Looking for suggestions, complaints and ideas.

[TaKiii]

Hi Guys,

I am currently looking for feedback on certain things. As honest as possible without specifying peoples names etc. The list I am looking for feedback on are the following regarding FXOpen:

- Service (what can be improved, what is good what is bad)
- Software (sufficient? Any ideas?
- Deposit/withdrawal methods (whats your favourite, why, how much do you think you would risk using an online payment processor etc)
-Client spreads both ECN and MM models (competitive? complete? enjoying fixed spread?)
- Service (response time to clients by finance/support/admin)
- Marketing (Do FXOpen win your business with anything specific? Could they do anything to make them win you over more?)
- Marketing (How would you market FXOpen differently to the current methods?)
- Referral program (Is it rewarding? Do you use it? How could it be improved?)
- If you are using the MM platform, would you move to the ECN? If so/not, why?
- Trust, its known that most clients in any online broker do not invest the total amount planned out of fear that funds may disappear, if this is the case, what could be done in order for you to generate more trust for your company. Would regulation make a difference? If so/not why?

I look forward to hearing ideas for the community, your feedback is truely appreciated.

Best regards,

Taki

[lizerzoltan]

hello Takii

if i may add my comments, and will try to go down in order of your lists.

1. Services: Too often there are promises, and too long delays are there for follow ups. Doesnt matter if it is finally getting some use of FXO points, or Credit Card acceptance, or posting finally a intro to FXopen Debit card with term and conditions....
Moreover, i think the promised upgrade in live chat/phone support is delayed, and it is annyoing, even though i am sure the involved individulas try their bests. I think many would think it is just pro to have for English language support chat someone always who does speak/write English native, or near so. Also getting controversial answers there sometimes, so cant rely on them there neither, and last, they have very limited way to help, unless it isnt a how to run MT4, or when i get my 100$ bonus finally..but some problems beyond this.

2. Software: i think MT4 is wildly accepted as a great trading software, and that is fine. Finally FXopen also seem to add more servers, so, improvement there. I think overall, this point should have no complaints from the majority of traders.

3. Credit card funding was long discussed, and for ages was a week away, or along the corner. I think it would be a convinient way to have direct CC funding, not via Alertpay or else, what people dont trust that much as direct bank to broker dealing by CC.
But most importantly: wire fee in FXopen not really competitive when look at other brokers, and due being large, it is also restrictive for smaller accounts....even a 500$ account, it would suffer 10% charge for 50$ withdrawal fee, where some other place they ask only 20-30$ for wire tranfer, more cost efficient.

4. Spread:The fix spread is competitive enough, altought some pairs should have lower spreads, but understand that FXopen probably has not many traders trading those( probably this very reason). Maybe that ECN solves for those traders. BUT i think some has doubts about the TRUE ECN pricing. Excuse my bad, but True ECN sometimes offers even 0 pips spread, while a minimum spread 0.5 pip does sound like a true free market...

5. Response time: depend on luck it seems, i got both very fast, and rather delayed one. I even found out that some phone numbers were invalid or phones unanswered, what can be really annoying while watching your account go south due a glitch in quoted price...but in the end i believe all problems get solved, i see some manamegent presense on other forex forums too, though some place on different names, what i dont think a help for image...babypips forum postings are such i think, to mention an example.

6 and 7. Marketing: Sure i dont give a damn for drift, most of us probably came here to trade, and want trading to be promoted. i wouldnt mind to see more local seminars, trading days, or expos in the region where i live, and where suppose to have a local FXopen partner too. Long was asked some official trading competition too, put it up too point #1, under promises...
More to win me over: regular promotions for active and volume traders, after all a member can make 10 lot trade, and change account, but why do one need to do such? Why cant have like a 0.1-0.2 pip official FXopen rebate after certain volume, like 20-50-100 lot /month....both FXopen would benefit from active trader, and so would the trader has somthing extra...but it is an example. should you look to win over 25$-100$ accounts, forget about this.

8. Referral program: i think it is rewarding. What i dont see why to bring over ECN accounts, or PAMM managers to FXopen. Those though usually bigger business, generate ZERO IB in most case (isnt there this 100k limit to get ECN IB?).
Also my thought: as long as manager dont have a chance to earn rebate on his own capital, will never houl it to a PAMM account, where restricted more....use minimum cash to open one, and just downsize his trades. But to trade his own money in his own fund?! No way. Think of it, and look how many PAMM is opened with the bare minimum only...maybe for a reason.
Another thing: if the IB has his account funded with any method not matching yours and sends you rebate from your trades he earns, ie 50%, you might have problem withdrawing it by your own funding method as i understand. this is wrong!!

9. Move or not to ECN: was mentioned, there is some doubts about being true ECN this ECN that is. Also on majors a MM with decent rebate might result you a better cost/spread in the end than ECN. So, what is the point then?
And another promise to be reminded: there was mention of a possible lowered ECn fee after things start to run for a while...this seem a long while, as only quietness there. No falling fees on volume scale, nothing...

10. Trust: being regulated like UK brokers sure would bring more trust. why: because funds would be guaranteed to a certain limit/account size.


OK, the above are my contribution to this thread. I try to give my opinion, and my opinion the above is.
I am not complaining in any way against FXOpen, in case one might misunderstand, i am a happy trader in overall here.
but in the same time i believe some of this comments if for a change taken seriously, could add to the improvements.

regards
Zoltan

[TaKiii]

Hi Lizerzoltan,

Feed back is much appreciated. I will take it all into account and give some responses to where I have permission and take it all on board.
1.
I am with you in this boat, and am beginning the process of ironing out the wrinkles in the services, or trying my best to come up with solutions to put towards management (hence my post). The FXO Points system as far as I know is still being discussed, and a way to police it could be a key issue. Post building is hard to detect, sometimes people post for the sake of it, it would probably need to be policed some how. Which will add to the cost of giving out bonuses involved with it (Personally, I dont believe in client bonuses in the $ figures but more things like merchandise or events, but i understand fxopoints will ssometime be useful for these things). Phone support is something I am strong with, and it is coming. I won't say when where or how, but it is coming and I will be involved with some of it (all native speakers of English). AEST time support will soon be entirely fluent english speaking with the exception of our already brilliant staff working at the time. I will be working with someone providing certain things in regards to government compliance and support chat and also what constitutes as financial advice will not be given in support. But some of our support staff possibly (i am not saying this is the case but am stating from my research) are stressed out by the number of abusive clients. The most abusive clients come from traders who expect instant withdrawals/verification or have had their verification rejected. This is not the fault of support staff and I will be working towards getting a more mutual basis of staff-client in support along with the support manager.

2. .
Servers will continue to be added with client increase. Currently we are fixing the demo account to provide a better face of the company and people testing our services.

3 .
Credit card is a tough thing. There are certain undisclosed details involved in this delay which cannot be disclosed. Be reassured that its coming and when its here there will be a breath of fresh air to all. Wire fee is starting to be discussed, but cannot make promises there, as staff costs and wire costs are involved, there isn't much margin to cover costs on that fee. Perhaps an idea would be to approach our bank for a better relationship/fee for our accounts since we provide so much business, I will pass on this feedback.

4.
Fixed spread is an assistance to a dealer hedging method, the wider spreads are on pairs its harder to find liquidity for us to hedge orders, so on random pairs the spreads might be worse, but on high volume pairs they are good i agree. Our ECN pricing is not aggregated, it is passed directly into the market, you can trade inside the spread which reduces the spread itself. From my understanding the only difference is the feed doesnt print the ticks less than 1/2 pip, making our feed more efficient Most high frequency traders will scalp inside the spread as it is. 0 and negative spread only occurs in a liquidity dump by a liquidity provider trying to get out of the market. Ideally a 0 pip spread would be great, but lets face it, no one works for free. From my institutional experience, the only time the spread is 0 or negative is when you do not want to be in the market. Its also almost impossible to allow negative spread on a LVL 2 window. Alot of places that are offering these spreads, i highly doubt are true ECN. But, anything is possible in this market. So remember you can trade with a .1 or .2 pip spread, but you need limit orders. I have personally questioned this my self to certain people and found the answer most satisfactory.
5.
One of my personal vendettas is to speed up the finance department response time during their working hours. But I have not been able to analyse their work load so I am unaware of their work load. I hope to come up with a solution. Support staff and management response time is generally good, be it from myself, nonamer jafar or manager himself. I think the internal response time could be something that I will look to help improve.
6 and 7.
I will try answer this as well as possible but certain things cannot be addressed by myself. I agree partially on the drifting etc. But these are more investments by the company and more of a social gathering. I agree that sometimes its bad sometimes its good, but the social part of trading is sometimes beneficial to traders and client relationship as well. Having almost ruined my life trading by getting into a bad lifestyle (no work life balance) I can understand that such are events are beneficial to alot of clients. Expos, depending on your location may be illegal. If you are in malaysia, right now the BNM has a strong restriction on them. If you are willing to make the 8 hour flight, I will hope sometime this year to have one in Sydney. But if you are in Malaysia, I wouldnt count on much locally but great if it happens. Rebates after volume are part of the ECN model. IF you trade high volume, you can contact us for a discussion on what sort of volume you are trading etc. It doesn't really work for traders doing under 100 million a month though in volume. So approximately 10000 lots a month. I think the bigger picture in FX needs to be looked at by clients. One of the problems with the retail market right now is that those who invest 25$ to make 25$ bonus to trade, will lose their money. Fact. So in the end they make 0. Forex is a business, sure bonuses are nice but focus should always be on profit from trading. I will however, try to put together a viable cost benefit analysis on a promotional plan and pitch it to manager. But its not really good for business to be handing out money for free. I tried it, it doesn't really work Most of those obtaining the freebies lose it and all their volume soon after. I think merchandise rewards would be more beneficial, shirts hats coffee mugs etc. More sentimental things that mean something to people. This would be my approach anyway.

8. Further improvements to our REF program are coming. If someone is pitching brokers purely for money instead of trading, I don't see any reason for them to be advertising the ECN. Frankly its not beneficial for someone unless they have a client base of 100 or so. The return is low. But if you are trying to invite friends/family/whatever for good services, ECN is best, and you will get a few bucks on the side to pay for your efforts. But at the moment ECN IB agreements are scarce and limited. Theres a reason, and that is to prevent loss of income to the company itself. I'd much rather have no IB program for ECN and the company prosper than to have a good ECN IB program and the company be on the brink of extinction. But its something definitely to look at, and I will bring that to my books too.
Most people entering the pamm to trade are entering it for the advertisement factor. They may have 100 or 200k in investments, but with the advertisement they may end up with 500 mill. If they are a good trader its more beneficial for PAMM than to churn on an IB. Because y ou will get more funds from performance.I dont understand your last statement, I will ask someone if they know.

9. The lowering of commission comes entirely from volume. When company volume increases discussions on a viable commission rate will occur. The thing to remember is though is the commission rates are industry standard. Alot of the people claiming ECN with tiny commissions, are not really ECN. I put my name and life on the fact that ECN is true. And if you'd like I will gladly give you all my personal details and sign a letter for you to kill me with my permission if I am wrong. That is for lot sizes of 1 lot or over. One of the reasons I am working with FXOpen is that the ECN is a revolutionary platform setting a new market standard. If you hadn't noticed, after FXOpen released its ECN platform (After spending so much money time effort developing it) all of a sudden every broker is ECN. To be honest, most of these brokers claiming to be ecn simply dont have the money or power to change the mt4 platform to function as an ECN. So you should always investigate certain things. My personally opinion on the question of changing to ecn is simply, if you don't understand ECN and are profitable on MM, I suggest sticking to MM. Ecn conditions are different, in a true market, you will get slipped on approximately 20-70% of orders (broad range i know). Usually just .5 pips. This is because of the constant movements of bid/ask from liquidity providers. If someone is not slipping you on alot of orders and claiming to be ECN (this is market orders only) then they are not true ECN. If they do not have a LVL 2 platform, they are not true ECN, if they claim that lower volume than 100k is in the ECN environment, they are lying. Volumes start at 100k on the ECN networks, all orders below that are aggregated through STP (same execution, but less consistant than ECN). It is not really for the small trader (accounts under say 10k) but is brilliant for any profitable trader.

10.
There are certain things people don't understand about regulation. One is that regulation is only regulation of the company.
I guess my next question is, what about ASIC? Or a regulator who requires insurance on company deposits? Rather than having a regulator guarentee which as in the refco case, you will only ever see 5% of your funds if something goes wrong. I am a skeptic of regulators personally, they are a business. They aren't about clients but more about $$ and occaisionally slaping your wrist if you do something very wrong. I will be bringing this up soon with a few people about regulation

[TaKiii]

I ran out of characters on last post..

I really appreciate your feedback it was exactly what i was looking for. I hope my response brings some light on things and makes you feel confident that you made the right choice choosing fxopen. Let me know if you have any more ideas. They are much appreciaetd.

[ilearn2t]

Hello TaKiii

One of my personal vendettas is to speed up the finance department response time during their working hours. But I have not been able to analyse their work load so I am unaware of their work load. I hope to come up with a solution. Support staff and management response time is generally good, be it from myself, nonamer jafar or manager himself. I think the internal response time could be something that I will look to help improve.

The only department I can trust at this moment at FXOpen is the finance section and their quick responce during working hours.

The user-friendly cabinet is great also.

Once my unanswered questions some dating back over 6-7 months now at this forum, are answered I'll be able to judge FXOpen a bit better, and decide if my (only invest what you can afford to lose) lowest amount will increase or stop.

Credit card is a tough thing. There are certain undisclosed details involved in this delay which cannot be disclosed. Be reassured that its coming and when its here there will be a breath of fresh air to all. Wire fee is starting to be discussed, but cannot make promises there, as staff costs and wire costs are involved, there isn't much margin to cover costs on that fee. Perhaps an idea would be to approach our bank for a better relationship/fee for our accounts since we provide so much business, I will pass on this feedback.

If FXOpen is genuine they must have a bank, why can't members make deposits/withdrawals using this method and cut out the 3 party link?

Eg: Alterpay use Barclays Bank Plc, I use Lloyds TSB Bank plc, for me to tranfer money into Alterpay I have to transfer between banks, so if FXOpen had a bank account with a Registered bank I could use this method to make deposits/withdrawals

[TaKiii]

We accept bank wires directly. I do not recommend alert pay to anyone. Our staff wages are the cost involved with wire transfers. I believe a new bank account is about to be released, but that I cannot confirm as yet.

There is alot going on in the background, I hope your trust towards us grows very soon. And I will do my best to assure it does.

In terms of bank wires, I have never really had an issue in the 3 yrs I have used FXOpen, except when the bank was a czech bank, and an intermediary had to be used. My bank always sent priority to the cypriot bank, and it was always timely. With only withdrawals taking time because australian banks are renowned for using incoming wires as leverage in swap trades. I personally don't like the online processors, and find them a bit unprofessional, but a large number of clients use them, so abolishing them would be of no benefit.

Regards

Taki

[ilearn2t]

We accept bank wires directly. I do not recommend alert pay to anyone. Our staff wages are the cost involved with wire transfers. I believe a new bank account is about to be released, but that I cannot confirm as yet.

There is alot going on in the background, I hope your trust towards us grows very soon. And I will do my best to assure it does.

In terms of bank wires, I have never really had an issue in the 3 yrs I have used FXOpen, except when the bank was a czech bank, and an intermediary had to be used. My bank always sent priority to the cypriot bank, and it was always timely. With only withdrawals taking time because australian banks are renowned for using incoming wires as leverage in swap trades. I personally don't like the online processors, and find them a bit unprofessional, but a large number of clients use them, so abolishing them would be of no benefit.

Regards

Taki

Hello TaKiii

I'm 100% behind you when it comes to internet processors but dispite my lack of trust in these things Alterpay is the only way I can fund my account from the UK without larger fees. I hope your right about my trust in FXOpen as I do like the user-friendly setup but I will slowly increase my trust and investments in FXOpen.

Keep up the good work.

[ilearn2t]

Hello TaKiii

I am with you in this boat, and am beginning the process of ironing out the wrinkles in the services, or trying my best to come up with solutions to put towards management (hence my post). The FXO Points system as far as I know is still being discussed, and a way to police it could be a key issue. Post building is hard to detect, sometimes people post for the sake of it, it would probably need to be policed some how.

If FXOpen wants to show its members it cares, why not start by offering its top 10 posters a bonus and work from there, I exclude myself from any type of bonus or prize this includes the thread FXOpen Manager started, but I still await an answer http://forum.fxopen.com/showpost.php...2&postcount=34 I hope most if not all FXOpen team members also decline any offer.

[cafedeart]

Would u Start any kind of ongoing in build Chat Window (chat application for Forum Members Only) in Forum under Calender located the vast blank space at right hand side of posts. (it may Restricted only for Forum Members), through that we may connect Online members immediately when we fallen in some kind of serious problem about any matter regarding Fxopen and trading. Or general Discussion may solved there, so People would not start New Thread just for any tiny silly matter like : "Buy Nokia phone..." , in Company announcement or newbies problem section. We Need to see this forum as Our Supporting Desk, so we need to see this forum more clean and more uptodate.
Thanks hope some one will see whatever i gave as IDEA to improve Fxopen's Client Service.

[CCC000]

hello i would like to do purpose

1-about freedom to withdraw via any way not only as the way we deposit we will withdraw
this will be very good you know you can have any kind of verification process (i know that fxopen afraid from money laundering but you can make confirmation via SMS mobile or anything else )

2-cashu withdraw to LR why ??! this cause my very heavy broplems

3- about debit cards this will very excellent i highly recommanded it

4- adding western union as deposit method this is excellent too!

5-the new add is very good like PAMM +auto trading system this is very good excellent move !

thanks for listening

[FXOjafar]

hello i would like to do purpose

1-about freedom to withdraw via any way not only as the way we deposit we will withdraw
this will be very good you know you can have any kind of verification process (i know that fxopen afraid from money laundering but you can make confirmation via SMS mobile or anything else )

2-cashu withdraw to LR why ??! this cause my very heavy broplems

3- about debit cards this will very excellent i highly recommanded it

4- adding western union as deposit method this is excellent too!

5-the new add is very good like PAMM +auto trading system this is very good excellent move !

thanks for listening

السلام عليكم

1) You already have the freedom to withdraw wherever you like after your initial deposit amount has been returned to where you made your deposit. You may withdraw profits made after that to any of our offered withdrawal methods.

2) The unique way CashU withdrawals work (Specific amounts only) means that most withdrawals would be rejected by them. This is why you have the freedom to withdraw any amount deposited by cashu by the LR system

3) We are working on a suitable debit card system and have been for some time. We will make an announcement when they will be available.

4) WU is not a legal deposit method in most countries however some IBs will accept WU deposits by personal agreement. Contact your local IB and ask.

5) Yes the PAMM is a great system. One of our proudest achievements. I'm glad you like it

[CCC000]

thanks alot for support you make my mind clear about withdraw deposit operation

[pppfund]

Guys,

I've emailed FXOpen countless times on this issue but I'm being treated like an idiot with answers that doesn't make sense.

This is the PAMM Manager reply after I emailed him on why am I not getting the discount on commission when my account balance is > $50,000:

Please, read our terms carefully. " USD 2.3 for 100,000 (1 Lot) for accounts with Net Deposit higher than USD 50 000. Net Deposit - is the sum of all deposits minus the sum of all withdrawals in USD."
fxopen.com/TradingTerms.aspx?active_tab=3

Your account has deposits of $ 50 000.00 and withdrawals of $ 23 652.39, ie the Net Deposit equal to $ 26 347.61

So I follow up by replying him on an example as to why the PAMM Manager example doesn't make sense:

Let me give you another example
that my grandma understands.

Let's say I deposit $100,000.
I qualify for the discount on commission.
Within 1 month, I somehow manage to grow it to $1,000,000.
I withdraw $900,000 so that my balance is back to $100,000.
In other words, it's back to SQUARE ONE.

Now based on your calculation,
it's $100,000 (net deposit) - $900,000 (total withdraws) = -$800,000
And based on your formula, I need to make a deposit of $850,000
to qualify for the discount on commission again???

I expect at least a moderate IQ people working for FXOpen.
Why do you guys make me feel like I'm being treated like an idiot?

The PAMM Manager then with his one-liner reply said:

I have already explained to you how it works.

Subsequently, on the next server rollover, my PAMM account's daily gain was -100% which wasn't correct.
This also suggest that FXOpen is trying to play some sort of prank on me?

If I don't get this issue sorted out by this week, I'm going to file a lawsuit against FXOpen.


P.S They also remove my previous post in this forum related to this issue which suggest they're
trying to cover up something?

[FXOjafar]

Hi pppfund. I spoke to you on skype already.

P.S They also remove my previous post in this forum related to this issue which suggest they're
trying to cover up something?

It might have something to do with unfair accusations? We are not trying to cover anything up.

[PrimeEagleFunds]

I wish the search feature was easier, its hard to locate.