crown currency in administration

[steelo]

I cant believe crown currency has gone into administration, last week i was going to pre-order 3k worth and my mum kept saying something just dont seem right id wait if i were you, so thankyou mum for making me listen, and id just like to say how sorry i am for anyone caught up in the mess

[FraserLynn]

How terrible, I hope this has not impacted anyone on here. I read about it on my news page, the administrators are saying that it will take some time before they will get money back to the people impacted. I hope they get this mess sorted quickly,.

Sounds like wise words from your Mum Steelo.

[Margaret]

My husband just phoned me and told me the news. We ordered £2,400 worth of dollars on 11th Sept, I can't believe this has happened. My husband was made redundant in June and now this. Some of the money we ordered was for 2 of our children, am dreading telling them when they get home from work. I have phoned Currency Exchange and the girl I spoke to was as shocked as I am. I have e-mailed the administraters about my circumstances but am not expecting anything. It seems there are 13000 people affected, what I want to know is, how can they have carried on trading when they must have known they were in trouble?
I am just so upset and I can't think straight at the moment.[msncry][msncry]

[ncmurray]

Oh Margaret, I feel for you[msnsad] Hopefully, you will get some of your money back, at least.

[christhear]

I too am affected by this, currently have just over £7000 waiting to be sent to my US account.
Over the weekend I thought I had lost it all but am begining to think I may get some back. Have lodged my case with the administrators and there was a comment that if refunds were not given you could get a pence in the pound payout once the administrators had done all their work.
Of course this wont help anyone in the near future, but there is some hope!!!
I supppose its like they all say - if its too good to be true it is.

[SteveandJan]

I am sorry to hear that Margaret. I do hope you recover your money

[luckylady]

I was a whisker away from ordering US$8.000 into my US bank account on 20th September. I have an account with Crown Currency and Currencies Direct. I have used both in the past with no problems. On this occasion I went with Currencies Direct. That was a lucky escape.
I very sorry for anyone affected by this,it is devastating news for all concerned.

[dsv77]

omg I have just read this, I looked at them a couple of weeks ago and was going to order $3ooo or $4000 tomorrow, I feel really sorry for those who have been caught up in this, it could ruin peoples holidays or worse ruin them . I remember when we bought out villa we used a currency exchange company like this, we exchanged 50000 uk pounds into dollars as our house deposit I would have had a nervous breakdown if we lost all of our money.

I really hope there is someway people will get their money back

[Katys Grandad]

I've copied this from another site - the poster knows what he's talking about. I think it makes interesting and informative reading.


I'm really sorry for those who lost their money to these Crown crooks. However I find it hard to believe that the reason this firm went bust is because of "a downturn in the travel market" as alleged by the media. That's total nonsense IMO.

First of all I would think this kind of currency exchange business would be virtually risk free and also very profitable because of the criminally wide FX spreads that high street banks and the likes are still stunningly being allowed to offer to their retail customers. To give you an example, any individual can open a trading account with a reputable firm like Interactive Brokers (www.interactivebrokers.com) or any FX-only broker like Deutsche Bank's dbfx(www.dbfx.com) and buy/sell any amount of GBPUSD (easily even as much as 10,000,000) at a spread of 1.5869/1.5870 with $1 commission vs the high street retail rip-off rates of 1.53/1.63. The FX markets are extremely deep and liquid and you can obtain a spread such as 1.5869/1.5870 for GBPUSD at any time of day or night.

Anyway, in order to lose £20 million this firm must have been speculating with their clients' money in the FX markets with typical 100:1 leverage and probably holding a long USDGBP or USDEUR position in September. That is obviously illegal and it would explain why they would hold on to their clients' money for weeks when a USDGBP or USDEUR transaction even in very large size takes a millisecond to execute. Considering the sudden violent sell-off in the USD courtesy of Bernanke's recent QE2 announcement, these Crown idiots must have been caught out on the wrong side of the trade, and being overleveraged with their clients' money, they must have very quickly blown up their trading accounts. There's absolutely no other way they could have lost £20 million, especially considering this is essentially a risk-free business. This is quite obvious to anyone who understands how the FX markets work,

And BTW, where was the FSA when all of this happened?


Indeed!

[SDJ]

There is an action group that has been started on Facebook. "Action against Crown Currency". A group of people have got together and gone to BBC - The One Show, Sky, etc.etc. who are taking a big interest in the stories unfolding. They are hoping people will sign up into their action group and they will take a class action against CC. I think over 650 people have signed on so far!!

Sandra