Can I sue Open e cry?

Discussion in 'Retail Brokers' started by enkidu007, Sep 11, 2009.

  1. I am going through a similar thing, I lost some money with Open E Cry because of the problems with their software upgrade.

    I don't think filing a lawsuit would really be cost effective, unless your a lawyer and can do it for free.

    I do think that you can file a complaint with www.nfa.futures.org that is what I am thinking about doing myself.

    It sounds like you have plenty of evidence to present a case.
     
    #21     Sep 22, 2009

  2. If you go for NFA arbitration, i would still be careful and NOT do it without legal counsel. First, if you browse the arbitration cases published on the NFA website, claims based on software malfunction will usually be denied. After all, you did sign the user agreements that all risk of IT-failure rests on you and not the broker.

    Second, if you file an arbitration claim, the broker can file a counterclaim to get his attorney expenses back in case your claim has no merit. If you go to the NFA website and search for velocity, there is a case where someone claimed ~25K from them, then got his claim dismissed by the arbitrator, but did have to pay velocity's counterclaim of ~30K.


    P.S.: http://www.nfa.futures.org/basicnet/Arbitration.aspx?entityid=0317696&case=08ARB52
     
    #22     Sep 22, 2009
  3. good points,

    is there anyway to see what the claims against the company were?

    I noticed one was awarded fees, but the other one was not.

    It would be nice to know what the difference was.

    The more I think about how open e cry just kept saying "you did sign a disclosure, right!"
    implying they they could do anything and I couldn't do anything about it. The more mad it makes me and the more it makes me want to file a complaint against them.

    but I do need to look into the complaint process more through. thanks for the tip.
     
    #23     Sep 22, 2009
  4. Its says the customer somehow ended up with 30K debit balance, and he didn't want to pay up. It doesn't say how he got the account into debit, maybe IT failure and velocity didn't auto-liquidate his positions at margincall level, maybe he traded illiquid instruments, maybe a nasty opening gap, who knows..

    In any case, he ended up paying the 30K debit balance, plus 26K for velocitiy's attorney fees, plus nfa hearing fees, plus his own attorney expenses. It does sound awfully expensive.
     
    #24     Sep 22, 2009
  5. Jake88

    Jake88

    Is OEC's platform still having problems?
     
    #25     Oct 2, 2009
  6. yesterday my charts were running slow enough to make them impossible for me to use for day trading.

    I guess if your a long term trader and it doesn't make any difference if your charts are a couple points off where the market is then you might be ok.

    it's been over a month now, and it seems to me they really should have got their problems fixed by now.
     
    #26     Oct 2, 2009
  7. Jake88

    Jake88

    Thanks for the response. I am mostly interested in Day Trading E-Mini Futures. If you can recommend a platform which has good data feed and execution I'd appreciate it. Thanks again.
     
    #27     Oct 2, 2009
  8. last month I switch to Infinity, their commissions are less than open E cry, (I am paying $4.30 flat for a round turn at Infinity) and Infinity is a lot more stable, no problems so far with charts or execution.

    I had a problem with Infinity last year, but one of the managers there paid me back for my loss, it had nothing to do with their platform, it was a miss communication between me and the broker I had there.

    anyway, at first I was really pissed about the problem, but after thinking about it I started thinking that at least Infinity owned up to it and did the right thing and paid for the mistake.

    Now I almost think of it like a positive thing, like if I have a problem they now have a track record of admitting when they make a mistake and paying for it, so I have to say on that problem they did work with me.

    Open E Cry has done nothing but make excuses and tell me "you signed a disclosure, Didn't You!", so I can count on it being me against them on any problems, which in part made me rethink my problem with Infinity.

    I have only been using Infinity's DOM for a little over a month, but it has worked great and it's free.

    my other back up broker charges $1 a trade to use their platform with the number of trades I make and the small profits I take I can't afford to pay that, so I am closing that account.

    and I am going to open an account with IB and try them out again, I used them several years ago and they were working ok, I just stopped trading for a while and so I closed my account.

    I hear that IB has a free platform and free charts that work ok, and their commissions might be less, but I won't know that for sure until I get my account opened again there.

    if you run across anyplace that has good commissions, a free DOM, and free charts let me know, it never hurts to have more options when your a daytrader.
     
    #28     Oct 2, 2009
  9. jimmyrey

    jimmyrey

    I have problems with the OEC platform. .... however at this stage I'm prepared to accept that it is NOT OEC and I'm presently investigating the issue with my ISP(s).

    I've given a lot of detail below cause I'm interested to know if anyone else has had this problem (particularly anyone in the UK) ?

    I have problems on a daily basis - my quote board and charts STOP updating at about 5pm London time ...... sometimes they restart then stop then restart ..... other times that is it for the day and they don't re-start correctly until the following day.

    Yes, I've tried disconnecting and re-connecting... I've tried re-downloading the OEC software, I've tried running the OEC s/w on three different PCs with different versions of XP/Vista....still the same result, after 5pm London time my quotes and charts basically "die".

    I've spoke at length with the OEC tech support and they were helpful ...but could not identify the cause of the problem and suggested the cause of the problem lay elsewhere probably with my ISP.

    So I've had my ISP analyse my connection and so far they cannot identify any fault with the line or my IP connectivity. The profile of latency, data loss and jitter to the OEC server is basically the same before the 5pm cut off point as it is after 5pm when the quotes stop - I can also telnet onto the OEC server correctly.

    Just to say from day to day there is a slight variation in the cut off time say +- 30 mins either side of 5pm London time.

    I actually have 2 seperate ISPs. The problem arises regardless of which ISP i am using - i freely switch between the two ISPs if i have a problem or to eliminate IP connectivity on other net based issues - it makes no difference which ISP I use, the problems still occurs and I loose my quotes/charts at about 5pm London time.

    OEC is my backup broker...

    I have NO problem with my datafeed and prices, orders and charts (etc) with my primary broker feed (Zenfire).

    Nor do I have ANY problem with a 3rd party datafeed (IQ) that I have recently started to take in order to check/validate my Zenfire based prices - they are in sync more or less tic for tic.

    Has anyone had a similar OEC problem to this? Any thoughts on possible causes?

    Btw . I have asked OEC outright whether they throttle or restrict their price/data feed to inactive accounts (they are my back up broker after all so i dont trade thru them very often) ---- but they have stated in writing that they do not......
     
    #29     Oct 3, 2009
  10. I have problems some times with OEC charts stopping around the time the market opens.
    I think it has to do with the volume, it seems if the volume gets a little heavy then they start having problems.
    it usually happens within 10 minutes of the market opening, I never really thought about it being a specific time of day, I always just assumed there was more volume and that was the problem.
     
    #30     Oct 3, 2009