Hi Highbury FX
I appreciate your comments and as a normal law abiding citizen - and trader - I like to think that generally - I stick to the rules.
But if you are being totally honest - any business that as to use its T & C along with its small print to ensure they can take advantage of all the arising situations - really does not deserve lots of customers.
With this matter - I am on Tars' side and I can also talk from experience having had a few run ins with so called "brokers" - yes that's what they like to do to many of their customers
In one case with CMC UK going back to approx 2006 / 7 - I had proof of the different settings they used on my own trading platform - to change settings and timing so to disrupt my normal trading methods. Luckily - many others had big grievances and in the end they faced large fines from the regulators and lost 1000's of clients and it cost them hundreds of thousands of pounds - cheats - big time then - now I understand they are squeaky clean
Face it FX brokers are hardly covered in glory - they are maybe nearly as devious as Bankers.
The law is like the Ritz hotel - open to all - who have money 🙂
The law is also an ass in many cases - and its not always who's correct and what's fair that ends up as the winner.
If you need to employ a lawyer to go through all the brokers small print in T & C's and for them to have as many excuses in as possible to tip the balance to their own favour - then they need to be challenged - and taken down a peg or two.
Nothing personal - you might be a really nice genuine honest guy doing the best for your company - but if you are - your honesty and credibility will be tested
After 25 yrs in different businesses - both my own and at Director level in some large corporates - I know how things work - and sometimes you ignore the rules and the law and use many other methods to get you way.
I learn some of them from the master - as a Director in one of Branson's company's in the late 1980's and what the man got away with at times was unbelievable;-)
Trust me - the customer is king - not the lawyer or the business
Regards
F
Hi F
I think you're absolutely correct and my post was not intended to criticise tar, it was meant to start some debate about the morality of the T&C's versus principles.
If tar sincerely thought IG was being unreasonable about how much he owed and he disputed it, escalated it through IG's own procedures and got them to relent, then power to him, but if he just argued the toss for 9 months and ended up saving £300 but losing his IG account then thats pretty lame. I don't know the facts as tar hasn't expanded on the circumstances but thats entirely his prerogative and it won't alter my opinion of him, which is of an intelligent and interesting person to have some trading dialogue with. I feel the same about you as well, you make good comments, are fair and have stuck around here long enough to sniff people like me out if you think i have an ulterior motive.
The company i have an interest in is not for discussion here, i don't want you to think i'm ever trying to influence t2w for commercial benefit. I just want to be honest with my opinion and the longer I'm on here the better chance i have of you all taking me seriously. Some people on here have driven me away for a month or so but right now no one is being a dick lol and i'll hang around a bit longer
🙂
The T&C;s need to be shaken up. The way they still are is a legacy from when we all first started in spread betting and you had to like it or lump it with the few providers there were. Customer service should be better than it is and you even now have companies that won't speak to you unless its by email - thats crazy imo. The terms are so one sided because thats the way we protected ourselves and in a dispute we wanted to point to a rule that was so ambiguous it could have had 5 different interpretations for 5 separate circumstances. Our clients are far more savvy than the trader sitting in a mid tier bank trying to pick you off on a price because they can see they have a big order to sell 200 million euros or similar. Our clients rely on their judgement and analysis rather than someone else's client flow that they don't have privy to seeing, and it is these clients that we should be more reasonable with as there is no need for us to be so defensive and assume that their reason for dealing with us is to pick us off.
The FX industry's reputation is in a right state for good reason and some not so good as well. When i was a lad it was my job make a good relationship with my banks in order to get their business. It was the late 80's and early 90's and i was b0ll0xed 3-4 times a week trying to make sure in the morning i got their trades rather than another broker. Now a days compliance say the flow has to be spread around and there are no need for relationships because you deal on the best price and that has completely changed the brokerage market. Brokers that were doing well are now doing crap, and brokers that were doing crap are now just as crap as everyone else. If a bank gave me business because they were front running customer orders, i like everyone else assumed it was ok because they had worked hard to win that flow and were using it to their advantage. now that will land you in jail. Sentiment has changed and retail clients who now provide so much FX liquidity demand that the action and opportunity should be the same for them considering they put so much in. I can't argue with that, its common sense and if i was trying to make a living out of something that seemed to being manipulated it would cheese me off.
I think IG are fair. I'm nothing to do with them. They flex their muscles when they think they need to and are very litigious. They would spend £10k winning a £500 bad debt because like all firms at times they need to stand up and push back. Thats why i was interested in tar's post because they don't often give up but they don't often argue the toss to begin with. Unlike plenty of other FX firms who just say NO to everything and don't care whether you stay or go. This more recent attitude sucks and it makes us look like we're at it, when most of us actually aren't. We have the spread in our favour and more often or not that will do, thats a big enough advantage to capture most peoples money over time. Some firms however want it much quicker and they are far more aggressive in their approach. The trouble is there are more and more and more of these types of FX firms appearing and it's bad news for the ones of us that try and do things fairly and harmoniously.
its all just words, the proof is in the pudding. Deal with people you trust and not because they're 0.1 on EURUSD and offer you 500 to 1 leverage.
the moral to my post is if you think you are right then fight back but also have that moral fibre that takes responsibility for the crap trade we all do every now and not try and get the s/b firm to wipe or reduce the loss because you're stropping up. If my 7 year old acted that way she'd go on the naughty step.
nice weekend all
🙂
