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…
Yes but they’ve shown they are capable of doing all the wrong things . Been caught red handed by FPA for fake reviews. been banned and blacklisted by European regularly. Everyone is talking about them on all forums so there must be a reason. I personally talked to many traders on FPA when I was looking for the clients with same experience.
The funny part of my story is that they offered the same high 1:500 leverage to another client at the same time 
It’s pretty clear what broker says when you get into dispute with them . We have no power and they can do whatever they want with your money. The following response was all I received repeatedly from them during the dispute.
“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"
Unfortunately, nothing funny about your situation… But I think you will find that the Leverage squeeze was only on OIL at the particular period… 1:500 possibly still applied to your Currency Crosses…
@Trendswithbenefits. You know there is no way to find out who’s affected. Main website shows 1:500 at all time and they can restrict anyone’s leverage with unregulated discretion. Means I had more balance they restricted my leverage but were luring another client with 1:500 to trap her later.
I have exchanged more than 30 e-mails with all their support and have solid proof that I was talking to people either in Cyprus or Seychelles.
I called them today and requested to visit their manager and told them that I’m coming to your office. it’s a few mins away.He was nice Indian fella possibly a VOIP call with a little delay.They said we do not meet at the office. We will call you back. Probably a shared office with a few part time staff to handle the AFCA disputes.
Please keep at it and continue escalating your complaint. Post this on all threads you can find and trading groups. Make sure no one else gets scammed like this. Best if everyone leaves them and puts them out of business. I’ll pass this message on too. Best of luck!
@Rickster99 Thanks for your support mate . I really feel responsible for the next guy who might end of in their trap. I posted on FPA and here and will try trustpilot as well . Do you know any other related forums ?
@Forexteamcmp, July 2020 judgement from ASIC shows at least they are not asleep at the wheel…
Maybe search ASIC’s site for other cases it has pursued and prosecuted… You’re welcome…
Well they take action when it’s too and there is media pressure. According to this report we are getting ripped off half of billion dollars a year by scammers including Forex scam.
For an ordinary person like me there is no justice. Look what I received back from ASIC. Only a template response with no phone number from the relevant officer. I tried to contact her by e-mail, still no reply to this date. I called them they told me the same thing.They openly admitted that they do not get involve in these disputes and it takes years of investigations to take action against a broker.
Some of these Forex platforms run on decentralized servers from overseas and their Australian address is just an office address with a few staff. Even if AFP raid into these offices, It’s unlikely that they find anything. There is lack of proper audit and law enforcement not only for online brokers. even finance brokers.
Don’t know if you ever been in western Sydney. Finance brokers gang up with car yards and advertise low rate finance, later customer end up paying twice interest rate plus application fees. It happened to many of my friends and family and here goes the same response from ASIC.
Aye, the first thing that struck me from the link were the words -
ASIC has commenced civil penalty proceedings in the Federal Court of Australia against Forex Capital Trading Pty Ltd (Forex CT) and its sole director, Shlomo Yoshai.
There is a thread on here on ‘escaping the cftc’ - when you read cftc guidance they state -
The Division of Enforcement (Division) investigates and prosecutes alleged violations of the Commodity Exchange Act (CEA or Act) and Commission regulations. The Division takes enforcement actions against individuals and firms registered with the Commission, those who are engaged in commodity futures and option trading on designated domestic exchanges, and those who improperly market futures and option contracts.
The difference is huge - the cftc will go after a violator big time and will include the DOJ if they think it fit - 420k to some of these guys is small change and well worth the risk.
A long read -
https://www.cftc.gov/sites/default/files/anr/anrenf98.htm
Edit: DOJ - Dept of Justice - criminal law violation - jail time.
@peterma Well said .ASIC is a toothless tiger here. They refer poor victims to AFCA as so called independent assessor. AFCA is a private company and gets membership fees and charges for disputes and openly admits that they usually side with their clients (Financial firms) The conflict of interest in these disputes is obvious from this fact alone!
AFCA has no power to take evidences under oath so our evidences are not admissible. They do not have the power to penalize financial firms which means we are on our own, unless you take the matter to court.
