Plus 500 User Reviews, Opinions and Ratings

Posted: 22-May-2013

15 comments

1 Gold_Gordon { 05.22.13 at 6:00 pm }

Editor's comment: we have now added Plus 500 prices – http://www.cleanfinancial.com/plus_500.php#plus50… – readers should note that these are often based on futures markets so if you normally trade daily markets and see an unexpected price, don't be too alarmed (or excited). Double check what the expiry date of the market is / what the price is based on first.

2 @adamjepsen { 05.29.13 at 5:52 pm }

Editor's comment: Plus500 really need a customer services phone number. It's conspicuous by its absence…

3 Jenna Cutly { 05.30.13 at 11:41 am }

Editor's comment: Whilst I've not been that impressed with some elements of Plus500 I must admit they are one of the first to offer a CFD market on Bitcoin, for more details on Bitcoin trading see http://www.cleanfinancial.com/spread_betting_on_b….

4 @Gold_Gordon { 07.02.13 at 2:10 pm }

Editor's comment: I agree that you need a customer support phone number but it's interesting to see that the company made a pre-tax profit of $23m for the year to December 31, 2012. And that they plan to float on the LSE for $225m (£148m), there's more on http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/b…

One would hope that Plus500 had quite a few (satisfied) repeat customers for those numbers.

5 dennis { 11.30.13 at 4:24 pm }

Yes they do take your profits be very careful when dealing with plus500,MAKE SURE YOU READ THEIR PRODUCT DISCLOSURE AGREEMENT BEFORE YOU TRADE WITH PLUS500.

I say this because any person who has a reasonable amount of intelligence, will automatically read that they will be dealing with a company that wants it all their way, they basically have or think they have their product disclosure written up in a way that prevents you the client from taking any type of action against them, whilst at the same time take no responsibility for anything they decide they want to do, this includes taking or keeping your money.

Once you read the product disclosure form and tick the box its a formal legally binding contract with you the client, so they say I am about to prove them wrong..
But as I mention above if you were to read and were not to much in hurry to tick the box,like i was, like we all do these days with our mobile phone and other applications we sign up with on the net,you would never even consider getting involved with these thieves.

In my case I was allowed to open my account and made several deposits and they were happy to take my money,then there was a period where I was up and tried to withdraw the amount of $5000.00
Which is the amount I started with, but instead of being able to withdraw the money, an additional
$5000.00 was deposited in to my account.

So I was left with a fair amount of cash in my account and said to my self why not keep trading, so I did, I took out a number of positions and ended up having margin calls made on my positions, so I tried to make my margin call payments to keep my positions open, but they would not accept my payments at all this time.
This is despite Plus500 continuously sending me margin call emails and phone text messages, but at each attempt they blocked my account and prevented me from making the margin call deposits.
If I was able to make my my margin call deposits I would have ended up with a handsome profit.

I had contacted Plus500 who at the time I thought were a reputable company and was informed that the reason they would not allow me to make the deposits was because I had not provided them with the remainder on my ID requirements in order to comply with anti money laundering laws and raisng money for terrorism laws, which I told them I was happy to provide.
The problem was that this whole process could take up to 3 days, 3 days is a lifetime in this type of trading it certainly would very rarely make you but would definitely break you as it did to me.

I had sent numerous emails to Plus500 and at first, but they kept on saying that they need to refer this matter to a senior advisor, and there senior advisers kept coming up with different excuses, until I received my final answer and this was that I had ticked the box and agreed to comply to their product disclosure agreement,which said they can suspend your account when ever they want, and in my case it was because I had not sent in the rest of my ID requirements and hey were accusing me of money laundering, I used my CC so I do not know why they would think I was laundering money, and they ended up with my money, and they can do what ever they want when ever they want this means stealing your money, and as I said to them even if I was a money launderer which I am not, and at times agreed to send the rest of my ID requirements, so who is the money launderer if they kept my funds.

Be very careful with Plus500 they make their own rules and their rules are only of any benefit to Plus500
And the fact that they are all over the net promoting them selfs as honest operators is suspicious
Be careful

Dennis Baz
Dennis Baz

6 @spread_bettor { 12.02.13 at 3:12 pm }

Hi Dennis

Thanks for the feedback on Plus500. On the one hand we can see reports showing a lot of trades going through their site, and therefore we assume they have a lot of satisfied customers.

However, I still don’t like the fact that you cannot call them.

With regards to Money Laundering regulations, having worked in a regulated firm I can confirm that they are an utter pain for the companies that have to apply them. There are nasty fines for both the companies and employees who don’t follow them.

As a retail investor (consumer), I can confirm that they are frustrating and sometimes it can feel like a company is hiding behind the regulations.

If you’d like to take your complaint further then see our article, How to Complain About Your Spread Betting Company – http://www.cleanfinancial.com/financial_spread_be…

Note that this guide is aimed at UK users. It looks like you are based in Australia, so try following Steps 1 and 2 but for Step 3, I believe your Financial Ombudsman is http://www.fos.org.au/.

Let us know how you get on.

Jenna
Editor

7 Phil { 02.03.15 at 10:32 am }

You should be nowhere near margin call and have your stop in way before then, then there is no margin call. You are playing with fire if you do this.

8 @Gold_Gordon { 12.17.13 at 5:04 pm }

Editors comment: It is interesting to see that Plus500 are now offering Litecoin as well as a Bitcoin market. This is at a time when Spreadex and IG have stopped/suspended their Bitcoin markets.

Having said that, the Bitcoin CFD market on Plus500 is quite restrictive for traders and, so whilst I havent fully investigated their Litecoin options yet, I imagine its also fairly limited and possibly just a PR exercise.

For more on Bitcoin and Litecoin see Litecoin Trading Guide.

9 @spread_bettor { 12.17.13 at 5:15 pm }

Editors comment: Gordon – I hope you're wrong about Litecoin being a PR stunt. It would be nice to see a few new markets.

10 @spread_bettor { 02.19.14 at 1:25 pm }

Editor's comment: The drinks are on Plus500. The firm has almost tripled last year's pre-tax profits of $23.1m to $67.2m.

Yearly revenues have risen from $56.1m to $115.1m. Shares are trading up 21% on the news.

So congrats to Plus500 (and we hope you invest some of the money in a customer service phone line).

11 Akash { 04.19.15 at 11:46 pm }

Is the expiry date of an instrument decided by the trading platform that I am using or is it same for all trading platforms (i.e. it is decided by some common trading authority like FSA ?) I had bought an instrument which is now closed because it expired on Saturday 18th, otherwise I would have made good profit. I did not notice what expiry date was when I bough this contract. So I just wanted to know if my trading platform is playing something foul here. Is there a way I can verify it had indeed expired.

12 Clean Financial { 04.20.15 at 10:30 am }

Hi Akash

There are a number of things to note here.

1) Settlement dates should always be listed in the company's market information sheets e.g. for Financial Spreads http://www.financialspreads.com/public/info_sprea… and GFT http://www.gftuk.com/Range-of-Markets/Market-Info…
2) Settlements often, but not always, correlate to an underlying exchange E.g. GFT's UK 100 Index Futures market is based on the “FTSE 100 Index™ Futures” market as per the “Underlying's last trade date at 10:00 London Time” (Official ICE settlement price)
3) A Saturday settlement is unusual. Settlement dates are normally on business days. With a futures market you'd normally quote the settlement price as per the underlying market e.g. the Financial Spreads US Crude Oil Futures market settles as per 'Official Nymex Settlement'. It is tricky to settle a market based on an official price if the official market is closed. Unless you take the last traded price of the market on the Friday

13 Clean Financial { 04.20.15 at 10:30 am }

Sorry, part of your question seems strange – you wrote the following on a Sunday.

"I had bought an instrument which is now closed because it expired on Saturday 18th, otherwise I would have made good profit."

I assume Plus500 had to close the market at the official closing price of the underlying market (which would have closed on Friday 17).

If you're already in profit, then you should be OK.

It sounds like your trade was closed at a loss.

If you like your trade then you could open up a new trade on Monday, i.e. when the markets open again.

Yes your previous loss is realised.

But, if you are buying then it sounds like you're buying a new trade below the level of your original trade (if that makes sense?). And you will make up for that loss 'IF' you are right with your new trade.

Yes, you end up paying the cost of the spread twice but that's small cost if you're sure the market is going the right way.

14 Clean Financial { 04.20.15 at 10:30 am }

and…. following on:

4) The closing date should also be listed on the trade ticket when you made the trade (but you might have to hover over an info icon to get the date – so that's not always clear)
5) Firms often warn you if your futures trades are about to expire and give you the chance to roll them over into the next period. I'm not sure if this warning is an FCA requirement. If it is, and you weren't warned, you may have grounds for complaint.

15 Clean Financial { 04.20.15 at 10:30 am }

Making a Complaint

If you think they shouldn't have closed your trade and have complained to Customer Support (and Customer Support aren't helping), then the next step is to contact the Plus500 Compliance Dept e.g. see “how to make a complaint” – this is written about spread betting but covers CFDs – http://www.cleanfinancial.com/financial_spread_be…

Hope the above helps. (and I still don't get settling a market on a Saturday unless it's a market that trades over the weekend – e.g. Bitcoin).

Let us know how you get on.

Good luck

Jake

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