DF Markets take the prize off you!

Hello Forum,

What sort of a contest/company gives you a prize and then takes it off you after 3 months?

From the DF markets contest rules:

b) The funds will remain in the account for a duration of three (3) months and can be used for trading. Once the three month period ends, DF Markets will withdraw the funds from the client’s account (Winners can withdraw all profits made within those three months, but not the prize itself).

--------------------------------------------------

After three months you haven't won anything, unless you loose the prize money. It's a dangled carrot.

Hi.

Sorry. You're not going to appreciate this I know. But do you think brokers are charity organisations??? Just in case you're not sure: NO THEY ARE NOT!!!

MOST 'bucketshops' will offer you a bonus to ENCOURAGE YOU TO OVERTRADE!!! THIS bonus is NOTHING LIKE THAT!!! The terms and conditions are REAL clear i.e. 'go wild' on your demo account and if you win you get REAL money to trade with at NO cost to you!!! THEN: if you can DISCIPLINE YOURSELF and trade like a TRADER you can make money FROM money that you never had IN THE FIRST PLACE!!! What's more: you've got THREE MONTHS TO DO IT!!! I'd HARDLY call THAT 'encouragement to overtrade' your account. So??? At the end of three months you may end up with, say, only $150 or $200 or whatever. But it's cost you NOTHING and NO RISK AT ALL TO YOU in making that money??? What's the problem???

If you want a BETTER and more DETAILED explanation then see this link (of mine):

https://www.forexpeacearmy.com/forex-forum/company-comparisons-competitions/18970-bonus-programs-brokers-perspective.html

Regards,

Dale Paterson.

Hi Dale,

Thank you for shouting at me. I really appreciate that. I really do appreciate the FPA link though. I'll look at is soon.

You're right, they are not charities, but they are offering money! Hey, isn't that what a competition is? Anyone that opens a competition is giving something away for free or for an entry fee. Yes, giving something away! That means something to keep.

The problem is that you don't win $3,000. The company are retaining ownership of it. That is not a prize, it's a risk-free loan. A prize is something that's won by a contestant and the complete ownership of the prize moves from the competition organiser to the prize winner. It could be a holiday, car, money or other item.

The Olympic committee doesn't take the medals back after 3 months. If you win a car in a magazine competition, they don't take the car off you and say it was a test drive after 3 months. Prizes are not temporary, they are permanent, yours to keep or until used up. If you win $3,000 it is yours, not the company's to temporarily lend to you.
Okay, you get a risk-free account for 3 months, but if you do trade well, you don't actually win the money that's put in it. That's my point.

All the best,

Lee.

Dale, it's a prize, not a bonus.

I traded an introductory risk-free bouns with an ETX Capital spread betting account a while back and it did echo some of your FPA post concerns. It wasn't too bad though. They gave £500 risk-free for the first 10 days and it was required to take on 5 trades, I think, in that 10-day period. It didn't encourage over-trading to the extend you suggested others might. I'm sure they are out there and you're right, we need to be mindful of what we're getting into.

The ETX offer didn't cause me to over-trade, but it was a nice safety net.

Had I won a £500 competition prize, I would have expected to own that £500 and not given it back after the 10 days.

There is a difference between an introductory bonus and a prize. It may be semantics, but a prize is ownership.

Regards,

Lee.

yes agree with you Lee :)

but the thing that i dont know, how this winners or lasts contests make a high profit of 3000% and more without taking a margin call :D. they enter with big big lots and dont keep any attention to MM. any review !!!

what is the rule like max lots, max open trades??? i haven't found yet..and the contest is going to begin

Hello.

Let me start by my apologising to you Lee. Sorry for 'shouting' as you put it!!! LOL!!! Honestly??? Somebody else had just 'pis*ed on my battery' just before your message showed up in my InBox via Google Alerts and, well, unfairly and unprofessionally, I took it out on you!!! Sorry for that.

And yeh: I guess you DO have a point i.e. about it being a 'prize' not a 'bonus'. I never quite thought about it that way. That being said though: it's still a 'no nonsense' 'deal' (let's call it that then). I mean there are no 'hidden catches' as it were. As you may have noticed on my FPA thread: I'm trying my best to try to 'sanitise' this business and I cannot STAND IT when some of these unscrupulous brokers offer all manner of weird and wonderful 'lures' their ONLY intention being to get their hands on your money by 'dangling a carrot' that MAY result in a trader, especially a new trader, not 'seeing the wood for the trees' as it were and concentrate MORE on getting the BONUS than trading like a trader is supposed to trade (over trade their accounts). I've seen it happen. Too many times. So all I'm saying is that in THIS case that at least THIS 'deal' doesn't have an ulterior motive if that makes sense. Well: other than advertising of course but there's nothing wrong with that.

Just ONE piece of advice: there is NO doubt in my mind that in order to win the 'deal' you're going to be contending with people that are going to have the attitude of 'well: all or nothing'. In other words: you're going to find that just about EVERYBODY is going to go 'balls to the wall' on the demo. The TRICK IS: IF YOU WIN then DO NOT carry THAT 'strategy' over to the 'deal' account!!! That's for sure. And I think that answers your question too mohamed. That's EXACTLY what people do. Deltastock also runs demo contests and some of the gains made in a month are ASTRONOMICAL as a percentage of whatever starting capital was used to open the demo account. Put another way: if those same people were able to make those types of gains consistently then a) there wouldn't be an Investment Bank in the WORLD that would NOT be offering them a job at ANY salary they asked for and b) they probably wouldn't be trading in a demo contest ANYWAY if they were THAT good!!! LOL!!!

But I CAN assure you of ONE thing at least: DF Markets is ONE broker (of only a mere HANDFUL of brokers in the world) that you don't have to worry about insofar as integrity etc. is concerned. I'm not going to go into detail here as this is not MY 'parade'. But just trust me on this.

Anyway: GOOD LUCK to everyone anyway. Put it this way: GOOD LUCK on WINNING. But IF you win: then don't rely on LUCK to trade the 'deal' account!!! LOL!!!

Regards,

Dale Paterson.

What happens if you trade and lose the money before they take it back????

If I entered the competition... and I won... I'd blow the prize account in 24hrs flat, just to show how much I think the prize withdrawal concept sucks.

Winning a Forex contest is a steep job. Winners deserve a prize they can keep, and sponsors should honour the industry a little more (even if it's only to offset the superb-quality advertising, and qualified leads that the competitions bring them anyway...).

...just sayin'.

The rules are the rules for all players.

Dale, accepted, thank you. Extensive use of uppercase text in the world of online chat and BBS/forums is shouting and offensive.

The question about whether or not DFM take the prize off you even if you lose the prize is an interesting one. I wouldn't have thought that they would do that, but the rules do state that the prize will be withdrawn. A grey area that one. It might be worth checking with DFM.

I think one way to stop the 'All or nothing' approach in contests might be to announce the winner as the one that made the most PIPs, not growth in equity.

Someone can place 10 lots and get $10,000 even if their position only moved 100 PIPs for example. If the $10,000 was taken out of the equation, the trader will have made 100 PIPs on a single lot. The contest then becomes a contest of trading skill rather than who can risk the most. The 'All or nothing' approach is nullified.

Exactly, Lee!

Dale, it takes a humble gentlemen to say sorry in public. You are obviously such a person!

Frankly, I can see where both sides are coming from on this one...a prize is a prize, risk free money is risk free money. To be honest about it, if I could double the prize money in 3 months, I would gladly hand back the prize. But then, it's a prize...shouldn't I get to keep it?