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Open E-Cry - Gone Quiet?

Posted: Wed Jan 10, 2007 11:38 pm
by Roscoe
Are these guys still operating? After piles of promotional mailings from them I have been trying to open an account since Tuesday January the 2nd. The on-line application went just fine - I got to the "Signing Complete" page, faxed off my ID details as instructed and nothing more happened - I was supposed to get an e-mail with copies of the 12 forms "within hours". I e-mailed Rick and Daniel privately (several times each by now over several days) and I can't get a reply out of either of them nor can I get anything from their support people - it has been 28 hours since I lodged a support case (#00001685 - automated reply only) with them which raises the question in my mind "have they gone down?". I really hope not - their trading platform is the best that I have seen bar none and their current offer on rates (which lapsed on the 7th) was excellent as are their margin requirements.

FWIW they have just started sending me their pdf market reports but that is probably done by an automated system however it does indicate that my application must have triggered it to start sending them. Mysterious. Maybe it is my choice of deodorant...

Posted: Thu Jan 11, 2007 8:54 am
by LeapFrog
Roscoe, I trade with them every day - as of a moment ago they are still in business. I'm sorry to hear of your experience with them so far though. On your behalf I have emailed both Rick and Daniel to see what the problem is. PM me if I can help you further. - Leapfrog.

Posted: Thu Jan 11, 2007 2:08 pm
by Roscoe
Rick called me last night (at 1:00am - dam time zones) to confirm that my account had indeed been setup for some time but for whatever reason I have not been getting their e-mails of confirmation, etc. I do my own spam filtering and Openecry is whitelisted (I just checked and there is nothing in the filtering that would cause any issues) and just now I received a message from Daniel so the lack of e-mails remains a mystery at this point, however I will be discussing it with my ISP later in the day.

Posted: Thu Feb 01, 2007 5:35 pm
by Roscoe
Just an update - I still haven't managed to actually open an account with Open E-Cry and in fact I have just instructed Daniel and Rick to forget about it and return my money forthwith. The last straw was a message this morning requiring my wife to sign a form because the bank account that I transferred funds from is in both our names. The only reason the I used that particular account was because OEC would not accept funds from my preferred currency exchange service www.xe.com (I prefer them because their rates are much better than my bank's).

Is all this bureaucratic obstruction of trade purely an OEC 'feature' or is it more of the misguided efforts of Homeland Security? Whatever it is it is sure to drive new customers away - I will continue to use my current broker and look for another one, but they will probably not be in the US if the latter is the case.

Posted: Wed Apr 11, 2007 4:11 pm
by Roscoe
This is a final follow-up in response to a few PM's that I have received on the subject of opening accounts with OEC - seems that I am not the only one having problems with them.

The whole OEC thing still has me confused - it seemed like everything that could go wrong did go wrong. They never advised me that the account had been approved, I never even got the copies of the 12 forms back - lots of missed communications from their end. I finally transferred a small amount of money to activate the account and that got rejected, I think by the US money laundering bs because the account names were not exactly identical - it took over 2 weeks to get my money back here and then a large chunk had been taken out in 'fees' which Rick will not refund because it is somehow my fault. This whole process from go to whoa took about 7 weeks and all I have to show for it is a little bit less cash than when I started and a lot of unanswered e-mails.

This all flies in the face of what I thought I knew about OEC - their order platform looks excellent and I have been talking to Rick off and on for a few years now - I thought that he was a really great guy, but that was before I opened an account. Live and learn I guess.

Summary: should be great but has problems. "Too big too soon" would explain some of them, but their service in terms of response to repeated questions (example: "has my account been approved yet?") during the account opening process was very poor.

Posted: Wed Apr 11, 2007 4:22 pm
by RedRock
scary :twisted: