Forex Robot World Cup

Trading Systems Expert Advisors and Automated Trading
230

I have just posted this (quotes only), on the Forex Factory forum, but as I like to look at both these forums I thought I would put it here too. Apologies for the cut-and-paste job.

“It would be unfair of me, in the interests of balance, not to say that I requested by email a refund yesterday from the FRWC and within a couple of hours had received a reply saying that the refund had been completed successfully. By the end of the day I had also received a refund receipt from Plimus. So for me the refund process could not have been any quicker or easier.
I had been intending to wait until the end of the month to request a refund so that I had one statement that ran for a whole month. But as I had run five demo accounts with different robots and settings while doing the back testing I had half a dozen different statements for between five and ten days trading each, before I’d switched each one off after ruling it out. So I decided to try sending the FRWC five of those statements which covered over thirty days of trading, and as said, I had no trouble what-so-ever.”

I agree with both Dennis and Zorba regarding commercial EAs. What I have come to appreciate after demo testing these robots is the truism about how much psychology is a part of trading. As a manual trader if I have a bad day (by not following my rules, not whether I lost money or not), then I only have myself to blame and improve. But if I have a commercial EA that is trading on its own using rules, methods and risk levels programmed by somebody else; and I look at the trades it is taking and think for example “why is it buying when the market is in freefall?” Then it is not trading in a manner that fits my personality and I am not going to feel comfortable about using it. It doesn’t matter if it makes a shed-load of money for a few months if you always know that you are potentially only a few days from disaster. I mostly focussed on the LMD-multicurrency robot because it seemed to have the best long-term potential looking back over four years. But when I tested it further back over ten years a lot of the equity curves (for fixed lot sizes) resembled sine curves, and also looked as if they were just starting to turn down in the cycle. As much as a potential sudden loss would spoil my sleep, a long slow gradual drawdown following a method not of my devising would also be very difficult to live with. So I guess there has to be more chance of success trading your own EA that you have built to your own rules and stress tolerances.
But to Zorba’s point that if an EA can be built that works it can also be sold. Though it has to be more likely on the balance of probability that an over-the-counter EA is too highly curve fitted for the long term and is really just designed to look good in the advertising. Even if you are lucky enough to find the perfect ‘real-deal’ EA, will it fit your personality and could you trade it? The most famous example of this would be the often stated experiment of Richard Dennis and the Turtles. A large proportion of the Turtle trainees didn’t make money while some of the others were very successful, yet they were all taught the same method. The winning ones had the personality that could trade the system without question while the losers made changes and second guessed the trades and couldn’t follow the rules.
All-in-all for me this past month of FRWC membership has been an interesting ‘free’ learning experience and I am glad that I took part as it has made me realise that commercial EA trading doesn’t suit me. Being computer language illiterate writing my own EA is out of the question so I will be happily sticking with manual trading.

231

Somewhat to my surprise I received the following reply from
FXCM.
"Yes, we sponsored the competition as the official MT4 platform used for the contest.

-Jason "

and…
"In case your question has to do with the recent discussion on BabyPips about EA users having difficulty getting refunds from FRWC, I was contacted this morning by a trader on another forum alerting me to this and just read the thread on BabyPips.

I am monitoring the situation at the moment, and have notified the rep responsible for our relationship with the FRWC.

-Jason "

This is located in the ‘Broker Aid Station - FXCM’ thread for anyone who might be interested.

232

@matthew11 - a good post! Nicely sums things up, especially curve fitting. I tend to think that EAs can only work long term for really basic mechanical strategies (e.g. start of London session).

I’ve requested my refund too although the release of HiRider Advanced got me a bit excited, as HiRider had been doing well in the end on my demo account. What really scared me about it is that it was about -35% on my whole account at one point, and it kept the trades open.

233

Hello Zorba,
I agree and I wouldn’t expect a robot to be able to run indefinitely on the same settings and make money. But if I was trading them I could do lots of back testing and tweaking to the parameters periodically but I would still be relying on a coded black box that I couldn’t get in to and alter. An example being if I decided that I no longer wanted to use a stochastic filter say as part of the trade entry criteria which if I recall SuperVolcano uses, I wouldn’t be able to remove it. And I would also be reliant on somebody else to periodically send me information updates about coding bugs etc. Not to mention the recent email about SuperVolcano saying that it needed to be re-optimised every couple of months which some people might have liked to have known last month. Though anybody who had done proper backtesting would have seen that it didn’t have long-term potential. All these problems though of course apply to any commercially bought EA.
I also read the HiRider email with interest and the new equity curve was a great improvement over the previous one. But the trouble with such an aggresive EA is that there just isn’t enough time between it performing very well and it suddenly losing a load of money. The problem with all these 95% win type robots with inverse risk/reward ratios is that all you have do is have a few weeks with say two losing trades a week instead of one, and you are underwater. You summed it up by saying your demo was down 35% at one point but is now in profit. On a demo account it is an entertaining sideshow but how would you or anybody else have been sleeping if that was a real account, and the account may be positive now but wouldn’t even one losing trade with a few positions open put it back in to negative territory? And lastly, could anybody who had been running it live for a few months really be happy to go away on holiday for a week or two and relax while knowing that HiRider was at home looking after the house.

234

I purchased FRWC robots they worked nice till 35th days of purchase…Kindly confirm is this happening to other also. I tried to contact FRWC since Saturday Night and no Email reply and there Telephone No
+13478095511 is also on Voice Mail.

Fusion Robots is showing Error Message" Fusion has been disabled because your purchase has been refunded"
similar error message for HiRider, Advence HiRider and other Robots.

I did not apply for any refund. I checked my Payment account but no refund.:confused:

I am still doing demo and back testing these Robots before going live.

[B]IMAGINE:[/B] [B]if same thing happen with live trade with those FRWC robots which manage SL or TP automatically, during middle of night and your MT4 is on your FXCM Virtual Server.[/B]

Since Saturday night I am still waiting for someone from FRWC to fix this problem.

235

Exactly - even on that demo account, I had a cold flush thinking ‘that could have been real money!’. Such a shame though, it’s done well all in all, but I can’t face that kind of risk.

I made my request for a refund on Thursday night, and am yet to hear back. I will be chasing it tomorrow. In a sense, I regret pulling out a bit as I’d like to give them a couple more months but then I won’t get my money back.

236

I have been testing Fusion on the special $1000 demo account. in 5 days of trading the equity is down to $367. The main loss is due to Super Volcano that had no stop loss. The AE decided that there should be 3 seperate orders to buy GBPJPY. I shall ask for my refund. This industry is so hyped up that I doubt the integrity of anyone involved in the sales process. I only gave this a try because of the association with FXCM. This does little to enhance their reputation

237

all the robots i tested are in negative…after 20 days of trading. I had applied for a refund but they kept stalling and kept using the 30 day trading thingy :

" Citing the refund guarantee from the main page of our website completely to which you have agreed while purchasing our product: “Trade ANY of the FRWC’s Royal Trader robots on a DEMO account (they are FREE to open with any FX broker) or live account, as you wish, for 30 days.
If, after a minimum of 30 days of demo or live trading, you are not happy with the results (NO MATTER what they are), simply send us your account statement within 60 days of purchase and we will give you a FULL refund - no questions asked.”.

238

I sent the FRWC 5 statements for 5 of their robots demo-trading for 20 calendar days each - so covering many, many more than 30 total trading days. They simply replied to me as follows:

Hello, thank you for contacting us. As you know, per our refund policy customers need to provide a 30-day trading statement on a live or demo account to receive a refund. We would please ask you to respect it the same way we guarantee we will respect any personal refund request after fulfiling the refund’s conditions.

No reference made at all to all that I sent - who is operating this? You would think with any normal purchase someone would write back and at least acknowledge what I had sent and say what was wrong with it if there was an issue. Do I now have to keep trading one robot for the 30 days - is that my only way out? I have gone to Plimus now to request a refund and unless this is resolved quickly I will lobby FXCM too.

239

This is very bad. My understanding was that I had 30 days to request a refund. It was about a week before I was able to instal Fusion with the help of a friend who teaches computer studies. I have traded on the special $1000 account as used in the competition. After 7 days it is almost wiped out. I understood that FRWC were continuing to trade these robots and that we were able to check their results. There is nowhere on their website to do this. Does anyone know their address? I would like to pay them a visit. I am fed up with all the exagerated claims made for robots and would not have touched this with a barge pole but for the envolvement of FXCM.

240

They have now come back to me to say “Please, note that your statements need to be for 30 trading days in sequence”. I do not recall reading this anywhere previously.

Has anyone else had this issue? I am getting progressively more and more unhappy about this.

241

I have not asked for my refund yet but this is very disturbing. They seem to be making their own rules as they go along. I would normally be very shy about parting with $1000 to an outfit that did not supply a trading address but for their association with FXCM. Does anyone know where they are operating from? I would like to pay them a visit

242

The latest response:

“30 trading days clearly imply 30 consequtive days and not the same days on different statements.”

So I’m not sure what the case is ref. what Matthew11 posted about having received a refund through a collection of statements covering 5-10 days each.

It would seem that their policy is very inconsistent.

243

Dancyn - their emails say the following at the bottom:

This message was sent from The Forex Robot World Cup to … It was sent from: Reality Based Forex Limited, BLK A, 15/F Hillier Commercial Building, 65-67 Bonham Strand East, Sheung Wan -, Hong Kong

244

FRWC made an interesting choice of words in their response to you. They protray themselves as the honourable, honest business being conned by a lowlife scammer.

Clearly these guys are imcompetent in customer relations and running a day to day business.

245

I initiated a refund request.
The vendors replied with the 30 day statements.
Before I could reply I was hospitalized for 3 days.
When I returned to my computer I found that my request had been marked as resolved because I had not replied within 2 days.
I am unable to re-instate the request - it seems you get one try only.
I then decided to collect together 30 days statements but some days the robot did not trade - so I guess I am going to have to suck my wounds and chalk my hefty losses up to experience.

Ron

246

davron - that’s an interesting point about robots not trading. Some of them don’t trade very much so it would simply not be possible for them to have traded on 30 different days within the 60 day timeframe - that surely could not be a reason for declining a refund?

247

Besides Matthew, there are others who got their money without 30 trading days statements. Try using phrases like “chargeback” and “FXCM sponsorship” next time you communicate with them. If you don’t understand what I mean, reread the last 10 pages of postings and it will become very clear.

248

I’ll start by admitting that I expect to get some flak for this response, especially as it’s my first post here but I’m gonna post it anyway…

I normally spend most of my time on TSD (you can look me up if you want - there’s even an EA or two that I’ve collaborated on there) but I ran across this thread via Google and I found myself reading through it - it’s only my opinion but there seemed to be so much mis-information and complaining going on that I decided to register just to add my 2-cents though it’ll probably be a dollar’s worth by the time I’ve finished!

Ok… for a start, the word “scam” appears so many times that I’ve lost count - it wouldn’t really bother me but the main issue is that the people making that comment wouldn’t know a real scam if it came up and bit them in the rear end!

It’s a sad indictment of the FX community that this word has lost its true meaning i.e. a deliberate attempt to obtain monies by deception.

If you read between the lines and/or do a little research then you’ll find that in the majority of case, the real meaning is actually “I didn’t read the rules / terms / whatever and tried to get my money back when I didn’t meet the criteria - I was told this but I don’t believe that contractual terms apply to me as I’m so smart / good looking / thick as a post so I’m going to badmouth the vendor concerned in some forums to make me look important and hopefully taint the reputation of the entity concerned”

Let’s be honest here - there is so much legislation to protect consumers who purchase online that it’s a joke. To label a company like Plimus “crooks” when they simply process card transactions on behalf of vendors is nothing short of moronic and to criticise vendors who try to protect themselves from what I’ve concluded is a legion of serial refunders by stipulating some fairly innocuous requirements for a refund is hardly fair either. Perhaps the likes of ClickBank have created this “buy it out of curiosity then send it back tommorow” mindset with their “just ask for a refund and you can have it” policy or perhaps people are just far less honest than I’d like to hope - I don’t know but both possiblities are pretty sad in my mind.

After following most of the competition, I got the FRWC EAs when they launched and so did a friend of mine. I’ll be the first to hold my hand up and say that they didn’t perform as I hoped - it seems that nothing ever does… maybe it’s just the state of the market these days or maybe it’s just plain bad luck on my part.

What can’t be denied is that the EAs performed as advertised during the live trading part of their competition and that’s what they had to base their sales pitch on - I’ve seen a lot of people whinge and whine about “false advertising”, etc but everything they said on the website was accurate… perhaps people should be more objective about what they read and how they interpret the information but as far as I can see, those guys did / said / wrote nothing wrong.

The interesting thing is that I’ve found their support people actually trying quite hard to help when I had issues so, even though my friend asked for a refund (which was processed after he submitted his account statement), I decided to hang in with them because I believe they’re making an effort to do the right thing for their members - they certainly seem to have several new EAs under test.

Before I forget… I read their refund terms a few times and the wording is ambiguous regarding the 30 days - it doesn’t specifically state either calendar or trading days. I believe that their intention was 30 trading days (which would leave 2 weeks of their 60 day trial period to request a refund) but when my friend was told that he politely pointed out the ambiguity and they were fine about accepting 30 calendar days of trades.

I’ve know I’ve been rambling for a while but I’ve also been mulling over possible reasons why there are so many posts here by “Mr Angry” and associates when I’ve had an “almost great” experience with the FRWC people. The only things that I can conclude are:

  1. I read sales pages with indifference - if it sounds “too good” then it usually is - in this instance, the live accounts spoke volumes and corroborated the more “enthusiastic” message on the sales page

  2. I study results / statements wherever possible to guage how an EA trades and to decide if it fits my risk profile / personality - this really isn’t hard to do if you look at the lot sizes, SL and TP distances

  3. I read terms and conditions carefully - if I don’t agree with them then I don’t buy - simple!

  4. If a support desk is available then I ask questions - this isn’t rocket science!

  5. I don’t trust any EA 100% so I always oversee what’s happening in my account

On the subject of “asking questions”, I noticed a few posts back that some people were complaining about their LMD or HiRider EAs not authorising and how catastrophic that was / could have been for a live account… as usual, lack of knowledge is a terrible thing - I took the time to ask about exactly that issue when it happened to me and, guess what?.. the very helpful support team explained that if authentication fails for whatever reason, the EAs simply won’t open new trades but any existing positions are managed without interruption.

I think the moral of this post is basically:

  • read things CAREFULLY
  • assume nothing… ASK
  • be responsible for your own mistakes / actions

One final point as I saw at least one post suggesting threatening or actually making a chargeback… basically, don’t do it! PayPal have a whole department who do nothing but fight chargebacks and as far as I know, Plimus and ClickBank are about to follow them. That aside, a friend who sells online has told me that PayPal, Plimus and ClickBank take a very dim view of anyone who charges back a purchase when there’s a legitimate refund process available and people who do are very likely to find that they suddenly can’t make purchases through those payment processors anymore - food for thought!

Neo

249

“true meaning i.e. a deliberate attempt to obtain monies by deception.”

Perhaps the key word here is [U]deliberate.[/U] Did they deliberately create a losing EA? Maybe not. Did they know there wasn’t much chance of longer term success? Probably so ! And there is that troubling little word [B]“deception”.[/B]

But if I buy a refrigerator that keeps my food warm rather than cold am I going to DEMAND a refund? Damn straight I am !!
Likewise for an EA that eats my money instead of making more of it.