Turned on my computer yesterday morning (3/19) to find my email inbox full of emails from C2 including the correct number of âLatest trade signalsâ and thousands of âAuto stop lossâ notices. I currently trade signals from three vendors and all of these messages pertained to one vendor. My trading is FOREX and my account is set to trade 22 minilots per signal. Looking at my autotrade screen, autosync was enabled and all looked well. A check of the open positions screen showed the same order pairs as my âlatest trade signalsâ emails: SELL 22 CHF/JPY, SELL 22 EUR/JPY, SELL 22 GBP/JPY. The limit and stop listings were a bit different: BUY 22 CHF/JPY, BUY 30 EUR/JPY, BUY 30 GBP/JPY. A check of my OEC brokerage account confirmed the above.
In checking the prices of the pairs mentioned above, I had a little time to decide on how to handle this. I am aware that there is no phone number to call to report problems to C2 and a quick search for âcontact Collective 2â on Google revealed âbug reportsâ at the address that follows. My first email to C2 at productdevelopment@collective2.com was sent at 7:42 CDT telling them about the great number of emails and the difference in the number of pairs that were sold, and those that were to be bought, and that this needs to be fixed. My decision was to wait until I heard from C2âsurely this would be taken care of quickly. In the meantime, I called my broker and asked if they could change the numbers in the buy orders. They told me that only C2 could do that. I looked for more information on C2 as to what to do in a situation like this, and didnât find any. I contacted the signal vendor and asked if anyone else had reported a similar problemâhe said âno.â
The market moved a bit more and the buy orders were executed. I now had 8 minilots each of EUR/JPY and GBP/JPY. Not sure but think I manually, through the broker sold these for a combined loss of $148.67 + C2 fees. At about the same time, the vendor decided to reverse his position. Manually placing an order, as I found out, stops autosync, and orders are not automatically placed. I restored autosync after looking at the buy orders in the new email of âlatest trade signalsâ and now was long 22 CHF/JPY,22 EUR/JPY, 22 GBP/JPY BUT: the limit and stops were for 22 CHF/JPY, 30 EUR/JPY, AND 30 GBP/JPY. Decided to try to change these sell numbers myself at my brokerage website. Could change the numbers but they would not be accepted.
The market was moving the right way, so I tried to delete the sell orders on the broker website. This could be done but they would soon reappear. The only way to stop this was to manually enter the orders (at the broker website) which turns off autosync. This was fine but what if one of my other vendors issued trade orders or the current vendor changed his order?
Hadnât heard from C2 so sent off another email at 12:01 CDT asking if the problem was resolved. Every few minutes, Iâd refresh the signal vendorâs information to be sure he had issued no changes. Waited for more than 2 more hours and decided to send an email to info@collective2.com at 14:25 CDT telling them that maybe Iâd sent the preceding emails to the wrong address and asking them to look into the problem. Received an automatic reply with my case number 11585, stating âWe are going to answer your question FAST. But waitâ¦â How trueâ¦. Included in this document was a link for reporting a PRICE fill problem but nothing about the NUMBER of lots. Thought that now I had the right people contacted, surely Iâd be hearing from them soonâ¦â¦…
Waited until 5:36 CDT, then sent the following: âI have just enabled autotrade againâ (meaning autosync) âand the same thing is happeningâit sends sell orders to my broker for 30 minilots even though I have only 22 minilots.â âIt isnât working and this is the fourth email Iâve sent.â âI have received only one automatic reply, telling me that my problem will be handled quickly.â âCan someone please tell me what is happening??â
⦅Evidently notâ¦.
I kept watching the vendorâs signal for changes for a couple of more hours and finally sold out for a small profit. This morning, I notice the trade is still open and the value is at least four times what I sold out for.
MY email trash shows I deleted 3034 emails yesterday (about 10 that werenât from C2) and when I left the C2 website last night autosync was off and it still shows off this morningâ¦.BUTâ¦.I have autotraded with one of my other vendors this morning (everything looks ok) ANDâ¦at 9:12 A.M., more than 24 hours after my first request for assistance, I still have received no reply from the C2 help team.
I DO have some contingency suggestions that might apply to situations where the C2 system may have been compromised but will withhold these until I find if anyone there is conscious.
Hello Bill,
I see that MK has informed you that he’s examining the logs right now. I have let him know your latest message as well. Please hang tight.
Alen
help@collective2.com
Hi, Bill:
There are 3 different issues you raise.
1) Incorrect order quantities.
You suggest the quantities placed for your automatic stop loss orders are incorrect. I have carefully examined your logs and as far as I can see, I do not see this.
The order quantities placed for automatic stop loss seem to match your relevant position size. (Example: You had a position for 220,000 EURJPY, the system placed its own stop loss for 20,000 of this, so C2 placed an additional 200,000 stop loss.)
Perhaps the best thing to do regarding this is to email me a screen shot showing me the very specific details supporting why you think things are incorrect. For example, if you think that your brokerage account is showing an order with a wrong size, please show me the broker screen with the specific order you think is wrong, and why you think so. If taking a screen picture is not easy or convenient, plain old text will do, but please document the text with as many specific details as possible (your broker order id, for example, and the details of the order including symbol, size, stop price, etc.)
But as of this moment, I simply do not see incorrect order quantities in your account. That’s not to say you’re wrong; I’ve certainly made mistakes before, but I just can’t find the one you are referring to. Hopefully, more details will help us discover the source of either an error or a misunderstanding. Sometimes what happens in cases like this is that the broker’s trading application can be a bit inscrutable or hard to read. Again, it’s possible I’m wrong, but I just don’t see it at this time.
2) You have received many many emails regarding automated stop losses.
Yes, this one was a bug. We kept sending the emails repeatedly in cases where a forex automated stop loss needed to be adjusted due to an already-in-place system stop loss. This has been corrected. I apologize for the flood of emails.
3) You did not receive a timely response to your inquiry.
Not much I can say here other than sorry. The reality is that we don’t run a 24-hour customer service operation. We’d like to be able to do that someday, but it’s not currently economical to do so. That’s why, when people turn on autotrading, we very carefully show them how to turn it off by themselves, in case they ever feel uncertain or uncomfortable. Again, as far as I can see, I don’t see any problems in your account; but of course it’s possible I am missing something important, or am misunderstanding you. So please send me a private email with the specifics as described above, and I’ll look into it personally.
My email is matthew @ collective2.com
Matthew
I see that C2 very cleverly transmogrified my email address at the bottom of my previous post, and turned into a clickable web link (unfortunately no emails sent to the transformed email address will arrive). My actual email address is matthew-AT-collective2 dot com
I will add that what Matthew said also applies to all broker issues – always take screenshots (on Windows the PrintScreen button will capture the screen to your clipboard, while Alt-PrintScreen captures just the current foreground window – you can then paste it into mspaint or outlook). It both increases your credibility (nobody can say “you must have read it wrong”) and also makes it very clear what the issue is (if you are decent with mspaint you can add arrows and captions to the image to explain the issue).
I’ve used this before with brokers and it’s very helpful – it makes it very clear to the support rep what you’re talking about. It’s also proof if the broker is not completely honest. Not that we know any brokers like that MF Global…
Regards,
Dave
