Forex Robot World Cup - A Scam?

I've been browsing through the FRWC website recently (search in google, I don't want to get banned 😄) and I'm really surprised people fall for their con.

Before you start throwing things at me, please let me explain.

First of all, I wanted to know who's behind the website but to no avail. It appears they're the same guys who run fapturbo - I've checked the whois information, they're both registered under the same proxy registrations. I know it's not much but what are the odds? If that is not enough, checking the server's ip's, it's clearly they're both hosted in the same datacenter.

Secondly, their terms for the contest are ridiculous; you know the saying: 'always read the fine print!'? Well, it's definitely important in this case. Some of their terms are:

- Should the entrant of a submitted EA be announced as a winner of any prize category, said entrant (as the acknowledged owner), hereby agrees to unconditionally grant to the FRWC organization sole, exclusive rights to market the EA as it sees fit and for its own exclusive benefit for a period of 6 (six) months from the end of the competition - this is deemed to be 14 days from the end of the live trading phase.

- At the end of the 6 month exclusivity period, the FRWC organization shall acquire the non-exclusive rights to market the EA for its own benefit in perpetuity. With the commencement of the non-exclusive period, the owner shall thereafter be free to do with the EA as they wish (sell it, market it, license it), save that the owner may not sell or dispose of any rights to the EA if such sale or disposal would infringe, in any way, upon the rights previously granted to the FRWC organization - for example, the entrant of a winning EA could provide marketing rights to a third party on condition that such provision would not restrict the FRWC organization from continuing to commercialize the EA.

- Any improvements to a winning EA at any time after entry into the competition shall be included within the scope of the marketing rights granted to the FRWC organization.

Now in plain English:

- If you're EA wins, you have no rights over it for 6 months.
- You cannot sell your own EA as it is FRWC's property.
- Any improvements you make should be given for free to FRWC.

They do promise to give away $150,000, but where can I see they really pay it? As far as I know they could be 'paying' to one of their own employees so actually they don't spend a cent. The invoice shown in the end of the video of the winner just looks like they printed it and doesn't prove anything.

Another thing is how do you know they're really running the EA's? They might be hiding the real results to themselves. I think they should have a third party verification to ensure their interests.

And how do they have FXCM and Boston Technologies as sponsors? what do they exactly have to gain that's worth giving away $150,000? This is another reason which raises a red flag.

I know I have too much of free time on my hands, but I took it to another level and tried to google all of their so called 'winners' - to my surprise they're not existing or they don't look anything close to the images shown on FRWC's website.

Has anyone spoken with FXCM to see what they have to say about it?

Very interesting!

I was really wondering about those guys - they're being advertised almost everywhere though look very suspicious.

Has anyone here sent their EA to them?

The user 'akukaya' at Forex Factory apparently did. His robot made 1 order during the 2 months competition period, and gained an immense $2.06; transferring the balance from $1000.00 to a whopping $1002.06. In the end, his robot was the 10th best and he say he won $1000. LOL 😁

Source: https://www.forexfactory.com/showthread.php?t=202146

Yonex posted:
    The user 'akukaya' at Forex Factory apparently did. His robot made 1 order during the 2 months competition period, and gained an immense $2.06; transferring the balance from $1000.00 to a whopping $1002.06. In the end, his robot was the 10th best and he say he won $1000. LOL 😁

Source: https://www.forexfactory.com/showthread.php?t=202146

😁 now they're gonna sell his holy grail for only $99.90.

it's just like the fapturbo scheme - no one makes money out of it except the affiliates and the creators.

the whole concept of the frwc is like a pyramid scheme - they're gonna sell the 'top ea's in the world' for $1k, while paying 50% as an affiliate fee! judging by the fee you can definitely assume it's just a scam,

'holy grail', HAHAHA 😁

Takes a long time to make a good EA. Just hand it over? Not a chance...

Wouldn't submit a winning EA even if they paid thousands to submit it and did NOT include those terms. Anyone who's got a winning EA would be insane to release it to anyone, let alone an outfit that could simply be trying to scam people out of their code!

How about they pay us the $100,000 price money up front and then we'll give them rights to trade a single copy of our EA. But they can't have any marketing rights.

tbuitendyk posted:
    Wouldn't submit a winning EA even if they paid thousands to submit it and did NOT include those terms. Anyone who's got a winning EA would be insane to release it to anyone, let alone an outfit that could simply be trying to scam people out of their code!

How about they pay us the $100,000 price money up front and then we'll give them rights to trade a single copy of our EA. But they can't have any marketing rights.

I agree 1000% - Brokers only want to see winning code to program against it. The mice dont tell the cat how to set the trap.

Fulltime247 posted:
    
I agree 1000% - Brokers only want to see winning code to program against it. The mice dont tell the cat how to set the trap.

is it even possible? wouldn't they better use the ea to make money rather to try and block it? and if the ea can really make money while still following their terms (scalping), how would they then go and stop it from making money?

biz0101 posted:
    

Fulltime247 posted:
    
I agree 1000% - Brokers only want to see winning code to program against it. The mice dont tell the cat how to set the trap.

is it even possible? wouldn't they better use the ea to make money rather to try and block it? and if the ea can really make money while still following their terms (scalping), how would they then go and stop it from making money?

Most brokers dont like winners. Example: when FAPTurbo and other Asian scalpers started killing them they discovered that the defense was to widen spreads during the Asian session. Now thats broker standard practice. - ECN brokers dont care (very few of those) but most brokers are market makers and will fight against any EA that costs them money. Thats why they hold contests so programmers will freely hand over code and they can study a variety of approaches at once.

Dont fool yourself. These EA's will work for a while but you'll start to hear users on market makers complain after a few months that they're not as effective as they used to be. That's broker defense not 'changing market conditions'.

yes, i see your point, but let's imagine for a second an ea works well, while making long-term trades.

theoretically speaking, there isn't a way a broker could somehow decrease it's effectiveness, right?

Depends on the broker. Long term trades are the safest for broker and trader alike since they give Market Makers a chance to hedge their risk and spread isnt likely to be an issue. Only the worst scam shops will refuse to pay or reverse long-term trades.

I don't think the widening of spread during asian sessions has been created to stop FapTurbo. It's FapTurbo (and the flock of Asian Session scalpers) that created the widening of spread. Otherwise the 'big and nearly honest' ECN brokers wouldn't have nearly the same spread. This is clearly showed by the increase of volatility of the asian session.

(for biz0101) If you think that your broker is stealing from you you should change your broker, or go to a bigger ECN. With 2-3k$ you can open an accoun on a big-enough ECN broker. Smaller buket-shop brokers are truly the foolgold for the fools, Good only for those that think that 'Make 1,000,000$ from 1,000$ in a month, without risk and without hassle' is something that can be true. And yes, they can ruin your trades... There is always the REQUOTE land :-)

Market makers widened the spread to combat the EA's on top of the fact that they widened due to the sheer number of EA's piled into that low liquidity session. For a while every new EA copied the FAPTurbo strategy. - When FAP debuted it was a easy winner but it didnt take too long until the copycats showed up and ruined the party. - ODL USA even kicked every FAP trader out the door.

Hilarious! Their new video makes it looks as it they've found the holy grail!

What has dna to do with trading? It's beyond me..

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Don't tell me I didn't warn you..

Those guys are just idiots...

Front page they say:

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On another page:

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Yes, they're right - we did see all of the marketing tricks before - their's is nothing new.

With a $999 price tag and 50% affiliate commission, this is just another pyramid scam..

If someone decides to purchase it, do connect your account here for everyone else to see - I would be very surprised if anyone manages to make a profit with it.

I've purchased it to review it's performance, I'll connect up the account so you can see the results.

stevetrade posted:
    I've purchased it to review it's performance, I'll connect up the account so you can see the results.

cant wait!