Class action lawsuit launched against FXCM for fraud and racketeering!

Heh, true enough. But then the allegations are impossible to prove with the data that the plaintiffs would have to hand. They could only be proved or disproved by a trawl through all the server data during the period in question across random accounts. That would show if slippage went both ways or only in the favour of the broker. It would show if customers in profit experienced more problems closing out orders than those who were experiencing losses. Though having said that if FXCM thought that they had something to fear if the court was to order them to release all that data they’d already have settled up with the guy :wink:

Hello, MacGyver !

It’s been a long time since I’ve talked to you.

I thought the same thing when I read that garbage.

Actually, that’s the British system — and maybe the Swedish system, too.

If we had that system here, it would go a long way toward curtailing the blizzard of lawsuits constantly going on in this country. But, unfortunately, the U.S. is one of the most backward countries in the world, when it comes to civil law.
[B]Loser does not pay the costs he has inflicted on the winner.[/B]

In cases like [B]Sanders et al v. FXCM[/B], Sanders’ attorneys have taken this case on “contingency”, meaning that they will foot the bill for bringing the suit, and will earn a fee only if they win a judgement (or reach an out-of-court settlement with FXCM).

If the suit is successful, Sanders’ attorneys will probably get 35%-40% of the proceeds, and the rest will be divided among the members of the so-called “class”.

Win or lose, Sanders gets a totally free ride. If he loses, this will have cost him nothing, except for his time. (His attorneys will even pay his way, back and forth, from Oklahoma to New York, to testify in court.) If the suit is successful, of course, Sanders gets a payday, along with the other members of the “class”.

Meanwhile, FXCM must bear all the costs of defending this garbage suit. And those costs will [B]not[/B] be recoverable from Sanders’ side, even if FXCM is totally exonerated.

So, FXCM loses, no matter what. If they win the suit, they nevertheless lose the cost of defending the suit. If they lose the suit, they lose a hell of a lot more.

Do you know why a shark will not bite a lawyer? ----- Professional courtesy.

Hi Clint!

It has indeed been a while. I haven’t been very active of late in the forum due to lack of time.

Actually, that’s the British system — and maybe the Swedish system, too.

If we had that system here, it would go a long way toward curtailing the blizzard of lawsuits constantly going on in this country. But, unfortunately, the U.S. is one of the most backward countries in the world, when it comes to civil law.
[B]Loser does not pay the costs he has inflicted on the winner.[/B]
Yes, that’s how it works in Sweden. I didn’t know that the US system differed but I can certainly see how that drives a sue-happy tradition.
I guess also that financially strong entities could then virtually sue their competitors to death with one bull**** lawsuit after another until the weaker party is bled out.

Lawyer jokes :smiley:

[I]If you are stranded on a desert island with Adolph Hitler, Atilla the Hun, and a lawyer, and you have a gun with only two bullets, what do you do?[/I]
[I]Shoot the lawyer twice.[/I]

Flint, if we share the same bar you should tell them that in contingency, though clients would not have to pay the attorney’s fee, they would still be responsible for expenses their attorneys incurred in pursuing their case, medical reports, investigative services, expert witnesses, court costs, court reporter fees, etcetera…

Jason, gravitational forces are in place without my help or polemic.:slight_smile:

The fact that DID matter is that Sanders was an invaluable asset for any law firm in the state of NY and you have just caught up with it while losing “some” equity. I admit though, you would not know that various ranking systems heavily weigh pro bono hours, attracting important publicity for top scoring law firms but your legal/audit department should. Sanders was just an implement for the practice.

Blindness is a terrible thing, brokers count on it to flush the money out of the system and lawyers use it for promotion.

Aren’t we all in pursuit of happiness?

crimson, thanks for the correction.

I just received the following from a law firm in Orlando. Curious to know how they obtained my email. I don’t think the laws of Canada allow me to participate in an American class action suit.


The Business Trial Group of Morgan & Morgan, P.A. is investigating potential fraud and unfair trade practices by certain Forex Dealer Merchants.

Included in our investigation are the following merchants:

* FXCM
* FXDD
* Gain Capital / Forex.com
* IKON
* MB Trading
* IBFX
* GFT Forex
* Interbank
* OANDA

We are seeking information from people who have lost money trading Forex with those companies or others.

If you have any information, or have lost money trading Forex, and want to learn more about what rights you have to recover your losses – with no cost to you – please visit Forex Claims.

This is a legal advertisement of Morgan & Morgan, P.A., offices Orlando.

If you do not wish to receive emails from Business Trial Group you may Unsubscribe | Update Profile

Business Trial Group
20 North Orange Ave.
Ste 1600
Orlando, FL 32801, US
[One pixel image]

Well, that is fairly clear evidence of them being nothing but gold diggers imho. They have nothing in the way of actual evidence and are pathetically advertising for retail traders that have lost money. Just pathetic. People lose money 99.9% of the time by not knowing what they’re doing, not because the brokers screw them.

No offense but the US legal system is FUBAR. I especially love how products of US origin are often filled with stupid warning texts about how they should not be used. Kinda like; Oh, so I’m not supposed to eat the rat poison? Gee, lucky they wrote that out as a warning text or I would certainly have done just that…

Meister,

The question is whether the communality that you share with the rest of the plaintiffs grants you a standing in an American class action lawsuit per Federal Rules of Civil Procedure and 28 U.S.C.A. § 1332 (d). #2 of this section defines these classes, to an extent that includes: “any member of a class of plaintiffs [which] is a foreign state or a citizen or subject of a foreign state…” so your Canadian participation is welcome in US. Do not worry about prohibitive Canadian laws. In 2005 Canada set an unmatched example with Nora Bernard who sued the Canadian government and won an award of 5 billion (not million) dollars for about 80000 “survivors” of the residential school system. I’d say your laws on class-action subject matters are in fact not just permissive but leading the pack.

Still, before posting bites at litigation on highly populated forums like this one or Forex Factory, we should be more ethically considerate of how much FXCM struggles in the process of PR damage control. Its manager said: “It is a regrettable fact of public company life that even a temporary stock price decline often leads to class action litigation. FXCM will always defend itself against these types of meritless claims and I am confident this case will be dismissed. Drew Niv, FXCM CEO.”

“Meritless” in a legal context points to the elements or grounds of a claim. Say for example you use a demo account and every order execution is flawless under normal market conditions. Then you start trading real money and document 50 occurrences of an error that reads “Invalid Prices” when you try to execute orders over the same market conditions and period of time you traded the demo account. You have a claim? Yes you do and I hazard to say even if you did not lose a dime. It boils down to sanctioning (per federal regulations) an inductive trading environment that misrepresented an investing opportunity at the expense of your financial reliance. Granted you are given a fairly easy bite to the litigation apple proving your claim is nothing near easy. The discovery process will be a tedious one because when a corporation finds itself the target of a federal investigation, it will devote substantial amounts of time and energy resolving that investigation. Discovery is the battle ground, hence the CEO’s confidence in dismissal…

Nevertheless, the litigation trend against Forex dealers has just begun and although it is not yet conclusive, it is conductive of thinning future notoriety.

It might be the best time to consider having an account with FXCM.:rolleyes:

Didn’t Gain Capital (Forex.com) get caught using virtual dealer plugin? Go to Forex Peace Army and read this thread: “IKON GM Nailed by the NFA for Using a Virtual Dealer Plugin”.

It’s quite obvious that the spread isn’t good enough for some of these scammer bucket shops. Is FXCM one of them. Time will tell… Or, has it already told?

To FXCM account holders; you might want to Google “4xSentinel” if you suspect them of defrauding you. You can find it here: “4xtrader.net”.

So you seriously think that they’re putting energy into manipulating their live charts so that your specific indicator won’t work? Yes, it does seem very likely doesn’t it, they’re ready to do anything to get their hands on your money because surely they don’t make more the longer your account is alive to place trades and pay spreads?

I’d love to see those screenshots or videos you have to prove it. Until then I’ll remain sceptical to your claims.

(And I don’t even like FXCM… would never trade with them since their spreads are crap compared to their big competitors for one, and there’s more but no need to mention here)

DM, if your indicator had a spectacular record in demo, perhaps FXCM caught onto you and put you on their special watch list. Then when you went live, they slammed the door and reversed the trade knowing that you would have a sure winner ( loser for them ). What I suggest is that you open a new account with another broker, but only for live trades. The new broker won’t know that you can make tons of money until its too late for them. Then if they start fiddling with your indicator, find another broker - there are hundreds out there. If you repeat that, you will be laughing all the way to the bank - the one you own.

Edit: you won’t be able to post attachments or links until you have enough postings. I think the minimum is 50.

Conspiracy theories aside (although humorous to read :slight_smile: )…traders are welcome to choose whichever strategy they want. In the end, FXCM will be earning the same pip mark-up (or commission) amount regardless of the p/l outcome of a clients trade. Full details on NDD forex execution and how FXCM is compensated can be found here 301 Moved Permanently .

-Jason

Prior to FXCM introducing their NDD, I had an account with them and can say that the live account I had never behaved in the same way as the demo.

All the Demo accounts I had were perfect, no slippage, no gaps, no errors, instant execution even with auto stop loss and manual stop, but once a live account was opened it all changed.

Need I say!! I closed my account.

Hi numberone,

Welcome to BabyPips and making your first post.

A demo account with FXCM and likely any broker for that matter will never completely replicate the live trading environment since the demo orders are not executed against actual market liquidity. A demo will display the same pricing as the live accounts and is good for testing strategies and learning how the platform operates. But you should also be aware of the inherent limitations of a demo practice account since fake demo orders are not sent to the liquidity providers for execution.

Please let me know if you have any additional questions.

-Jason

I understand what you are saying, but that does not explain why a trade would be executed immediately on a demo, but leave a client waiting for a price on a live account, or even display a re-quote.

For those who are not experienced in trading, a demo should represent a true feeling of what trading is like and not provide an illusion that slippage/gaps/re-quotes never take place.

So I would have to say to you Jason, if you were a car salesman, would a demo work better than the car I actually buy from you??

But my reason for leaving FXCM was more related to problems with the trading platform not working correctly.

FXCM’s NDD forex execution has no re-quotes so traders won’t be waiting for a dealer to respond with a price on a live account. Our traders don’t have to worry about dealer intervention or re-quotes. Whenever an order is executing, it’s possible that liquidity is no longer available at the liquidity provider your order was originally sent to. In this case, it would be sent to the liquidity provider with the next best available price or rejected depending on what type of order used, but the process is still completed within seconds. If a trader ever feels that something is incorrect and may be the result of a tech issue, that would be a different case and one that would need to investigate in more detail.

So I would have to say to you Jason, if you were a car salesman, would a demo work better than the car I actually buy from you??

I see where you’re getting, but this comparison is still apples and oranges since you would be testing driving the actual car you intend to buy. Again, trading any demo account with any broker falls into the category that a demo is not sending orders to the actual market for execution. For test driving an account to make this comparison more relevant, I would suggest the micro account which has a minimum balance of $50 and uses NDD forex execution.

-Jason

FXCM never offered NDD when I had a live account, but I was hit with numerous re-quotes at times on the same trade.

I see where you’re getting, but this comparison is still apples and oranges since you would be testing driving the actual car you intend to buy.

Agreed!! But A demo account has no technical issues, while a live account run on the same trading platform does. You have to consider that while a demo account may be just that a demo, all trading is still conducted on the same trading platform, which is also being tested under demo conditions by new traders.

Again, trading any demo account with any broker falls into the category that a demo is not sending orders to the actual market for execution.

I again agree!! But if you have a stop loss set on a demo account and a live account, they should both trigger at the same time and at the same price, as they use the same date feed, but in reality the stop loss on the demo is triggered, while the stop loss on the liver account is not triggered, because the price was never made as there was a gap.

In my case I tried to close the trade manually after it missed the stop loss and what do you think happened? The platform malfunctioned and gave me an error message, preventing me from closing the trade and securing profits.

I would suggest the micro account which has a minimum balance of $50 and uses NDD forex execution.

Personally I would prefer never to have anything more to do with FXCM, instead I would recommend either an ECN/STP or an MDA/STP trading account.

FXCM has offered (also known as Straight Through Processing/STP) forex execution since 2007 so you must have traded with FXCM at least 4 or more years ago. There are multiple drawbacks to a dealing desk system including re-quotes and dealer intervention. Moving to NDD/STP forex execution over 4 years ago removed those impediments for our traders and at the same time created a system where we’re compensated based on volume rather than competing against our traders.

We will be giving away free $50 accounts in the upcoming CNBC Million Dollar Portfolio Challenge when registration starts next week so you could have the opportunity to test us in a live account if you want. But regardless whichever broker you choose, I wish you all the best with your trading.

-Jason

That’s correct, I had closed my account prior to 2007.

There are multiple drawbacks to a dealing desk system including re-quotes and dealer intervention.

That would never have been said prior to 2007 and was never said when I experienced problems with the trading platform.

Moving to NDD/STP forex execution over 4 years ago removed those impediments for our traders and at the same time created a system where we’re compensated based on volume rather than competing against our traders.

You or anyone from FXCM never made a statement prior to 2007, that competing/trading against clients was a practice being conducted.

Its very easy for you to come here and claim that things are different today due to changes made, but it does not change all the excuses that were used in the past.

We will be giving away free $50 accounts in the upcoming CNBC Million Dollar Portfolio Challenge when registration starts next week so you could have the opportunity to test us in a live account if you want.

Nothing is FREE in this world. Any broker that offers free money or bonuses is not worth entertaining.

Jason,

I admire your patience with malcontents.

If I were FXCM’s representative here, I would not be able to deal with the trolls with the professionalism that you show.

In fact, if that guy got in my face, the way he got in yours, both he and I would probably end up banned from this forum.

My compliments to you, sir. You represent FXCM superbly well.