So...what was the problem? Did they have malfunctioning charts or misquoted? Sounds like that guy was a little too well prepared for your call... No questions asked...refund straight away. 125.90 is still quite a bit off from Metatrader's 125.98 and S&PComstock's 126.03....isn't he supposed to explain that? When I saw your version of the conversation, the first thing that came to mind was "boiler room operation".
It's the standard trick. You make money off of the 90% who are unhappy, but don't complain, and give a refund to the rest.
Saschabr, The position was 1 mini lot or $10,000. In real money terms, it was a P/L difference of $35 + $25 = $60. The $35 is the money recovered from my stop loss, and the $25 was the amount of pips I was in the money from my original entry. You might be right that they would be hesitant to refund a large ticket, but I think they would it. Simply because there will be enough people who don't request to break the trade and they'll be able to profit from them. DNAJ65000
OddTrader, Personally, I trade off the Metatrader charts and watch the Refco Bid/Ask prices. Because FX is decentralized and each broker is allowed to set their own prices based on the InterBank market prices, I allow up to 3 pips of wiggle room. I do not trade live using 3 charts with different feeds. The Metatrader source tipped me off that there wasn't a price spike in which case I confirmed it with S&P Comstock. DNAJ65000
I guess I was steamrolled through the refund process and happy enough that I got my money back that I didn't think about asking WHY. I'm going to sound standoffish when I say this, but I honestly don't care or want to listen to his story. Knowing the reason behind the price spike does not negate the fact that it occurred. Also, contemplating their motives for a quick refund or what they will do in the future does not change the fact that I got my money back. An event occured that should not have happened given the rules of the game. The fact that it was corrected with minimal cost to me in terms of time, effort, money, and stress is a lot more than I can say when you encounter a banking error or credit card fraud, or any other financial error in our system. 2 mos ago, I had my bank double charge me a service charge of $15. My statement clearly shows 2 $15 charges on the same date. I had to drive to my bank, pay for parking, wait in a line up, explain my situation to the CSR, re-explain the situation to the branch manager and fill out paperwork to get my refund. Last month, American Express and Costco made an error on a $701 sofa I purchased and it cost me over $55 in interest payments and service charges, 3 trips down to my local Costco to talk to the supervisor, 3 long distance phone calls to Costco HQ, Citibank, and Amex, and a total of about 5 hours spent correcting THEIR error. In this case, the Costco reps explained to me WHY it happened, and they were very friendly and helpful about it, but when I left the store, I still paid over $55 extra for my sofa. I had to argue with the Reconciliation Department of Ameritrade back in 1998 or 1999 when I was chasing a hot stock intraday and my market order took something like 7 minutes to execute. Of course, I couldn't cancel it and by the time I got filled, it was a few cents from the top of the move. He rebated me a portion of the move given their 60 second fill guarantee, but I still lost money on that trade. The point is, ALL companies make mistakes and "break rules". I do not condemn Refco for having a price spike. I do not call them a "boiler room" operation or cry "fraud" because they admitted their error and fixed it faster than any other company I've dealt with. The measure of a company's reputation should not be based on the fact that they make errors, but based on the way they deal with those errors. DNAJ65000
What rule of the (FX) game prevents REFCO from having this sort of price spike? Can you point me to that rule?
hehe, Quah, you sound pretty jaded. But I'll be glad to answer your question in a very practical way. What prevents them from having a price spike and getting away with it is that the word would get out and they would lose all of their customers. More importantly, if they engaged in out right fraud..... well, let's just say Enron.:eek: DNAJ65000
I'm not jaded at all. So - there is no written rule about these spikes nor about where the price should be relative to other "dealers", is there? The fact is that they could have told you tough luck and you wouldn't have a leg to stand on. Thus, they are making up the rules as they go. Seems better to know the rules in advance.