Customer Complaint Dated January 26th 2018

The Financial Commission / Case Examples / Customer Complaint Dated January 26th 2018

Complaint Matter

Mrs. XXXXXX has lodged her complaint with the Financial Commission on the following grounds:

The Client used account # 2100064231 for active trading operations in the FOREX market. The incident occurred on January 26, 2018 at 00:01:57 (server time). By the time of the incident several positions in GBPUSD were established by the Client on the specified account:

Ticket Open Time             Type Volume Item Price S/L T/P Close time Price Swap Profit
17417482 2018.01.19 13:35:35 sell   0.2 GBPUSD 1.38711 0 1.38681 2018.01.26 00:01:57 1.41508 -0.99 -559.4
17441405 2018.01.23 06:11:12 sell   0.2 GBPUSD 1.39785 0 1.38681 2018.01.26 00:01:57 1.41508 -0.71 -344.6
17521949 2018.01.25 16:32:56 buy 1.5 GBPUSD 1.43084 0 0 2018.01.26 00:01:57 1.41508 -10.5 -2 662.5
17534988 2018.01.25 22:32:54 sell   1.1 GBPUSD 1.41333 0 0 2018.01.26 00:01:57 1.41508 -0.78 -192.5

 

Thus, by the time of the incident:

  • the total volume of LONG positions in the financial instrument GBPUSD was equal to 150000 GBP
  • the total volume of SHORT positions in the financial instrument GBPUSD was equal to 150000 GBP
  • the total volume of aggregate position in the financial instrument GBPUSD was equal to 0 GBP

According to the Client, before the incident she cancelled T/P and S/L orders in order to manage her positions manually, since the president Trump’s speech was scheduled later that day.  However, after some time she discovered that her trading platform lost connection with the server. She contacted two representatives of the Broker’s via Facebook chat but didn’t get any useful advice or help from them. Market experienced a round of high volatility after the president Trump started to deliver his speech. This, in turn, caused widening of the spread in the financial instrument GBPUSD. As a result, all Client’s positions were liquidated by the Broker due to deficit of margin (Stop Out).

The Client believes that all losses on her trading account were incurred by the technical update of the server on Broker’s side. Client claims that she was unable to connect to the server and failed to manage her open positions as well as establish new hedge positions for the period of two hours.    

In connection with the above, the Client requests the Dispute Resolution Committee of the Financial Commission to investigate the incident and believes that the Broker should compensate all losses ($3772) incurred from the technical issue mentioned above. The Client provided the screenshots of the frozen terminal taken at the time of the incident, the records from the terminal logs taken from two different PCs, as well as the screenshots of Facebook chat, as documentary evidence.

For his part, the Broker does not see any grounds for the Client’s complaint, as in his opinion, all Client’s positions were closed correctly, at real market prices and in accordance with the provisions of the regulatory documents. The Broker claims that no upgrades were released during market hours on January 25-26, 2018 and the Client was served as honestly and professionally as always, however information provided by the Client contains some accusations towards the company that are based on non-existent and distorted factual circumstances presented in the complaint.

Because this case involved specific trades conducted by the client, the complaint was classified as a “trade-related” dispute. Unfortunately, the DRC was unable to receive necessary server logs and other information from the Broker to conduct a thorough analysis of the trades in question.

As such, the DRC had to rely on all factual and documentary evidence provided by both broker and client to issue a decision and was not able to independently verify pricing and tick data. Given the abundance of evidence of a technical malfunction on the Broker’s trading server and the reluctance of the Broker to provide additional information from their execution venue for review of trade executions, the DRC issued a decision in the client’s favor in full.

Complainant Broker
XXX YYY
Financial Commission Complaint #ZZZ
Complaint Raising Date Complaint Filing Date
26/01/2018 29/01/2018
Complaint response:

The decision on this complaint is based on the information provided by Mrs. XXXXXX and the brokerage company XXXXX.

After a comprehensive analysis of the documentary evidence provided by the Client and  the Broker the Dispute Resolution Committee of the Financial Commission has come to the following conclusions:

  1. First, it should be noted that the Client has provided significant evidence of system failure. The records from two different terminal logs, as well as screenshots of the frozen trading platform provided by the Client, show the same technical problem – multiple failed trials of the Client to connect to the server.
  2. Also, it should be noted, that the Broker refused to provide server logs which can show whether the XXX server was running at the time of the incident or not. Server logs contain not only the trading operations but also various service records, which make it possible to understand that the trading server was turned on and worked normally. These logs were not provided to DRC members for review.
  3. Taking into account the documentary evidence provided by the Client (screenshots from Facebook), the experts of the DRC have come to the conclusion that at the time of the incident the Client was trying to contact Broker’s representatives in order to resolve the problem with her trading account. In turn, the Broker’s staff had a good opportunity to explain to the Client that there are alternative ways to close positions but refused to do so.

Summarizing all the above the Dispute Resolution Committee ruled in favor of the Client. Members of the Committee believe that canceling the financial results of the disputed transactions is a fair decision in this case. Accordingly, the Broker should compensate the losses of the Client in the amount of $3772.

This complaint was reviewed by the members of the Dispute Resolution Committee of the Financial Commission and was processed by the Head of the Committee.

Ruled in Favor Compensation
Client 3772.00 USD
If you have any questions regarding this investigation, please send them to the following address [email protected]
Acknowledgement
I certify that all information was considered by the Dispute Resolution Committee of the Financial Commission and hereby confirm that the decision was made fairly, impartially and without interference. I am confident that the information provided in the document is true.
Signature Designation Date
 Anatoly Bulanov

Head of DRC

March 7th 2018
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