Prop trading firm Funding Pips is facing a setback as Trustpilot, a platform where real users provide reviews, has “temporarily suspended” its profile page. The suspension came into effect on 7 June.
“Funding Pips's profile page on Trustpilot has been temporarily suspended following an increase in reviews related to recent media attention,” a notice on the Trustpilot page of Funding Pips notes.
“Although we understand you want to voice your opinion about things in the news and issues trending on social media, Trustpilot is a place for feedback based on genuine buying and service experiences. The page will be reinstated in the near future, and any reviews that do not relate to a genuine experience will be removed.”
Trust on Trustpilot
Users of financial services platforms trust Trustpilot reviews heavily. When it comes to brokers and prop trading firms, most traders post their grievances on the platform. Earlier, stressed users of prop platforms like The Funded Trader and Skilled Funded Trader flooded Trustpilot when their payouts were delayed or rejected.
Any negative reviews on Trustpilot also heavily impact the reputation of the platforms, as many of them prominently advertise their Trustpilot score to enhance their brand value.
Despite the suspension of the Trustpilot page, Funding Pips did not provide any clarification on whether it will move for a restoration.
“As part of our commitment to consumers, when a business breaches our Guidelines and doesn’t stop the behaviour causing the breach, or continues to undermine the integrity of our platform, we’ll place a Consumer Warning on their business profile page,” Trustpilot explained.
“We’ll keep Consumer Warnings on a profile page for a fixed time, and will review it to see if a business is continuing to misuse our platform. We don’t remove a Consumer Warning until all misbehaviour has ceased, and a reasonable amount of time has passed: this helps to ensure that consumers have been made aware of a business’ attempts to mislead consumers, or otherwise misuse our platform.”
The Lack of Transparency around Prop Trading
Registered in the UAE, Funding Pips was among the first prop trading firms to face the crackdown of MetaQuotes Software for offering MetaTrader platforms to customers in the US. Then, Blackbull Markets, which was grey-labelling its MT5 licence to Funding Pips, was forced to terminate its services, leaving Funding Pips without a trading platform. The prop firm quickly came back by integrating platforms like cTrader and Match-Trader.
Funding Pips also integrated TradeLocker, a lesser-known trading platform focusing on prop trading firms. Interestingly, TradeLocker faced a DDoS attack in April, causing over an hour of downtime.
