I wanted to to post the evidences that how this broker cheat and mislead clients and reduced my account leverage from 1:500 to 1:10 and other illegal tricks that they use and how I lost $28000 as a result.
I was wondering if I’m allowed to share these evidences here ?
I’ve already lodged my complaint with AFCA but I wanted to share them with the other traders as well.
Can anyone help me with that please?
I’m so sorry this happened to you. 
That’s a lot of money oh my gosh. I’ve seen a lot of people post proof here so I guess it’s okay? I think it would also help us know what should be done. 
I really wish you get your money back.
Yes, post it. If you go to FPA, you’ll see tons of scam reviews on this broker. Despite being regulated, they still find a way to take client money on the trick of terms and conditions. Post your proofs on forexpeacearmy as well, and if you have a solid argument, they’ll put a red mark on their page there to warn other traders.
@ria_rose Thanks Ria. I don’t know I will have a chance to get it back . I’m from Australia. The whole financial system is corrupt here. AFCA is a new name of our old FOS but worst than them. Most decisions are in favor of financial institutions because they get paid by them! they are not independent at all.
Anyways once I was told it’s not allowed to share documents but are you 100% sure ?
Thanks @Phamy. Yes I have already posted on FPA but looks like they have gangs of cyber white knights there who come to their rescue and attack me while I’m the one who suffered!
Here is my link but wanted to post them here as well
Dont really need to see evidence as I’ve already heard bad stories of ICmarkets. If you had asked in here, I would have told you dont use them.
So, tell us about your trade…
How big was your account?
How much did your risk per trade?
Ofcourse they would. If I was a broker whose business involve scamming people, I would have white knights on forums to make me an angel. Don’t listen to those guys. Let the FPA mods take up the issue with IC market and invite them to come forward. I’ll follow that thread and see where it leads. You have a slim chance of getting your money back though. It all boils down to how well you read the terms and conditions in the first place. There are always hidden clause to win arguments like this.
Hello. I have read at Forexfactory forum that thing have changed with ICMarkets since Etoro bought the company two years ago. I am not sure if this is true but you could check it.
Their support gives false and misleading information. I contacted them before my investment and wanted to know about their swap rates. Once in later part of 2019 and then again before depositing money to their account Support told me to look at the swap blog and said it “only” depends on the lot size.
I opened my long Brent position because I’m familiar with this instrument due to its cash settlements properties. it had receiving swap of +.30. Everything was normal in March but in early April when market moved in my favor, swap change suddenly jumped to $-570
This is when sudden charge showed up
After I complained and told them that I will report them to relevant authorities, they claimed it was an error!
Very same day that they made a swap adjustment less than the amount that they took out of my account. They changed a receiving swap to paying swap!.
I was getting +50 cent a day for my position then it went to almost -$100 a day and tripped on Wednesdays against my balance
I contacted their support a few days after my investment and told them that I want to deposit money to my account but I’m worried that you suddenly restrict my account leverage . They told me it is “rare” and “never happened before” and as you can see I believed them at the end of conversation
later I found out that they had done it many times. I just attached the documents they admitted themselves. if you check the reviews there are lots of clients complaining about that
I complained about the increasing negative swap rate which was against my trade to AFCA. But while market was in my favor I changed my strategy and opened more trades to naturalize the high swap charges
Then all of a sudden after I deposited money to be on the safe side while my complaint was being processed, they reduced my account leverage from 1:500 to 1:10 and said it’s because market is very volatile !
However market was in my favor as you can see . I was forced to close my positions in $5000 loss to survive the leverage restriction because free margin went from 12000% to almost 100%!
A few days later I contacted many Australian brokers to check if they had restricted their leverage, they all said no! Some of them were surprised when I told them mine was restricted ( I have their transcript as proof)
One of my friends told me later that she registered an account with ICmarkets AU and they offered her highest leverage 1:500 for Brent and even opened her a temporary account!
I contacted them the same day after waiting for almost for a month for a resolution. They told me if there will be any changes they will let me know repeatedly! I asked support when they return my leverage back to normal 1:500, they said we don’t know !
I decided to close my positions and continue with my complaint because swap charges went around $3000 against my balance and they increased it again to -15 and they told me they can reduce the leverage continuously and increase the swap or other charges to whatever they want !
This what you get back in return when you complain!
“Margin requirements are highly likely to change continuously” (They told me it’s rare and never happened before)
“IC Markets has discretions under the Account Terms which can affect your Orders
and positions. You do not have any power to direct how we exercise our
discretions. When exercising our discretions"
“You should consider the significant risks that arise from IC Markets exercising its discretions”
They rely on a document that they uploaded during our dispute! AFCA is worst than old FOS. They started in late 2018 but so far you can see how they perform. I heard this from many clients at banks as well
They get paid by financial institutions. Heavily biased towards them. It’s like expecting them to kill their mom!
ASIC does not get involve and all rotten and corrupt from bottom to top
They are not even operating from Sydney . I called them this morning and told them I’m coming to your office and want to talk to you boss. I live very close to their office . They said we do not meet anyone at our office.
It was a VOIP with an Indian dude and voice transmission had delays. I could tell he was in Australia.
I attached all here . Hope it is Ok to share it here
If you check some of these guys previous posts . They are attacking everyone who says he was scammed or lost his money and trying to convince them that it’s their fault. they do not know how to trade! No wonder they have tons of fake reviews on all website . I posted my review on Trust pilot. It was deleted very fast . probably flagged by the broker . tried to contact Trustpilot and explain the situation so far review is not published! .
Wow!!! Mate this is daylight robbery!! You need to re post on trust pilot and make sure everyone using ic markets is warned. Wow. I cant believe this lol. They changed the leverage in one day so you got a margin call. Woah. Definitely chase up with the regulators.
Having said this, how are you trading?! Are you just trying to make money as a carry trade. Also when you are complaining about the increasing negative swap rate why are you opening more positions? You should be closing everything and if they cant resolve the situation be moving to another broker. This is overall poor risk management. You were also aware that leverage can be restricted because you asked that in particular.
@Forexteamcmp, I take it you are not based in Australia… and since that you have everyone flapping around posting in circles… If you had of done a search on IC Markets here on Babypips… You would understand what has happened to you…
As of June 2019… IC Markets Australia split its accounts across two regulations… Australian residents were still protected under ASIC and every foreign account was passed across to Seychelles regulation.
It was discussed in many threads relating to IC Markets… I must have 3-4 posts on this very subject with warnings to stay well clear of this Broker…
This was so Euro Clients caught up in ESMA’s new lower leverage (1:30) regime, where outside of ASIC jurisdiction… Australian traders were able to maintain its existing leverage (1:400 - 1:500) without incurring the roth of the EU Regulators because so many moved their account to Australian Brokers post June 2019 hoping to maintain their higher leveraged accounts.
Check the fineprint on your T&C’s and you will see this is more than likely what has happened… and more than likely you are hearing an Indian sounding voice in their call centre…
@Phamy… Perfect reason you don’t trust Offshore, loosely regulated Island based Brokers…
Some here really need to do some serious due diligence before throwing their money to the wind…
PS: See this post from around the same period as that spike in the XBRUSD…
@Trendswithbenefits , Mate I live in Sydney. Registered my account with them long time ago and obviously protected by so called ASIC. but I remember from our last conversation you mentioned that you are from Melbourne as well. If you live here you know AFCA is the old FOS and you know how FOS used to deal with financial complaints now after 2018 when they just changed name. They are even worst than before.
I contacted ASIC many times. You know they just send template responses and when you call ,refer you to AFCA and say we cannot do anything. I told them off that I trusted the broker because they claim they are ASIC regulated but they say we do not deal with these disputes.
They only get involve when it’s too late and they should team up with FPA to raid some scam offices when they ripped off millions of dollars of innocent people and not for the sake of people just under media’s pressure !
AFCA is heavily biased. same as old FOS . they do not have a single happy client . You can hear it from the officer that already sided with the bank and financial firm if you ask why ? they say evidences are not under oath here!
Here is what you get when you contact them and same s… over the phone.
@Forexteamcmp, Still check your T&C Document… they might have moved you across to the FCA (Seychelles) regulation… They are very untrustworthy…
The other problem you have is that Forex, CFDs etc… is treated like sophisticated investing… very similar to SMSFs are in Oz… You are pretty much on your own… ASIC won’t help you…
I think Martin K who was in this forum a few years back went head to head with ASIC without any joy for his time… Do a search for it… I think the person he made initial contact with… didn’t even know what Forex was!!!..
FWIW… Pepperstone hiked the leverage on OIL at the same time… once they knew the only way was up they had to protect themselves… affected one of my trades…
@Rickster99 . I worked in oil industry for 10 years. Brent has cash settlement at the end of contract so it’s not risky like WTI. I had a little saving decided to invest in Brent . I called many brokers and even local banks . ICmarkets offered reasonable swap rate .
I was deceived by their rates and advertisement. after they changed a receiving swap to -12, I complained to AFCA. I said them I don’t know what to do. if I close i now it’s a bad timing it was early April and was little drawdown . They said we cannot suggest you anything. I thought I’d wait until they process the complaint and I was still negotiating with them.
They increased the swap charge again and I thought I change the strategy and use hedge to neutralize the heavy swap. but before doing that I contacted them again to make sure they do not want to reduce the leverage because it could be another threat to my balance.
I contacted their support and ask this question on 15th of April. They ignored my e-mail and did not reply and sent another e-mail as “acknowledgment” and changed the topic and refereed me to another support team. I thought I was paranoid and deposited more funds to be on the safe side and opened more positions because after Opec meeting price was bouncing back.
Only 7 days after my e-mail after I deposited money and opened positions they suddenly reduced the leverage to 1:10! .
Now I know I made a mistake .I should have closed my trades on 15th of April with a little loss and run for the hills! I trusted them
After my friend told me that they offered her 1:500 leverage for oil I realized what’s going on . I made the best decision and closed all positions and withdrew the renaming . They could have reduced 1:10 to 1:1 or changed the swap to -50 to push me to margin call with a little cherry on top (negative balance ! ) later they replied back to AFCA with following:
“Margin requirements are highly likely to change continuously” !
“You should consider the significant risks that arise from IC Markets exercising its discretions”
:
@Trendswithbenefits . I’m with their ASIC regulator but doesn’t change anything. Same S… I called ASIC . They do not know what swap is. I said it’s like interest rate he goes why it has negative then!
AFCA does not listen.They do not know what’s going on and do not rely on the evidences. No wonder they can do anything they want . Legal fees are very high. wanted to take the matter to NCAT. they said it’s not relevant.
That SMH article was a true “Black Swan” event… even Brokers went bust when the Swiss unpegged the CHF causing a 2000+ pip spike across a matter of minutes…
IC Markets were not the only one playing games that day… Luckily before my time…
