Beware of Options City

Just wanted to warn anyone out there who is considering Options City (OC). As some of you may know, OC is a server based solution designed for quoting and trading options. Other server based solutions include Trading Technologies (TT), RTS, ORC.

Like most software vendors in the financial industry, there is usually a minimum commitment of 3 months if not more and their monthly subscription isn't cheap, usually running anywhere from 5k to 20k depending on the features that you need. So anyone would want to have some assurance that the product that they are about to shell out 15k to 60k for is worth the money by asking questions about the capabilities of the software and also seeing demos.

To make a long story short, I was misled/misrepresented on certain features that I asked about during the demo before signing the contract and they commandeered my server (my property). Specifically, I asked whether a certain calculation would be performed real-time in which OC answered yes and I later found out that they considered a 10-second interval "near real-time". Further more, OC refused to give me root access to the server that I temporarily gave them access to to install OC on. It's like letting them remote into my PC, reinstall/reconfigure windows, install their software and then not allowing me access to my PC. Their reason for restricting all access was to protect their intellectual property and that other software vendors also has this practice. Well, regarding the IP, I don't think they are stupid enough to have uncompiled code on their client's machines, and if they do, then they should take it out. Also, IP goes both ways. I will be running my trading strategy via their platform. They have access to my quotes and trades which is my IP. Secondly, I can assure you that not all other software vendors deny root access to their clients' server.

After multiple phone calls and meetings, they still refused to allow us root access so that we can install other proprietary software to run on the server as well. So after about a month into the contract, we felt that we should at least be refunded the remaining duration of the contract since they have misled us in terms of the real-time feature and denied us root access when no where in the contract does it say we have to give them complete control over our server. They felt differently. In the end, not only were we out 2 months of unused license, it took us about another month to regain access to our server. So to any potential Options City user out there, BEWARE!!!

TL;DR - Beware of Options City. They lie about their features and will commandeer your property (server).

I am guessing this topic belongs in the Trading Advisory Services Folder