FXCM, Oanda and forex.com, Which is best?

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83

I have been contacted by sales at FXCM several times to sign up. I reviewed their service on the forums. From what I have read the customer service is not good, but the platform is OK. So, I decided to give them a try.

I have been trying to start an account with FXCM since Thursday (4 days now). On Thursday night, I contacted the customer service via chat. I chatted with Shalom. He told me he was busy chatting with other customers and could not answer my questions, but he did send me the sign up information. He told me the process would take 2-3 days.

On Friday I tried to sign up, but their servers were down until Sunday night. I paid $2,000 USD on my credit card. My bank sent me confirmation that this amount was paid. I submitted my ID and Proof of Residence.

Then on Sunday night I receive an email from FXCM that my credit card could not be processed, because I didn’t fill out the application? The servers are online now (Monday morning), I fill out the application, and when I am asked for my Country of Residence, the United States is not available as a possible selection! So , I select the next closest country - The United Kingdom. Now, I am receiving emails for FXCM UK.

My sales rep, William Stamps, assures me he will have me up an running for trading Monday morning. So far four days of headaches and no opportunity to trade.

Jason Rogers at FXCM, I tried to email you directly. But, I am a newbie with less than 20 posts, so I cant send emails through this Forum at this time.

84

So today I received a phone call from my rep William at FXCM at 12:05 PM when he arrived in the office. He told me that he received my information. Then he told that I filled out the application wrong, by including my Country of Residence as The United Kingdom. I asked him if he read my email. He said “yes”.

In my emails I explained the FXCM online application would not allow The United States as a country of residence (this has now been fixed).

William explained to me that this problem has happened in the past. Then he explained to me that he “can’t promise me anything” about getting online today. I paid the deposit, filled out the applications, completed the verifications…and nothing.

I sent an email to Jason Rogers with FXCM from this site, but I have yet to receive a response.

I have invested approximately 8 hours going through the FXCM “sign up” process.

85

Hi Pipswoody,

I’m sorry to hear about the trouble you had this morning. It turns out, the reason you could not find the United States in the drop down menu for Country of Residence is because you initially completed the account application for FXCM UK, which does not accept US residents. My colleague David has informed me that since then, he spoke with you and helped you complete the account opening process with FXCM US. Please let me know if there is anything else I can do.

Jason

86

As I have been explaining in previous posts, The United States was not present in the drop down menus (the problem was confirmed by William at FXCM). As a result, I selected The United Kingdom, because the drop down menu has an Astrix (*) and I had to select a country or my application would not be submitted.

Now, you are telling me its my fault because I filled out the wrong application. :33:

The problem is that the FXCM did not properly Beta Test the application. Again, William confirmed that FXCM was having problems in this area. Unfortunately, neither you nor William understood the issue I was having despite having received my emails.

I am up and trading now. I am working with David, a Sales Manager at FXCM. He is on top of my account and I will be working with him exclusively to avoid any more issues in the future.

87

Hi Pipswoody,

There seems to be some confusion here as we are both saying the same thing :). I just wanted to explain to you the reason you could not see the United States in the drop down menu of the FXCM UK application in case you were wondering. I’m glad my colleague David was able to resolve the matter for you. Good trading!

Jason

88

So far the platform has performed well.

89

I’ve invested over 1.5 hours today trying to deposit money into my account at FXCM. I contacted my bank and they told me there are no problems on my end whatsoever. I told this to FXCM and they told me to try again. So three tries later, I am writing this post. I contacted my rep who is working on the issue. Apologies are nice, but TIME is MONEY. The last thing a Forex customer wants to do is sit on the phone all day with their broker wondering why the system doesn’t work properly.

What I don’t understand - AFTER ALL THE COMPLAINTS, WHY DOESN’T FXCM HAVE A BETTER CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE?

90

I just noticed this thread :3 I would like to say that I am a full time trader and my broker is forex.com, I have been with them since I started with $1000 and I cannot even begin to say how impressed I am, their customer service is the friendliest and most knowledgeable of any customer service for anything that I’ve ever tried, I’ve never had to hold, I’ve called all hours of the night (24/7 service), I’ve had several long conversations with the people answering the phones about what they think of the markets and how they trace, had a few laughs, and when you sign up they assign you a strategy advisor who gives you his personal email and phone number to contact him with any questions about forex, you can even ask him how he trades :smiley: the smallest account startup is $500 in the US, they have very low spreads and swears, offer mt4 and for those who don’t like the layout of mt4 they offer another platform they made that is awesome! It’s like comparing windows95 to a Mac, the only thing it doesn’t have on mt4 is custom indicators and ea’s with mlq4 :3

91

I just open a demo account, and they did offer competitive spreads, but their swap is extremely large, Audusd short -24 for 100.000 lot, the broker i use is -14

92

The company I hear the most positive feedback about is Oanda

Read more: 301 Moved Permanently

93

I’m Canadian and I would like to start forex but if I want to use Oanda I need 5 million net assets or I need a 200k income for 2 years. Wow I won’t be able to start forex soon lol.

Canadian need to sign a Accredited Investor before we can start :31:

94

I think fxcm is the best

95

The saga continues…

I have been experiencing numerous issues with FXCM and the “Mirror Platform”. I have remained silent for the most part. But, staying silent is not doing a service for my fellow forum readers.

I currently use FXDD and FXCM. My move to FXDD was prompted when I discovered FXCM was not executing my orders correctly. I trade the Asian, London, and NY Sessions. I contacted FXCM on Monday. I spoke with Gayla McGinnis. For over an hour I explained to her my issue during the NY Open. I could not make any trades during this time (opportunity cost). She didn’t understand why I was upset and told me they were going to run an audit.

Here is a portion of the audit from FXCM. This is just one example:

"Ticket 49285449
EURJPY 10k Buy

Limit entry created 6/12/12 08:59 at price of 99.483, price changed to 99.551 at 08:59:45. Entry order deleted at 09:06:32. Price was reached on Ask chart at 09:06:46 after order was deleted.

Your screenshots did indicate that your were looking at bid charts, instead of ask charts.

No adjustments warranted in this case as the limit prices were not reached.
As with all financial products, forex quotes include a “bid” and “ask” price - the difference between the quotes is the spread."

OK. Now I have attached both the Bid and Ask Prices for the EUR/JPY @ 6/12/12. You will see the FXCM Internal Audit is false. Both Bid and Ask prices were achieved with ease. According to the audit, I canceled my order at 09:06:46. As you can see from the screen shots, this was impossible as my order was executed at this time.

I complained because I placed a LONG order at 09:03 for 99.487 while the pair was increasing in value for a small scalp or break out (see charts). I sent Gayla the screen shot. The audit does not show this, but the screen shot did. My order did not execute for approximately 15 minutes later after the pair has started to trade down.

In short, FXCM did not execute my trade until it became a losing trade close to 15 minutes after I placed my order. As a result, I was stuck in a losing trade for 48 hours. In that time period, I was unable to use this margin to execute other profitable trades, costing me income.

EURJPYAsk.jpg700×394 35.8 KB

EURJPYBid.jpg700×394 35.9 KB

I received an email from Gayla stating she would be out of the office until next week. Meanwhile, my problems persists so I called customer service.

I called during the London Session the next day, but I was denied access to a broker. Saud, my Customer Service Representative, could not confirm my identity. When I tried to rectify a non-executing order, I was not able to reach my broker. I asked a Manager to call me back.

15 minutes later I receive a call from Charles Graves. Charles was able to verify my identity within 20 seconds. Meanwhile, my order falls into the abyss. Charles told me he would “take care” of the trade. As you can see, no one has taken care of anything with regards to my account.

I spent over an hour on the phone with Charles explaining my issues for a total of 4+ hours on the phone with FXCM personnel this week. I explained that my time is being used to deal with issues, thus I cannot trade and make income. We agreed that he would talk to the FXCM people and they would contact me only when they have discussed a resolution to my issues .

So today I get a call from Technical Support at FXCM asking me what’s the problem…

Now I have sent an email to David Joseph at FXCM asking if he could please oversee Charles, Gayla, Saud, etc…

To be continued…

96

I found the following video on youtube entitled, “How FXCM scams its clients”:

How FXCM Scams its Clients - YouTube

97

Hi pipswoody,

I would like to apologize for any frustration you have experienced as a result of your trade inquiry. Our goal is to make sure that every trade audit is investigated fully to ensure the execution was correct. If there is an error due to a technical issue, we will gladly make an adjustment.

I can’t publicly discuss account inquiries due to FXCM’s privacy policy; however, I wanted to post a message based on the information you posted to the forum. I can’t make out the detail on the chart very clearly, but I can tell that you posted a 15 minute chart of EUR/JPY when the times described are a matter of 14 seconds apart.

Entry order deleted at 09:06:32. Price was reached on Ask chart at 09:06:46 after order was deleted.

Looking at a 15 minute chart is not going to display enough information to give an objective viewpoint when discussing a 12 second difference. I took a screenshot of a tick chart for the time period you referenced, and added lines for the price and times. The green dotted line is located at the price 99.551. The horizontal black line on the left is located at 5:06:32 ET (9:06:32 GMT) and the second black line on the right is located at 5:06:46 ET (9:06:46 GMT). And finally the red line is the ask price and the blue line is the bid price.

I will let David know that you have emailed him so he can get back in touch with you as soon as possible. I am primarily in the office from 8am to around 5:30pm ET every day, but you are welcome to reach out to me at any time if you ever encounter problems or need to give us feedback since I provide feedback to our entire management team on a weekly basis.

Jason

98

Thanks, Jason. I received an email from David. He understands my issues and has elevated my requests for assistance. Please have your management team contact me. Customer service is not a strong point at FXCM. Customers should not have to vent on forums or to an attorney to be heard by their broker.

Thanks for posting that chart. I think you have the wrong time. Your chart states 5:00 AM. This took place around 9:03 AM. I was on the phone with Gayla as I watched the price rise from around 99.375, through my 99.487 order entry, to around 99.579. I was told my problem would be addressed. She left town. Literally.

The chart clearly shows other positions closing above my LONG entry point. Then my entry is executed at 15 minutes later after the market has turned. Thus, I am automatically entered into a losing trade versus a winning trade.

From my charts, it appears as though the FXCM Mirror Platform has malfunctioned. The charts clearly show the entry execution problem. Are you stating that I need a special chart to get the real rates?

99

Try Forex Club. I just signed up with them with a 10K account and I received a bonus. The process only took a few minutes. At FXCM, the process took 3 business days and I incurred a number of problems during the sign up. I should have known better when FXCM assigned me a rep. to guide me through the application process.

I remember contacting FXCM on a Friday to sign up. I spoke with Shalom. He told me trading was closed for the weekend and it would take 3 business days to sign up. FXCM’s servers are down for the weekends. The application forms were not working at the time either.

100

Hi pipswoody,

You’ll notice from my post that I listed the times in both Eastern Time (NYC) and GMT:

5:06:32 ET (9:06:32 GMT) and the second black line on the right is located at 5:06:46 ET (9:06:46 GMT)

I added this distinction in my post since my chart is in ET and the time on FXCM’s reports which you reference are in GMT. I did this to clear confusion about why my chart time would differ from the time in your post, but my apologies for not explaining more explicitly that 5:00am ET is the same as 9:00am GMT. The chart matches exactly the times and prices described in your post. Do you see why an order for 99.551 would not have been executed if it was deleted at 9:06:32 GMT (05:06:32 ET)?

Jason

101

Jason,

I will explain again for you. I was watching the chart live. I placed at order at 9:03 AM at 99.487, not 9:06. I watched as the GREEN Candle rose on the 15 minute chart through my order execution position. I watch the body of the candle CLOSED above my position. Then I watched the next period RED Candle OPEN above my position. I watched the RED Candle drop and my trade was executed at 09:06:32 AM 6/12/12. Let me repeat:

THE ORDER WAS EXECUTED AT 09:06:32 AM. FXCM SAYS MY ORDER WAS DELETED AT 9:06:32 AM. THE FXCM AUDIT IS A FARCE. IF YOU READ MY ACCOUNT STATEMENT YOU WILL SEE I CLOSED THE ORDER TWO DAYS LATER. IF YOU READ THE CHART I POSTED, YOU WILL SEE THE ENTRY:

LONG (OPEN)
OPEN: 99.487
CLOSE: 99.745
P/L: 25.8

This leaves one of two possible outcomes:

  1. The FXCM platform cannot recognize all OPEN and CLOSED entries.
  2. The FXCM charting software is not always accurate.

I have additional screen shots that show the FXCM platform was not beta tested properly. I can open that can of worms also if you like.

Rather than take responsibility, FXCM chooses not to resolve my issue. Jason you can try to discredit me on this public forum, but the screen shots and my account statement do not lie. You can “run an audit”, but history is not on your side.

102

I think Oanda is better, cauz Oanda has a faster execution when we want to place a trade