Two proprietary trading firms are facing fresh customer disputes over account closures and withheld trading rewards. In today’s prop trading roundup, NYS Markets customers challenge account breaches linked to a 24-hour restriction during the U.S. Congressional Elections, while an Alpha Capital Group trader alleges that a $17,000 payout was rejected after the firm flagged a shared trading device. Both cases concern how trading restrictions and compliance checks are enforced, although the evidence and companies’ public responses differ.
NYS Markets traders challenge 24-hour election trading ban
NYS Markets faced multiple complaints on November 3 and 4 after traders reported losing funded accounts for placing trades during the U.S. Congressional Elections, an event the firm classified as subject to a full-day trading restriction.
The U.S. Federal Election Commission confirmed November 3 as the scheduled 2026 federal general election date. NYS Markets uses the Forex Factory economic calendar to determine which high-impact events trigger its news-trading restrictions.
One of the most detailed complaints came from Nigerian trader Emmanuel Okeke, who identified a $200,000 Instant funded account with a reported balance of $203,760.75. He alleged that NYS Markets breached the account on November 3 after identifying a prohibited trade around the election event.
According to Okeke, his dashboard displayed an event-release time of 07:10 UTC, with a trade executed at 07:16:01 UTC falling within the prohibited window. He also claimed that another trader’s $50,000 Instant account was breached for the same election event but showed a different release timestamp of 05:50 UTC.
One event, two clocks, and both appearing in breach reports.
Okeke argued that Forex Factory classified the election as an all-day event without a specific economic-data release time. He alleged that the dashboard’s individual timestamps were inconsistent with that classification. The underlying account logs and breach calculations have not been independently authenticated.
The complaint also included purported support correspondence explaining that the election restriction ran from midnight November 3 to midnight November 4 in New York, corresponding to 05:00 UTC on November 3 through 05:00 UTC on November 4.
A seperate complaint published November 4 described a similar problem. Trader Saroj Sharma said support had advised avoiding trading throughout November 3 and that the instructions were followed. According to Sharma, new trades opened on November 4 resulted in immediate account breaches because the 24-hour restriction had not yet expired.
For someone trading overnight, the date alone was not much help.
Other reviewers reported breaches affecting $20,000 and $100,000 Instant accounts. These are stated funded-account allocations, not amounts independently established as customer-owned capital or money lost through the breaches.
NYS Markets confirms its all-day restriction policy
NYS Markets publicly responded to several complaints, confirming that its interpretation of high-impact news restrictions includes all-day events.
The firm’s responses explain that trading is prohibited from 10 minutes before until 10 minutes after high-impact events on Instant, Flash and funded accounts. When the calendar identifies an event as all-day, NYS Markets says the restriction extends throughout that day, preventing customers from opening or closing positions.
The company acknowledged that this interpretation could surprise traders and said it was making the restriction more visibile on its dashboard. It also acknowledged complaints about timestamps appearing in breach reports and said the issue had been shared with its team.
NYS Markets has not publicly established that the specific accounts cited in the complaints were breached correctly or provided a detailed reconciliation of the differing release timestamps.
The firm’s publicly accessible trading objectives describe a 20-minute restricted window surrounding a high-impact economic release. That documentation, which describes its Two Step live-account conditions, does not expressly explain how an all-day political event should be treated. The terms governing each disputed Instant account at the time of purchase have not been independently verified.
The firm says the rule was published; the bit about a whole day is where traders are pushing back.
Okeke subsequently updated his review, confirming that NYS Markets had responded but maintaining that the company had not identified the contractual provision authorizing a 24-hour prohibition. He said the dispute had been escalated to the firm’s risk team.
The complaints follow an earlier NYS Markets payout-access dispute reported in October, when a trader alleged that the withdrawal button remained disabled despite repeated support requests. That earlier case concerned payout eligibility rather than election trading restrictions.
No verified public outcome establishes whether the latest affected accounts will be reinstated, refunded or remain permanently breached.
Alpha Capital trader alleges $17,000 payout rejection
Alpha Capital Group is facing another device-identification complaint after a trader alleged that the firm rejected a payout of approximately $17,000 and banned funded accounts because of suspected device sharing.
The complaint, published on Trustpilot on November 3 by a UK reviewer identified as Thomas, describes two funded accounts and a withdrawal request submitted several days earlier.
Thomas claimed that Alpha Capital rejected the request after identifying a shared trading device. He denied allowing another individual to access his accounts and said he had executed every trade personally using his mobile phone.
The trader said he had offered to provide the phone’s International Mobile Equipment Identity (IMEI) number and other evidence to support his account of the trading activity. He also claimed to have contacted the company repeatedly and was considering legal action.
That payout, it never arrived, the customer says.
The allegation remains unverified. Neither the device-identification records nor the underlying trading history, payout correspondence or account-termination notice has been independently authenticated.
Alpha Capital’s published terms prohibit unauthorized account management and group trading. They also permit the company to reject performance-fee payments when trading violates its rules. Its published copy-trading guidance allows certain arrangements involving accounts controlled by the same trader, subject to specified notification and verification requirements.
Another reviewer updated a complaint on November 3, alleging that Alpha Capital had terminated accounts based on matching Client/Device ID identifiers, commonly called CIDs. The customer disputed the reliability of those matches and claimed that the company’s compliance process had not provided a sufficient opportunity to challenge the findings.
The second complaint does not independently authenticate Thomas’s account or establish that the same device-identification records were involved.
An IMEI identifies a mobile device, whereas a platform-generated client identifier may be associated with software installations or trading sessions. Establishing ownership of a phone therefore would not, by itself, establish the accuracy or inaccuracy of an alleged CID match.
Previous Alpha Capital complaints reveal recurring disputes
The latest allegation follows several October complaints concerning Alpha Capital Group’s use of device-identification records during payout reviews.
On October 13, DaveFinances reported Alpha Capital’s disputed $7,000 USDT payout, involving a trader who alleged that the firm terminated a funded account after identifying MetaQuotes device connections to other customers.
That complaint included allegations that the firm’s compliance team relied on historical account relationships but declined to disclose the underlying identifiers and timestamps to the affected trader.
A subsequent October 16 report examined another Alpha Capital device-ID dispute in which a Malaysian trader claimed the company associated 255 device identifiers with 153 other users.
The trader disputed those figures, saying he had accessed his accounts using only three physical devices. The reported associations were not independently verified, and the available material did not explain whether the identifiers represented physical hardware, historical software installations or other platform records.
The device logs, and not just the fact of a matching code, would be the evidence to see.
Across the complaints, traders challenge how Alpha Capital determines whether device matches demonstrate unauthorized trading. But the cases also involve different alleged technical evidence and potentially different account-access circumstances. A direct comparision requires the original records, not merely the review descriptions.
Alpha Capital’s Trustpilot profile currently carries a warning that its rating is unavailable following a breach of the review platform’s guidelines, with Trustpilot stating that fake reviews were removed. That finding does not determine whether the individual payout complaints are genuine or whether Alpha Capital’s account decisions were justified.
The November 3 complaints have not produced a publicly authenticated technical explanation of the disputed matches or a confirmed resolution of the reported $17,000 payment.
For NYS Markets, the unresolved questions concern the disclosure and enforcement of a 24-hour news-trading restriction, including the event timestamps shown to affected customers. For Alpha Capital, the issue is whether device-identification evidence supports the account-sharing determinations being challenged. Both firms have published rules governing the relevant conduct, but the available public records do not establish whether those rules were correctly applied to the individual accounts.
Johan Shamshad is a financial markets writer at Dave Finances covering cryptocurrencies, trading platforms, brokers, fintech, financial regulation, and developments across global markets. He previously worked at Gulf News, adding newsroom experience to his coverage of fast-moving financial and digital-asset markets.
His work focuses on identifying market-moving events, company developments, regulatory changes, product launches, and shifts in trading and financial infrastructure.
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