city index - my experience

I traded with city index for 5 weeks during April and May 2010 – I had repeated problems with the trading platform but was assured by customer service that this was unusual. However, the platform’s total unreliability (and subsequent problems getting through on the phone) eventually lead me to close my account and return to my old broker. They sent my cash out (a five figure sum) back to the wrong card and it has been 17 days and no sign of the funds – despite several phone calls to them they seem totally unconcerned that my money is sitting in banking purgatory (they can’t even tell what bank it was sent to or what card number as this information was encrypted).

Has anyone else suffered a similar experience with them? I fail to see how anybody who trades indexes over short time frames can use such an unreliable platform.

PS I know that the markets have been very volatile during this period – but that’s when you most need a stable system.

There were several instances when stop loss limits were triggered on their own, and one had to keep following up with their trading desk to rectify the problem.

Not to worry City Index have grown so big they are not really concerned about how they treat their clients. I wont be pluging any others but it does not shcock me to hear such poor standards. Glad you voted with your cash

This worries me a bit, since I use CityIndex, however I am a bit confused on how they managed to get the wrong card number, since they say they will only refund accounts using the method/card they were funded by in the first place..? Can you give some more details on how they say they got the details wrong?

Also, re the CityIndex platform outages last month or so, there have been a few and they have been very annoying..!

Assuming City has the same as platform as Finspreads, it's been pretty good recently, although yesterday it had a spell when just about every trade was rejected, although the market wasn't moving very quickly.

Thanks for your replies.

Leonarda – Yes you are right they are only meant to refund the card that was used to finance the account in the first place – I’m still trying to find out why they were sent somewhere else. I’m sure i will get the funds back at some stage (the ombudsman has written to them on my behalf today) what concerned me was their utter lack of concern/help. I’ve already spend several hours on the phone to both city index and my bank. City indexes’ attitude seems to be one of “well what do you want us to do? It will turn up eventually”

Jack – If the platform has been pretty good recently, I’d hate to see what it’s like when things aren’t going well

Most spread bet/cfd providers seem to spend a lot of time trumpeting things like platform reliability, ease of trading, being able to trade quickly from almost anywhere etc. But in reality often let their clients down with unreliable poorly performing platforms. Of course all the marketing hype is quickly signed away in the terms and conditions.

I wonder if platform reliability is an area that the regulator should start monitoring as it seems to be such a vital part of the service offered.

seinfeld said:

Most spread bet/cfd providers seem to spend a lot of time trumpeting things like platform reliability, ease of trading, being able to trade quickly from almost anywhere etc. But in reality often let their clients down with unreliable poorly performing platforms. Of course all the marketing hype is quickly signed away in the terms and conditions.

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Sadly this is the way most businesses (especially big business) operates these days (not just the spread betters).

Promise all with marketing but rarely back it up knowing full well the man in the street can do nothing about it.

This is why I don't trust any business these days, in fact I'd rather trust what comes of a politicians mouth. A sad state of affairs.

Internships innit.