I would like to send a warning out on Pepperstone LTD.
I’ve been trading full time for 6 years and have dealt with over a dozen companies so I’m not new to FX.
This warning goes out to anyone Trading with Pepperstone or thinking about it.
As of 1pm pst April 5, 2013 Pepperstone will not allow me to withdraw from or close my account.
After multiple emails, phone calls and being hung up on by “Nash” of Pepperstone multiple times I received an email stating "Due to lack of liquidity we are unable to complete this transaction. We apologize for any inconvenience."
After this email I called a friend that also uses Pepperstone and found out that he attempted to withdraw on Monday of this week and they are refusing to release funds to him as well.
My account has zero trades open/hedged so I know it’s not liquidity on my end.
It’s only 7k$ to me but it’s huge red flags at this point.
I’ve seen this about 5 years ago in a FX company just before they became insolvent.
Beware, Pepperstone may be insolvent and people are unable to make withdrawals.
Cyprus related?
Anyways, word to the wise. I hope this helps someone.
-Rabbit
That doesn’t make any sense. Considering the broker has nothing to do with Cyprus and legally has to keep funds in a segregated account in Australia ~~ NAB and HSBC bank last I checked ~~ I don’t think Cyprus has anything to do with it.
I don’t think there’s any insolvency issue either:::They processed a withdrawal for me just over a week ago and it went smoothly. I even got a receipt for the transaction from an Australian source.
What reason is “liquidity” to deny a withdrawal? I’ve seen a warning once about margin in use preventing a withdrawal ~~ I was in a position when they tried to process it, which was my fault ~~ but liquidity has nothing to do with account balances, or banking, or anything. Liquidity is a market trading term.
And who’s Nash? Every time I process a withdrawal it’s responded to by their automated system::: "[email protected]" or "[email protected]" ~~ I did an account transfer once and that was handled by “kenneth”
Something smells fishy here ~~ Either OP isn’t giving all the info and there’s more to it, or he’s smearing the broker on purpose without real evidence.
This is correct, Pepper keeps client funds in seg accounts in Australia. Though, I think it’s just NAB bank now, not HSBC. According to this page at least:
ASIC regulations and the Corporation Act prevents Pepper from using client funds for operation or anything beyond earning interest and clearing trades.
Pepper also has indemnity insurance to further protect their client assets and their business. (Info in that page I linked again.)
So this doesn’t really fit with what BlackRabbit said. I can’t make much sense of his post actually.
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Also, I can confirm that I made a withdrawal recently (not last week, but at the end of last month, as I usually do so near the end of the month if I’m pulling back some profits or lowering risk…) and that went through with no problem (and timely as usual.)
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Edit: I know it might come off that I generally speak positively about Pepper, but they are my broker, and I look out for signs of trouble in case I myself need to jump ship. This does not seem like such a sign, so I figured I’d chime in with what makes logical sense to me.
As expected. Since there’s no actual problem withdrawing funds, nor ever was.
I did a withdrawal this week, it wasn’t a huge amount but, everything was in order and it happened exactly as it always happens: quick and without a fuss.
