PROBLEM UPDATE: trade executed correctly?

Zulutarde is claiming that my trade was actually left open by FxMarkets and there is no error on their part. The loosing trade is now in the preformance history as hitting the SL. When they agreed with me that the trade was left open and had been closed by FxMarkets it was a software glitch which blocked them from seeing open trades, but it was really still open on FxMarkets side aswell. And the closed trade we saw in FxMarkets history was a second trade open in the same minute but this was actualy closed with 16 pips profit.
After reading my email reply below which is within the email text of zulutrade, please let me know which version you believe. I have no solid proof and I might have to give up the fight but besides the $500 lost, I have bad feelings trusting them with my money if my assumptions are correct. Lets hope they are correct and I was unlucky.

Dear Zulutrade,

I will respond within your email on the points you mention and then afterwards I will continue my comments. Only 2 days ago you explained the problem being caused by timezones problem. How can it take over two weeks to realize there were "two trades" on the same minute and mine was the unlucky one?
Please read it all through.
thank you.

On Thu, Jan 22, 2009 at 10:41 AM, zulutrade support wrote:
Dear xxx,
Yes, we admitted we do have a problem and the same as you we though that the trade of 14:20 has already been closed.
However as it turned out later the problem was not in missing signals, but there was a glitch in our system due to which we could not see the open positions of a signal provider as mentioned in previous email. Neither our staff, nor the clients. That is why this confusion took place.

I am sorry but in my first mail I mentioned I checked the Excel sheet of
FxMarkets and saw the closed trade with the SAME provider ticket of 11.633... I also checked the dropdown and chose FxMarkets on the "positions" tab in my acount and I saw OTHER live trades but no trade opened on 31.12.08 14:20 so I did not suffer from a glitch and I saw clearly a live trade closed with the same provider ticket and other live trades not closed.

As we could not identify a problem at that time because it has never happened before, we assumed the same thing as you did because we saw the closed trade which has opened exactly at the same time as your trade did. However when our technical department started analyzing the issue together with FXCM (because they informed us that they will take responsibility if the signals were missed), we found out that none of the signals were missed and that FXmarkets sent two signals at the same time 14:20 (2:20 pm or 9:20 NY time). One has been closed at 16 pips profit, the other has closed when it hit the stop at -487 pips. Please check signal provider's history page more carefully. There are two trades executed at 14:20, not one. But because of the glitch in the system our staff could not know that at the time.

I dont know if there were always 2 trades from the same minute, but my trade was the one which closed correctly in profit since i have the same provider ticket... please check my email from whislt the trade was still open.

And it is not correct to say that fxmarkets has never let the trade to go
up to 271 pip profit.

I mentioned FxMarkets doesnt let the trade get to 271 in PROFIT, not in DD. When ever he had such high profits it was closed shortly later at the most 104 pips away. Ofcourse in DD he goes even further then 271, and even further then 487 pips and would have gone over 700 pips and not let the trade close in Loss.
He uses a trailing stop or something like that and wouldnt have let the trade reach such high profits and then go back again into minus.

Please check his history page. Sometimes he opens short term trades, sometimes he leaves the trade open for a week with a huge drawdown, but closes the trade in a big profit. He likes to place 2 trades at the same time,

FxMarkets is a responsible provider and doesnt leave a trade in 270 pips profit to go into minus again, He always takes profit much before reaching 270 pips anywayTrades which are opened together by FxMarkets are closed almost together, he just waits for a retracement.

so now we are aware of this and will be more careful when a person gets in contact with us claiming that his position has been closed by fxmarkets, but appears open in zulu from now on we always check the provider tickets of the trades instead of looking at the times of open trades

and that is exactly what i did, checked the provider tickets and not the time, and my ticket matched the closed trade

and will check the open positions of a signal provider with technical department in order to avoid such misunderstandings. If you know any person whose trade of fxmarket (31/12) did not close after 06/01let us know, because we did not have any complaints about that. Everybody have either closed their trades manually earlier thinking that the trade appearing in fxmarket's history is their trade and avoided further losses, in other accounts the trade has been closed by the stop value of a signal provider.
We appologize for inconveniences. In any case after analyzing everything carefully we do not see any reason for a refund as the trade has been executed correctly.
Kind Regards,
ZuluTrade.com
Customer Support
48 Wall Str.,New York NY 10005, 10th floor suite

So my dear zulutrade, lets sum it up:

• I saw FxMarkets other live trades when you say there was a software glitch which prevented checking open trades.
• I checked the provider ticket of closed trade in the excel (which has since been removed) and compared it to my provider ticket on the open trade FxMarkets is a responsible provider and doesnt leave a trade in 270 pips profit to go into minus again, he always takes profit beforehand anyway
• What a coincidence that just that trade which is mistakenly "thought" to be
  closed is one out two from 566 FxMarkets trades which are closed in loss, when this problem has no connection with it being a loosing tradeTrades which are opened together by FxMarkets are closed almost together, he just waits for a retracement.
• Only 2 days ago you explained the problem being caused by timezones problem. How can it take over two weeks to realize there were "two trades" on the same minute and mine was the unlucky one?
• Why have you removed the Provider ticket from the Excel sheet? It was very useful to identify a trade.

I therefore feel something is missing in this issue which doesnt let me understand your reasoning.

Thanking you in advance I am awaiting your feedback.
kind regards
xxx

PROBLEM UPDATE: a bombshell

This is a suprise to say the least. They are claiming now the providers trade also got stopped out and was never closed in profit. I am 100% sure this is not the case. (I apolgise the trades data in zulutrades email is not very clear. in my email it was in a table)

Dear xxx,
Your request for a refund has not been confirmed. In signal provider's account the trade has been closed by stop:

LIVE2008/12/31 14:20SELLGBP/JPY132.849 2009/01/06 09:06137.715
271-487-72-487.0 pips-$5,267.66
In your account:
FxMarkets 12/31/2008 09:20 SELL1GBP/JPY132.8012009/01/06 08:32137.715264-491-491.0 pips-$526.47

Signal provider GBP/JPY FxMarkets 12/31/2008 2:20:25 PM 1/6/2009
9:06:03 AM 132.849 137.715 Stop Hit
User GBP/JPY FxMarkets 12/31/2008 9:20:19
AM 1/6/2009 8:32:03 AM 132.801 137.715 Stop Hit

The trade has been closed by the stop of a signal provider in your account as well and we do not find any technical issues. Your signal provider has sent 2 signals at the same time 14:20 UTC (2:20pm UTC or 9:20am NY time that you see on your broker's report), you can see both of these trades in the history of signal provider and the provider tickets for the trades match 11.633662864032423648, so the trade has been executed correctly. The closing time differs as the broker is more accurate in price flactuations and closes positions more precisely than we close in signal provider's account (as he is not linked with the broker).

The problem that we were experiencing at that time is that we could not see open positions of signal provider from live accounts and we had some time zones problems (the opening time of the trade in your account has been taken from FXCM when we normally use UTC time). However it is fixed now. The closing reason we see on our system is STOP HIT for both - your and signal provider's trades. As we see now FX markets is putting unreasonably high stops in order his trades not to close when the stop is hit and he leaves the trades open for few days and eventually closes them in profit, but with a big DD.

In any case we do not see a technical problem or missed signals in your case.
If there are any further questions do not hesitate to contact us again.
Regards,

this is what I replied.

Dear Zulutrade,

I am shocked. Clearly your records have been manipulated.

I saw on the trades of the signal provider on the web, I saw in the Excel sheet of his trades, Rasa from zulutrade chat agreed, you agreed in your first emails that the trade was closed in profit. 16 pips to be exact. You agreed you have to investigate why my trade, and others, were not closed together with the signal provider, you even added the provider has so many users.

Friends in the blog sphere have also mentioned either their trade in the demo was not closed and one guy closed it manually after realizing the providers trade was closed already. Never ever has FxMarkets allowed a trade to reach 270 pips in profit or even close it to it. It does not make sense, and after seeing earlier different records I just don't believe it.

Could you please give me a phone number of the person responsible who also knows about the trade and the problem.

thank you

My dear Bloggers, perhaps I will need your help...

Is there by any chance anyone whos trade closed succesfully with a couple of PIPs profit?

PROBLEM UPDATE: time zone problem?

After dragging on and on I decided yesterday to write zulutrade an email.

Dear Zulutrade Team,

It is now over two weeks since I filed for a refund and over three weeks since the problem occured. You also know about the problem from other clients. I think it is time you finish your investigation and refund my account as soon as possible. At least, plese give me some feedback about the status of the investigation and/or when we can expect the final result.

I would love to give customer care five points but this is dragging on too long... Looking forward to your feedback

kind regards
xxx

and 2 hours later came their reply:

Dear Sir,

The investigation is taking time as your trade has been executed correctly, just shows the different time of the trade open as we have experienced the time zone issue. It says that your trade has opened at 9:20, but has the same broker ticket and provider ticket with the trade 14:20 in signal provider's account. The one that had closed in -490 pips loss. That means that the trade has been executed correctly and closed because of the stop of a signal provider. 9:20 has been taken from FXCM, when normally we do not do that and put the UTC time. This time there had been a problem which has caused the confusion even if the trade has been executed correctly. So we are waiting for the decision from our managment.

Regards,

I dont get it what the timezone problem might influence it, but in any case it doesnt sound like my error but rather zulutrades software glitch

PROBLEM update: zulutrade will investigate refund

Yesterday zulutrade did answer my email by promising to investigate why the trade was not closed and if I deserve a refund. Below the two emails.

Dear xxx,
In your case we have received a closing signal for a trade and sent it to the broker, however we did not receive any reply. But when thousands of closing signals are sent to the broker at the same time (fx markets has a lot of users), some signals may slip. This maight have happened for many reasons.
Our technical team is currently working on clearing out what has happened in order to minimise a probability of such cases happening in the system in the future.
In any case you should be aware of this problem (which is very rare, but still plausible) and check your account.
If there are any further questions please do not hesitate to contact us again.
Regards,

Dear Sir,
Your request for a refund has been placed. As soon as technical department will clear out the resons of this problem we will get back to you.
Regards,

PROBLEM update: Trade stopped out

The open trade which failed to close whe the provider FxMarkets closed his trade on 31.12.08, finally hit the StopLoss. That costs 526 USD... I should have closed it with a smaller loass but I couldnt make the desision, I am no trader and that is the excact reason why I am here at zulutrade, not to have to decide when to open and close the trades.

This morning I received the first reply from zulutrade telling me I should close the trade manuall and they will investigate. By the time I logged into my accout the trade was closed. Below is my reply to zulutrade. I also changed my settings to allow only one live trade at a time since my equity is something around 700 USD.

Hello,

I have just logged into my account and have seen that the trade has been stopped out by the SL.

Rasa has told me on chat that I should request a refund since as far as I can see it was a technical problem on zulutrades part why this trade was not closed together with the providers. The providers ticket is 11.6336628640324.

Needless to say I didnt change anything with the trade, SL and TP as I didnt even log onto my account and didnt know about the trade until the weekend. In the end the trade was stopped out by the original SL from provider. I lost in USD -526.47 including -2.40 for rollover. This is besides all the trades I could not trade during the seven days this trade was left open.

I sent my first mail on Sunday and am really upset it took two days to receive a reply on such an issue involving a live trade. Thank you for your feedback.

kind regards
xxx

On Tue, Jan 6, 2009 at 8:51 AM, <support@zulutrade.com> wrote:

Dear Sir,
The trade it appears still open and therefore we advise you to close it manually the soonest possible,in order to minimize your losses.
The case has been investigated by our technical departement. Please contact with us by e-mail/chat for any more questions/remarks. Kind
regards

PROBLEM update: zulutrade agrees

below a transcript of the chat I had this morning with zulutrade

Rasa: Hello
Rasa: How may I help you?
Me: Hello. I have a serious problem with a live trade
Me: I sent yesterday an email but got no reply yet.
Me: the providers trade got closed but mine is still open
Rasa: what is your account's number?
Me: xxx
Rasa: yes, there was a problem with FX market's trade.
Rasa: did you tryt o close it manually?
Me: didnt try. didnt touch the trade. didnt see the trade until sunday
Rasa: would you want to close the trade for you?
Me: in minus??????
Rasa: or you can wait while the trade will go up
Rasa: and close it manually
Me: this is not my problem, am i not garanteed that my trades are closed properly?
Rasa: Our technical department are working on fixing the problem
Me: thanks. and what will be done with the trade?
Rasa: if you wish we can close it now, or you can wait and close it later if you think that trade may go up
Rasa: however if you will close it in loss, you have the right to place a request for a refund
Rasa: after our technicians will investigate the reason why this happened and if it is entirely our fault you will be refunded
Me: thank you. It seems a technical glitch in your software and I should be credited for the loss. where should i place this request? and what about all the missed trades ;-)
Rasa: just send us an email to support@zulutrade.com with all the details of the trade
Me: thank you
Me: I would like to leave the trade a bit and hope it will go into profit. if i am mistaken will i still be credited the whole amount? or will you say I should have closed it once you conformed me it is a problem
Rasa: Just close when you close it and responsible people will decide what amount should be refunded
Me: that is not a very clear answer ;-) Please ask the responsible people since I would like it refunded should i close it now or let it run a bit?
Rasa: close it whenever you want. If you think the trade will start winning you can leave it flowting, but if you are afraid to loose more, just close it now
Me: thank you. I have sent a email. when do you think I will get an answer?
Rasa: An answer you will receive by tomorrow. But not a confirmation of a refund yet. Because we have to investigate the reasons.

PROBLEM: my trade is open, providers trade is closed

I have discovered a serious problem. One of my current open trades should be closed. Please read the email I sent just now to zulutrade and I will update as soon as I get a response and the problem is solved.

I am also posting here a print screen of the trade. I see here the Provider Ticket whch proves that this trade is the same trade which is closed on the Providers balance. (I dont really understand all the information since the highest profit was before the trade was opened! once my critical problems are solved I might take them up on this.)

Hello,

It seems I have a problem. I checked my live account, xxx, and see two open trades. One is from signal provider FxMarkets, opened on 31.12.08 at 14:20. It is now -102.5 pips in minus. I checked the trades of FxMarkets and see that it has currently no open trades. This trade is already closed 3 minutes after open with 16 pips profit. The provider ticket (in the downloaded excel sheet) is the same as mine (detailed trade history): 11.6336628640324, so we are talking about the same trade. How comes my trade was not closed????? I didnt think such a thing could happen and therefore don't even check my trades during the week. ...and all the trades I missed out on....

I am really worried about it, dont know what went wrong and would like this solved as soon as possible.

Needless to say I didnt change anything with the trade, SL and TP as I didnt even log onto my account and didnt know about the trade.

Many thanks for your support

kind regards
xxx