Taking Legal Action With Broker AVATrade

Hope this forum and many experts out there can shed me some light and the action which I will be taking against my broker AVATrade.

Incident occurred to me last Saturday at around 1.30am my time zone (17/01/14) when I was actively trading. Suddenly, all my balance and positions on my account were closed and balance went to zero. The history of my trading platform was showing that my broker was adjusting my account without notifying me.
I did ring them at around 1.40am as I was busy backing up stuffs like as statement, daily transaction and screen shoot of my account being adjusted. AVATrade told me that I should know what was happening in the market on Thursday, (of course I knew what was happened). I did try to make an argument but in vain.

On Thursday (15Jan2014) when SNB shift the policy of dropping the 1.2 EUR/CHF cap, I was right on my trading screen. All my stop losses, take profits and limit positions were all executed nicely. Instead of making loss, I am making profit. So even after 2 days, I was still trading with a positive balance till Saturday morning 1.30am, those blokes chopped off my balance.

On conclusion, I believe that my broker was taking my money from my balance to offset their company losses. I would like to take this matter to the regulators and seek legal advice. Is it worth the time to do it? Please do not give me a more constructive advice rather than telling me not worth to take a brokerage firm to court, since they have more $$$ than me. Many thanks in advance.

It’s such a huge shame, had similar problem with etx capital on chfjpy. Quite curious to know to please know what steps neither legally or constructively in reclaiming your capital gains from the broker? Hear back soon. Cheers

Which trades did you have open on Thusday with CHF pairs?

This is what I have done as at today:

  1. Reported my case to Australian Securities & Investments Commission (Australia Regulators)
  2. Filed a complaint with Fair Trade Ombudsmand Australia
  3. Setup an appointment with a solicitor

Eur/CHF stop loss in place at 1.19900, and also an open limit position to long CHF at 1.19800. When SNB announcement occurred, I saw all my stop loss, limit positions and take profit, all executed nicely. If it was not executed, how come I can still able trade with profit for the next 1 and half day?

Suggest you read their general terms which you agreed to when signing up before commencing legal action.

17.10 Should a quoting or execution error occur, which may include, but are not limited to, a mistype
of a quote, a quote that is not representative of fair market prices, an erroneous price quote
from a dealer or erroneous price quote due to failure of hardware, software or communication
lines or systems or inaccurate external data feeds provided by third-party vendors, AvaTrade will
not be liable for the resulting errors in account balances. Without derogating from the above, in
the event that transactions shall be closed or opened based on the Erroneous Quote, AvaTrade’s
trading room attempts to recognize such event and to act promptly to reset such event.
Customer acknowledges that the reset process may take time, during which Customer may not
be able to use its trading account, and outstanding orders may not be executed.

Of course I have this point highlighted out for discussion with my solicitor. This is no where near execution error, there were 3 open positions and one limit position. Do you mean whatever limit positions that I have open in my platform now erroneous price quote? In additional, the transactions were not closed or opened based on erroneous quote at all.

Just curious on the updates here. So how did this go?

The progress is long and slow. ASIC advise me to FOS, I had opened an dispute with them, and it is still going on…AVA replied the dispute once every 45 days which is the deadline for reply.

The Belgium regulator, Financial Services and Markets Authority (FSMA), recently fined Avatrade with EUR 175,000. According to the regulator, the broker has been providing financial services in Belgium without meeting all the legal requirements.

I think this might be relevant to to your lawsuit as it could be used as a general argument about shady practices the broker has. I wish you success.