I thought it would be nice to start a thread on anything you find unhappy about spread betting (and CFD) companies.
I hope this will become useful to anyone who intends to use these companies. After 10 years using them, I have encountered numerous problems but I will only discuss one which has partly contributed to my reason for unwinding my operation.
The trouble with Spreadco (Spread Co) arose in December and finally concluded at the end of March. The Financial Ombudsman has sided with Spreadco so I am unsatisfied with the outcome.
So in December, I traded with the DJIA (Wall Street 30, ws30). Their platform behaved in an illogical manner. This was not clear to me at first but as the number of trades reached about 8, I realised that the order of the trades were not in chronological order. This contributed to unintentional trades and I foolishly carried on trading with them thinking I could weather the storm. I have never come across a spread betting company that orders executed trades in a haphazard way. They have since corrected this illogical behaviour.
I first contacted them but they would not take my case seriously. So I complained to the CEO and he told me to contact Compliance. Compliance dismissed my claim that the irregularity in the platform partially contributed to my loss. If I had known of this irregularity, I would never have traded so much.
The Financial Ombudsman dismissed my claim as well. They do not have the capability to see from a day trader's perspective. They told me I could have gone to the Trade History tab and monitored the trades (very cumbersome) and noted down the Trade Reference numbers of all the trades ( a long string of letters and numbers) and if I wanted to close a certain trade, I could go back to the Positions tab, find the certain trade using the Trade Reference and close it. Who would do this? The fact that Spreadco fixed this problem later on surely means that they realised there was a problem. Not in the eyes of the Ombudsman.
After all these trouble, I think I will still keep some funds in the account to take advantage of the 2 percent interest on deposits. I won't trade large amounts with them any more. I do hope this thread becomes useful to all traders out there. I would feel happy that my loss was not all in vain. Good luck everyone.
I hope this will become useful to anyone who intends to use these companies. After 10 years using them, I have encountered numerous problems but I will only discuss one which has partly contributed to my reason for unwinding my operation.
The trouble with Spreadco (Spread Co) arose in December and finally concluded at the end of March. The Financial Ombudsman has sided with Spreadco so I am unsatisfied with the outcome.
So in December, I traded with the DJIA (Wall Street 30, ws30). Their platform behaved in an illogical manner. This was not clear to me at first but as the number of trades reached about 8, I realised that the order of the trades were not in chronological order. This contributed to unintentional trades and I foolishly carried on trading with them thinking I could weather the storm. I have never come across a spread betting company that orders executed trades in a haphazard way. They have since corrected this illogical behaviour.
I first contacted them but they would not take my case seriously. So I complained to the CEO and he told me to contact Compliance. Compliance dismissed my claim that the irregularity in the platform partially contributed to my loss. If I had known of this irregularity, I would never have traded so much.
The Financial Ombudsman dismissed my claim as well. They do not have the capability to see from a day trader's perspective. They told me I could have gone to the Trade History tab and monitored the trades (very cumbersome) and noted down the Trade Reference numbers of all the trades ( a long string of letters and numbers) and if I wanted to close a certain trade, I could go back to the Positions tab, find the certain trade using the Trade Reference and close it. Who would do this? The fact that Spreadco fixed this problem later on surely means that they realised there was a problem. Not in the eyes of the Ombudsman.
After all these trouble, I think I will still keep some funds in the account to take advantage of the 2 percent interest on deposits. I won't trade large amounts with them any more. I do hope this thread becomes useful to all traders out there. I would feel happy that my loss was not all in vain. Good luck everyone.