Not who they claim to be, market manipulators.
The company gives you the spiel about how they are for everyone with introductory phrases such as "Trading 212 is a London based fintech company that democratises" and "We disrupt the stock brokerage industry".
Everything seemed fine on the surface until GME occurred. They blocked people from buying shares only allowing people to sell. This supports 'the suits' at the detriment of choice for the everyday Brit. They claim to 'democratise'. By doing this they have engaged in market manipulation.
This company is not for the average everyday hardworking Brit and their actions are a tell tale sign that they are the 'men in suits' and should not be used by the everyday hardworking Brit.
It is concerning they have now set the precedent that they will step and interfere with the trading of it's customers. The bond of trust has been broken now that their true colours have been shown and I will now be going else where.
EDIT : 212 tried to have my review removed by flagging it as not genuine, clearly I was able to prove it was genuine. Shameless company.
EDIT 2: It was not an isolated event as they claim they did this with several shares not just GME, and they did with with no explanation or communication to the customer. That does affect the whole platform experience as it creates a trust issue. They did it before and they can do it again. I had also e-mailed them directly before regarding this, it was dismissed and when I replied I never got a response.
Antwoord van Trading 212
Thank you for sharing your review, Xavier.
We completely understand the frustration caused by the events at the end of January, and since there is a lot of misinformation circulating, we are happy to shed some light on the matter.
To maintain our daily tasks, we rely on 3rd party service providers, including our execution intermediary, which is one of the biggest brokers in the world. In this event, the big brokers, who do their clearing (members of the DTCC clearinghouse), had to immediately deposit additional collateral because of GameStop and AMC's increased volatility. Many of them, including our execution intermediary, had to stop accepting BUY orders for these stocks for a day because it requires some technical time to transfer the needed billions for collateral.
Yet, as soon as the additional collateral was deposited, trading was restored, and on Friday, the 29th of January, our clients were able to trade GME and AMC without limits. It's worth mentioning that the unusual market activity in GameStop (GME) caused an extreme strain on the entire trade execution ecosystem worldwide and affected almost every trading platform.
Still, we are continually aiming to improve our service and provide you with a smooth trading experience. In light of this, we hope to hear an update from you that reflects your overall experience on our platform rather than an isolated event.
In case you prefer to give us a follow-up via email, feel free to do so at feedback@trading212.com.
We are eager to hear how we can meet your expectations.