Hello James,
This is Gianluca Pizzituti, CEO and co‑founder of Velotrade. I am very much a real person, not an AI. A quick search online will show my professional background over more than two decades in trading and fintech.
On your claim that we made up being around since 2016: we have not. Velotrade was founded in Hong Kong in 2016 and has been publicly covered by Bloomberg, the Financial Times, the Wall Street Journal, Nasdaq and Business Insider, among others. Don't take my word for it, just go online and search for yourself.
On the substance of your review, the facts are straightforward and on record.
On 16 April you opened a 15 lot position on XAUTUSD at a price of roughly 4,790. That is a notional exposure of about 71,850 USD. On a 25,000 USD account, with 3x leverage on XAUTUSD, the required margin was close to 23,900 USD, or about 95% of your equity committed to a single ticket. That is what our anti‑gambling rule addresses, and it is clearly set out in our Terms and Conditions.
We had already flagged the same behaviour to you on 14 April, as a courtesy, and asked you to adjust your risk. You acknowledged the warning. Two days later you repeated the exact same conduct. It is also worth noting that the Challenge account in question was issued to you free of charge, so there is no money of yours that we have taken or withheld.
On top of this, the tone of your private messages to our team went well beyond acceptable and civilised business conduct. That is why I am replying personally.
We wish you the best in your trading elsewhere.
Kind regards,
Gianluca Pizzituti
Chief Executive Officer, Velotrade