...
When I tried to place my trades within the 1st minute of the open at 23.00 hrs.. The Buy and Sell buttons appeared ok and live.. and I was able to click on the Sell button to attempt to place my trades. but I got what was a Red Ticket saying trade had not been accepted or had failed...and as I explained.. this was my dispute with them as to why it never got filled.
There excuse / reason was....(Valid or invalid)...
That within the 1st few minutes of opening on the new week that starts at 23.00 hrs in the UK... that they delay a few minutes to make sure that all the markets that they have on their platform are all working ok...before they open the system up to accept the trades.
MY concern is I thought that they were supposed to be open and match with the real exchanges to be fair to its clients. or at least would honor such disputes if for some reason they had an issue with their system.
I think this was one of those occasional issues and its not what they do each new weekly open..
I will have to watch and test them carefully over the next few weeks to test them on the 1st minute by trying to place a small trade with tight stops..to see if they will be open in the 1st minute..
I don't know if other clients would think their reasoning is acceptable !
but I do know that it cost me a chance to have made a good profit..
and i am not impressed that they can not handle such issues..
Another issue that Id like to look into that I think has happened in the past..
when their system went down... and one was trying to get out of a position or take a profit...
that they have said.. if the system goes down... and you cannot get through by phone.. send an email and we will consider honoring the trade to the time the email was sent...In calmer times I think they have done this before.
but
When the Market crashed. and they could not handle the crisis and only had one person on the option desk...
I had done this with some options that I had.. but they would not honor the trades on that occasion.
What had happened was when the market crashed..a couple of days before Id bought call options.. and initially I thought they had lost more or less all their value as the crash was severe and the options went well out of the money..
but the market did have a 1000 point rally on the Dow..when it rerallied after the huge decline... I did make a initial phone call to ask why the platform had gone in active.. and could tell the person answering was under pressure and they only want to deal with larger clients in such conditions.. I asked he he new the price of my options and he did give me a last price he had noted of the top of his head but did not seem to want to check it out for sure...and I ended the call.as I did not think or realise at that time as to how the prices compared to when I had bought them and I did think they would be worth much less than what i had paid..
when such conditions occur.. the trade desk are in panic themseleves and not acting normal.. and you can tell when they will not want to deal with small clients. and they have told me they will always honor the big boys as 1st priority ..
At that time I did not recall what Id paid for the options in comparison.
and I could not check as the platform was down.
I then recalled I had also bought the same ones on IG... and I checked the pricing that had been similar.
I then found that they were worth more than I paid and wanted to sell them... which I did on IG as their platform was working..
But the other companies platform was still not..
I tried to call again but could not get thru.... I also had to go out..
so I sent them an email to explain and asked if they would close my positions out.
around the price he quoted me ...as I thought the market was still at similar levels.
Unfortunately they would not honor my request.. or to even close me out at a price that I had paid for them.
again as their platform had not been working ... at the earlier time I could not see what they options had been being quoted at...
and later could not get thru by phone..
They had once honored me in a similar past less volitile situation..
but as the pricing and conditions at this time were quite extreme they would not do so on that occasion.
I wonder if anyone has had any similar situations..
Hi,
Another issue... I attempted to sell the Wall street market at this weeks top...on the Sunday evening open...in the very first few seconds...23.00 hrs... The platform failed to show their charts price action.. but the price data on the buy and sell buttons did not appear to be altering too wildly in the opening seconds.... I tried to place 3 sell trades in the 1st minutes..
The system did not accept the trades. and I did not get filed.... after a couple of minutes the market had moved to far down for me to want to retry another entry to sell.
I called to complain. and they confirmed that I had attempted the trades..and the system did not accept them for some reason.. and they could not answer why the chart service was not showing the visual price bars. which I needed at this vital time to see what was actually happening.
This was a critical time to enter and no I did not want to be on the phone... I just wanted a system that worked when it should do..... I dont mind technical issues as long as they acknowledge and agree to accept a trade when I call to dispute ,as long as they show or have the evidence of my attempted trades..which they had.
BUT even then... they said I then had to send an email to dispute this.. and it could take upto 2 days. Meanwhile the market fell 500 points... I told them in an email I wanted to take some profit at a level reached to try to cover myself if the market recovered... and gain some profit if they would honor it.
..