Anybody ever heard of or use GCI Trading

[orangutan]

Hi dpaterso,

I used GCI trading a couple of years ago when I became interested in trading commodity CFDs. Their product sucked and did nothing but cost me money. Granted, some of it was inexperience on my part, but that was greatly compounded by the poor quality of their product.

It was enough to scare me off leveraged investments for a couple of years (Ive only started looking into forex recently - so far so good using Oanda).

If you want to trade USD/ZAR, Saxobank offers that pair.

[dpaterso]

OK - well - it would appear now that the cracks are starting to appear - especially now that I have a HUGE balance at GCI (HUGE by my standards anyway).

Yesterday - for most of the day - GCI's system was ALMOST unuseable i.e. it was SOOO slow and I must have had about ten disconnects over a period (which oddly enough got more frequent around the time of the US Non-farm Payrolls release). Go figure.

Now - I was prepared to swallow this because I figured - well - maybe the system is overloaded at a time like this - you know - end of the month and a lot of economic data coming out BUT just to be sure I contacted their customer support via their Live Chat and they could not (or would not) help me and told me to contact their technical support via email - which I did - twice. I AM STILL WAITING FOR A REPLY (next day already)! I mean - even if they lied to me - it would have been OK - but to just not bother to reply - well - then there is a problem.

What amazed me further (and this is not the first time this has happened) is the fact that the Live Chat person (before telling me to contact technical support) told me that it's my service provider. The best thing is - the connection to their website and Live Chat and their demo system (yes I checked that first) was lightning fast AND if that's not enough - they actually have a site that allows you trace your IP route from your node to their server and according to this report the problem was AT THEIR NODE FOR CRYING OUT LOUD! Again - whether this was a genuine problem - or a GCI induced 'problem' - I'll never know.

Then there was the dreaded 'spike' just before the US Non-farm Payrolls figure - and - it was a 'spike' for sure - happened in a 'split millisecond' and a huge movement - just before the data - and - again - I have been putting up with this for the past couple of months - no big deal BUT it's starting to annoy me from the point of view that the 'spike' is ALWAYS in the right direction - isn't that strange - almost like they know the figures BEFORE the data comes out - impossible???

My problem is that the instruments that I trade are not offered by anybody else (as a whole) AT THE MOMENT so I don't know what to do at this point (although I do know that my best and favourite broker is bringing 'my stuff' on line this month hopefully).

Anway - I'm not outrightly saying that they are a 'scam' - that's a bit strong - but I can tell you that their technical support sucks (sorry - no other word for it) and they definitely are not on YOUR side. In addition to this - every bit of correspondence that I have had with their dealing desk has been a waste of time and their dealers must the rudest people I have ever had the privilege of communicating with. The best thing about them is their platform - and their admin department is top notch would you believe. Their admin department normally cannot do enough to help you out - and there is never a problem getting your money out of them quickly. On the other hand - what good is having a great admin department and being able to source your funds quickly - if it is a constant battle to make money in the first place.

Anwyay - if anybody from GCI stumbles across this message - I wan't you to know that I'm still waiting for a reply from tech support.

You know what I don't understand about these brokers (and I know that they are not the only ones so I am referring to brokers in general) is WHY it cannot just be run as an honest business? I mean - if they are making money on the spread - or even if they charge a commission - there is MORE than enough to go around - why try to f**k us up the a**e for a couple of more bucks and run the risk of having messages like this posted all over the Internet? I don't get it. I just do not get it!

Again - if anybody from GCI stumbles across this message - please know that I am fair (and I did not lose any money yesterday either so that's not why I'm posting this message - as a matter of fact - thanks to the (your) spike - I made $1 800 USD - that's what happens when you try to get too clever) and should I receive a reasonable explanation of what the problems were yesterday I will gladly post your reply and my apologies (if warranted) on this and any other site where I may or may not have posted a copy of this message.

Regards,

Dale.

[dpaterso]

OK - well - like I said - I am fair - and as quick as I may be to criticize - I'm also very forthcoming with praise when it is due - and I also don't have a problem admitting when I'm wrong

So - turns out I was wrong about GCI last week - ALTHOUGH I AM STILL WAITING FOR A DECENT ANSWER FROM TECHNICAL SUPPORT!!!

After doing my own digging and tracing it turns out that there was a genuine problem with the Internet pipe between South Africa and the USA at the end of last week, beginning of this week. That was why everything appeared to grind to a halt. So - for blaming GCI for this - I am sorry.

Another thing happened today which I think deserves a compliment:

I placed an order last night and when it was finally executed sometime this morning (while I was watching it) it got executed at a much higher price resulting in an immediate huge loss. I nearly lost it! Anyway - I called the dealing desk and explained the situation and after giving them the ticket number and about a half an hour to investigate I called them back and they could not see any reason for the 'slippage' so they immediately changed the order price to what it should have been and this added quite substantially to the profit that the position was already making. Basically - they guarantee 'zero slippage' just as long as the stop order is placed more than a minute from the time of execution i.e. don't try and scalp - and they have lived up to their promise. Thanks.

Like I said - fair is fair - and credit is due.

Regards,

Dale.