Mdsspreads took £9000 from me!!! Please help!

[tomorton]

Not convincing anyone TomTom. There has been no cowboy practice and no regulatory authority would even sniff at this one.

I know you know what you're talking about but you're not telling us what you know, you're just sticking your tongue out. Want to give a bit more information?

 

[Zebedee23]

London Capital Group Ltd, a wholly owned trading subsidiary of LCGH plc, is regulated and authorised by the Financial Services Authority.

 

[Arbu]

Hi Arbu -

Can't accept that. Zebedee23 or any reasonable person should have known that prices were dubious on this particular night - he himself says they were bounding about by 50pts or so every few minutes or seconds. If that was usual, why mention it to us? He was then able to place about 100 trades and make £10,000 profit. I can't believe Forex moves like that durng the small hours, I bet Zebedee23 hinmself has never seen it and does not normally place so many trades per night with such an outcome. Such movements during a holiday period within daylight hours would be fantastical. Huge alarm bells should have been ringing in his head all through the night that the whole thing was based on obviously spurious data.
.

Yes, I suppose it was rather unusual. Although Zebedee23 could argue that he thought it was just the market that was strange - he didn't expect that the MDS spreads quotes failed to represent the market.

Zebedee23, I suppose you could try asking them to show that their prices were erroneous, as required under the condition which you mention. It doesn't seem to me that they have yet shown this, they've just said that they've done a review.

Incidentally I've emailed Capital Spreads asking them if they'll reimburse me for my losses. They're part of LCG too, and I don't think LCG can have it both ways, i.e. reversing client's winning trades, but not client's losing ones. I'll let you know how I get on.

 

[TomTom]

All will come out when I can tell Tomorton.
Have to keep quirte for a little longer.
Trust me all will be revield eventually M8

 

[Zebedee23]

nice one Arbu!! Im in the process of building a case against them. No they have not provided any proof that the prices were 'erroneous' !!

 

[trader_dante]

nice one Tomorton!! Im in the process of building a case against them. No they have not provided any proof that the prices were 'erroneous' !!

Zebedee, I would advise you not to bother. I had the exact same thing happen to me and a handful of other people I recruited from here to watch for it.

CS had a consistent period, a while back, of consistently mis-pricing issues in the exact way you mention: late at night or in the early hours of the morning, many FX pairs would make wild swings and it was easy to make huge amounts of money very quickly.

Apart from a few trades that got under the radar, I had all of it refunded from my account and that was after both myself and others spent a long while in "negotiations" with them.

 

[chilltrader]

Hey T_D Nice to see you back!

Looks like the markets are gonna get some volume back now

 

[Arbu]

Just found out that Mdsspreads and Capitalspreads are almost the same thing. Both have identical T & C's with same bank sort and swift code, same address and both run by London Capitol Group.

Here's the reply I got from Capital Spreads (both the opening and closing of the trade took place during the hours listed by MDS):

"Dear Mr Arbu,

Thank you for your email. Our dealing team checked any trades that went through and reversed any that had been placed on an erroneous price. We have re-checked your account today and can confirm that your opening trade to Buy 2 EUR/GBP Rolling Daily was placed on a valid price that reflected the underlying market.

This trade was stopped out when our quote reached your stop at 0.9428. We have checked the closure of the trade and can confirm that this price was a valid price which reflected where the underlying market was at this time.

Therefore, we would not reverse the trade on your account as both the opening and closing trades were at valid prices.

I hope that this answers your query, however, if you have any further questions please do not hesitate to contact us.

Kind regards,

Anna O'Neill

Customer Support"

Zebedee if you want to put a complaint together I'm happy to join you in it. We're talking about the same company here and both sets of ts and cs refer to LCG, not the branded platform. It seems outrageous that LCG seems to be seeking to have it both ways. I'm so upset about having made a loss on a trade that I'm going to go to the Antarctic on Thursday to get away from it all, and won't be back for nine weeks, so won't be able to communicate with you until I get back. But I don't mind taking it up again in March. I can be very determined.

 

[Zebedee23]

Arbu, very interesting! Seems if you made a profit the prices were eronneous and ccorrect if a loss was made. I think it was even Anna O'neil who emailed me after i demanded a reason. Im definately up for some action. They should not be able to get away with this. Incidentally i see that they are regulated by the FSA which can only be a good thing here. Seems a bit drastic going to the Antarctic though!?

 

[Zebedee23]

Arbu, i just checked the charts for EUR/GBP and it never even reached 0.9428. at 5:50, even between 5-6, the lowest it went to was 0.9430 according to the charts! Oh but the charts were erronious eh! Basically a license for them to pull figures out of a hat!

 

[Arbu]

Arbu, i just checked the charts for EUR/GBP and it never even reached 0.9428. at 5:50, even between 5-6, the lowest it went to was 0.9430 according to the charts! Oh but the charts were erronious eh! Basically a license for them to pull figures out of a hat!

Yes, but with their spread I think it went to 0.9428 (for an instant). It does seem a bit suspicious that it was only for an instant. I'm uncomfortable with the fact that I have to trust Capital Spreads, or any other firm for that matter, that none of their traders would phone up a friend in the States, and say "Do us a favour would you, just put a trade for a very low volume in at this low level - we've got a client who will get stopped out if you do." I assume they wouldn't - but how do I really now?

I hope you'll go ahead and make a complaint, up to the FSA if necessary. I'll gladly help you while I'm around. Just a small thing though - please don't be offended by this, but make sure you do a spell check in anthing you write .

The Antarctic trip was already planned tbh.

 

[trader_dante]

I'm uncomfortable with the fact that I have to trust Capital Spreads, or any other firm for that matter, that none of their traders would phone up a friend in the States, and say "Do us a favour would you, just put a trade for a very low volume in at this low level - we've got a client who will get stopped out if you do." I assume they wouldn't - but how do I really now?

LOL

Did you actually just write that?

 

[gooseman]

or any other firm for that matter, that none of their traders would phone up a friend in the States, and say "Do us a favour would you, just put a trade for a very low volume in at this low level - we've got a client who will get stopped out if you do." I assume they wouldn't - but how do I really now?

you have got to be kidding me right?

 

[arabianights]

:rofl:

That said capital spreads do high and low tick, I tend to believe (somewhat grudgingly) this is more likely due to a different noise filter to other spread betting firms rather than anything malicious though...

 

[trader_dante]

Arbu, have you been reading Reminiscences by any chance? Come on mate, you have to be kidding.

 

[Arbu]

Arbu, have you been reading Reminiscences by any chance? Come on mate, you have to be kidding.

No, I'm thinking more of a guy I used to work with who would regularly get phoned up by a friend in the City with the suggestion to buy or sell shares in a tiny company that he'd never heard of. He would always follow the suggestion, and magically, within a day or so, the share price had gone massively in his favour. No doubt the friend got something in return. I never got any further to understanding what was really going on but it certainly looked dodgy. The point is that these people are always talking to each other, and they're certainly no angels.

In a very thinly traded market there's got to be the possibility to manipulate the price. I'm not saying any spread betting companies do it - I trust them not to. But remember it wouldn't have to be the policy of the company itself - there could be a situation where one of its dealers had an incentive to do it. Whether it's even possible depends on how large the trades that are made on the reference markets are, and I don't know this. Maybe you can give me some indication of how much it would cost someone to move the price for an instant by one pip in a very thinly traded market, like the one here?

 

[arabianights]

Arbu if it was a big enough position to make it worth setting off the stop in the underlying market then the position would be hedged anyway... making it pointless.

The more likely conspiracy, as I say, is high/low ticking when the spread is wide enough to make each instance of it justifiable.

 

[gooseman]

you are mad. first instance that is either front running or insider dealing....not a clever thing to be doing.

secondly do you think a SB'er would sit and keep an eye on one stop of one client to trigger it? maybe if you had a few grand on a point......if you want to try and manipulate the EURUSD or cable then go crazy. and have deep pockets.

 

[trader_dante]

Whether it's even possible depends on how large the trades that are made on the reference markets are, and I don't know this. Maybe you can give me some indication of how much it would cost someone to move the price for an instant by one pip in a very thinly traded market, like the one here?

There are circumstances in the GBP future where you can move the market as much as 30 pips (maybe even more) trading a 1 lot which is the equivalent of about £4 per pip. So basically no size is needed. This is in circumstances where the spread widens dramatically e.g. before news. At other times it would take more but in Cable which is notoriously thin, it wouldn't take a lot to uptick a high or low. Remember though that the cash market is different and the two won't get that far out of line or it will open up arb opportunities.

But the case is the same in many markets.

 

[stevespray]

In my opinion these kinds of cases will keep reoccurring with regards to Spreadbetting and CFD’s.

As I’ve stated before, on several threads, I cannot see how many of the T&C’s of a Customer Agreement can be enforced by the firms if these terms attempt to break or alter the effects of other laws (such as contract law).

In an earlier post someone referred to the discovery of an old violin in a shop. If it was marked at £5 and you took it to the till there is absolutely no obligation for the shop keeper to sell it for £5.
HOWEVER... if the shop keep accepts your offer of £5 (based on his ‘Invitation To Treat’ ie marking it £5) then a contract is formed and the violin is yours. Transfer of ownership occurs, in law, at that point. There is nothing in law which allows the shop keeper to somehow reverse the contract and claim back ownership if he subsequently finds out that there was a pricing error – the shop keeper must consider the price which he is contracting at PRIOR to accepting the clients offer.

Now, correct me if I am wrong, doesn’t a spreadbet become enforceable from the moment that it is entered into? It is, in the eyes of the law, a contract like any other. This puts the spreadbetting firms in a particularly difficult situation if they have already issued a contract note which specifies that a clients bet (to open or close) has been accepted – legal title to that contract has passed to the client.

The firms obviously place certain T&C’s in the Customer Agreements to circumvent such basic contract law – my feeling is that this is not allowed. If it was allowed then every shop in the land would write such a caveat into its terms and conditions of sale – this would effectively allow every charity shop / antique dealer to claim back ownership of any item which it deemed that it had wrongly valued prior to selling. Implicitly this does not happen.

Why is the law any different for a Spreadbetting or CFD Firm?


Steve.