Big Felix Rob, OANDA SCAMMERS

2008-02-26

Review:

I ‘m going to close my account with Oanda very soon. Days in fact. Just have to get around to it. The reason is simple, their quotes suck big time. If you think about it, the main purpose of your dealer is to provide up to date quotes and process these efficiently. Confirm your quotes and then place the order. None of this happens in the clients’ favour at Oanda. They deliberately hold back quotes for over a minute at times. They do not pass on fast market movements, instead, holding these so that you do not see them – hence trade them!!! Also, they say that they have STP – straight through processing. I would like to know where this occurs. You can place a market order and you will inevitably get slipped, and, the price you are quoted – end up with – bears no relationship with the screen price you see through the quotes feed. There is, to my mind a deliberate scheme by Oanda to misinform there clients regarding the actual prices quoted.There is another problem when dealing with Oanda, that only really becomes clear as you start to trade with them. They state that your maximum margin is 50:1. Is it? I think not. What really happens is that they divide your account balance by 2 and give you 100:1 margin on the balance. True 50:1 is actually that 50:1. So what we have here is your maximum investment ability is reduced by 50%. To effectively trade at the level you might like to, even at 50:1, you only have access to 50% of you funds, so you would have to double your account to trade at the level you might want to. Then there is the constant manipulation of the quotes. Either leading or lagging the market. Almost always one to two pips difference – not in your favour. Also, you will notice the regular increase in spreads when they see the market heating up. Again, not in the interests of their clients. What this menas in real time is that where they will advertise lowest quotes .9 pip spread for euro, the euro will end up costing you between 1.9 and 2.9 pips. I could go on. What is important for me to illustrate here is that Oanda has shown themselves in my opinion to be no different than that of any ordinary run of the mill Bucket Shop. I would urge you to proceed with caution when dealing with Oanda. Not a dealer with whom one should put serious money with. There are others who are manifestly better dealers and more up front with their quotes and feeds with relation to STP. E.G. Hotspotfx and MB Trading -although MB has some serious issues with their platform. Both demonstrate how STP should work. And, they confirm the quotes as they go through for processing!! Fucking try that Oanda.