Fill Your Private Data Correctly

Today we want to talk about how the Championship participants are filling out their data. This seemingly easy step for some reason often causes difficulties. While checking the participants profiles, we have gained some statistics of typical errors and inaccuracies, which do not allow to complete the registration. Some exceptions to the rules for representatives of some countries will also be of interest.

In the How to Participate in the Automated Trading Championship 2012 publication we tried to describe in details the process of filling out personal data. Still, something keeps many contenders from being able to reliably fill out the simple form: most likely, it is natural caution, mistrust or bad habits of online anonymity.

We are glad to dispel your fears and doubts!

If you really count on winning the prize, please do not be afraid to specify the correct information about yourself. If you win you will have to confirm your identity by sending a scanned image of your document. It is a common practice of previous Automated Trading Championships.

Let us quickly consider all the fields of this form and review the main disputable moments.

First and Last Name

It would seem that nothing complicated, but starting from the first and last name lots of contestants produce unacceptable errors that do not allow to pass registration. Among the shortcoming are:

• Abbreviations.

• Random character sequences.

• Company names.

• Specifying a single letter instead of full first or last name.

• Coincidence of first and last name.

The last two cases are special. In some cultures, a person may have only a name. Also, theoretically, first and last names can be the same. By default, we believe that each participant (among other information) must specify his full first and last name.

If registration is not confirmed due to an incorrect indication of first of last name, and you think that you've specified everything correctly, please write about this in your profile. Your case will always be considered in a special manner.

Country

Yes, some people manage to correctly specify mail address and forget to select the country from the drop down list.

Postal ZIP code

Participants often have difficulties when filling out this field. Most likely this is due to the fact that many simply do not know their zip code and write random numbers, such as 000000, 12345. There were cases when a phone area code has been entered into this field.

By the way, in many countries there are no postal codes at all, for example in Hong Kong. If you live in one of such countries, just enter the n/a value in the Postal ZIP code field (it is also advisable to contact us about this fact). If you do not know your zip code, please find it in the local reference resources before registering at the Automated Trading Championship.

Address

We expect that participants have to specify at least a street name, house number and apartment number (if applicable) in the "Address" field. In other words, this field must contain words and numbers.

Unfortunately, we have a large number of remarks to participants for this point. Here are the most common errors:

• Word sequence without numbers.

• Only city is specified. There is a separate field for this.

• E-mail address is specified. E-mail is required only at the profile registration step. To confirm participation you need to specify the actual address of residence.

• Random character sequences.

• Only postal zip code is specified. Again, there is a separate field for zip code.

• All the words are entered without spaces. Chinese contestants often prone to such kind of error.

If you think that you've specified everything correctly, please write about this in your profile. Your case will always be considered in a special manner.

Phone

The most common mistake here is a too short number. You should indicate the number in international format: country code, area code and phone number.

Identification Document Data

On this point, we have perhaps the largest number of remarks to participants:

• Document number and/or issue/expiration date are not specified. This is the most frequent violation of Rules.

• Only the year is specified. In some cases, only a year can be specified for the expiration date - we ask you to confirm this in the comments.

• Specified date does not correspond to reality. It is clear that the document can be issued either in the past few decades, or is valid until the date in the foreseeable future - again in a few decades, not exceeding an average life expectancy. For example, as the year contestants specified 1879 or 2917 - this is clearly beyond the bounds of reason, obviously it is an error.

• The document number is too short.

• Document date and number are copied from the example on the right. Please specify your real data.

Forward to victory!

If there is something especial in specifying mail addresses and private information in your country, please write about it in the comments to this news. Perhaps because of a simple formality we don't give a chance to talented programmers of trading strategies.

Once again we remind you that private information is available only to the Organizers. MetaQuotes Software Corp. guarantees the safety of confidential information and will not share it to any third party.

Hurry, the time is running short before the registration end. Please specify all the required personal data and send your trading robot for validation!