Dear Simon,
I opened an account with Paddy Power just over a week ago and understand that the system is provided by Capital Spreads. I am about even at the moment so have no other reason to tell you the problems/issue I have with your platform in order that you can try to fix them.
1. If I have an order placed in the market to trigger at a certain price, it will do so but has always been 'in limbo' for a minimum of a minute before it appears in the 'open positions' window.
2. I had a reasonable sell bet in gold open at the end of last week which was in profit at the time I wished to close. It took three attempts to close the position after getting a message stating something along the lines of 'the price was no longer valid'. The third time I closed the position while it was still at around the same profit level as each of the other two occasions. This problem has occurred on a number of occasions with other trades despite only having used your platform for such a short time and on a relatively small number of trades in my opinion.
3. I have traded a few different instruments on your platform and with the 'open positions' window selected, have regularly watched to my horror as the open position I have just disappears completely and then comes back usually within 10-15 seconds. Each time stops are nowhere near the market price and were highly unlikely to have been triggered. You really need to be offering free medical check ups for this one rather than account bonuses. But, 4 is worse...
4. I had an open sell bet position on the 'US 30' last week which was deep in the red as the second day of the big market fall. As an aside, I held the position into the following day and closed at a profit. But, while my account was showing a loss, despite the market not being anywhere near my stop, similar to 3 above, the open position just disappeared. BUT, even worse (and almost a call to 999 not paddy power helpdesk) my account information had updated itself to show a balance as if my trade HAD been closed! I waited patiently for about 2 or 3 minutes for the problem to sort itself out but it only rectified when I logged out and in again. I experienced no other network problems at the time and have tried your system on different networks, and both PC's and Macs to try and work out if the problem was potentially at my end. The best advice I recieved from the Paddy Power helpdesk was that they had not experienced any problems like this before and I should make sure I have got the latest version of Flash.
In terms of your interface, while I do actually like the simplicity and look and feel, there are a couple of functions which come to mind I would like to see changed if I were to continue using the system. I appreciate these are not quick fixes. It is imperative to be able to view your watchlist at the same time as your open positions and orders. I don't believe it is currently possible to do this as everything runs within one window and the time taken to switch between is sometimes a lot longer than should be expected (30 seconds or thereabouts) but I would be happy if you could advise me otherwise. I have had to check another service to keep up to date on what the rest of the market is doing while watching open positions. Also, while we should all have wizard number crunching minds, I find the method of being able to place as many orders as I like without margin required being removed from my account to be a disadvantage. While the advantage is clear, that you can potentially create a big list of orders within the market, for me, the disadvantage, which happened repeatedly to me when I started using Paddy Power with a small account balance to test the water - if you do not have the available margin, the order is triggered and then just disappears. You don't automatically get a message telling you this has happened (unless you access cancelled orders) or a notification to quickly credit your account in order for the position to be filled, even at a different price. I need to see margin removed from 'trading resources' when I place an order. This means I know my trade will be placed which surely has to be best for both of us.
Some will say I shouldn't be trading close to my maximum available margin and I would usually agree but this has been more of a testing exercise for me with a new account not a lose all situation even if my account did zero out.
On the plus side, your charts are excellent, the same provider as IG which is the main reason I thought I would try out trading properly with you. The other main plus point which is in my opinion vital, is that the customer service at Paddy Power is so good, I am honestly shocked on each of 3/4 times I have spoken to them. They have been helpful, friendly and knowledgeable. This is a far cry from the majority of people I have spoken to at other firms who give you the impression their time is gold dust and they are too important to be speaking to you. It could well have something to do with the fact that everyone I have spoken to at Paddy Power has been female which is in my experience not the norm.
I would be happy to come to your office to try to replicate the problems I have experienced, initially as an anonymous person so I can be assured you do not have the facility to correct these mistakes depending on who is trading.
This is also my first post on this board so I hope not to have bored people too much and this (hopefully) reasonably unbiased post can be used as a starting point for Simon to respond on these specific points and others and what action is being taken to change and improve the systems at Capital Spreads. I note that the company has recently started a big advertising campaign on Bloomberg TV. I fear that exposing your system as it stands to a much wider audience without changes being made could result in serious consequences from serious market players.
Yours Sincerely,
The Dawn.
