having had an account with Deal For Free for about 9 months and have recently looked into opening an account with IG, I would agree with jimi d, these companies WILL NOT allow you to open an account unless you provided details of your trading experience.
In the same way you have to display some level of knowledge and experience to open an ETO account.
As for this action with holders of AMP CFDs although all things are possible I find it a little hard to beleive for the following reasons.
1. I am not aware of any clause in the contract that allows D4F a escape due to market volitility.
2. I am sure there would have been holders of AMP CFDs here or on other sites and I have not seen any mention prior to this of anyone having trouble getting funds out of D4F or D4F failing to honour positions.
Having said that though I have always been careful of the amount of funds I have in the D4F account due to the fact you are an unsecured creditor if anything does go wrong.
The recent changes made by D4F are going by the person I spoke to at IG Markets (got the impression he was an ex D4F employee) are D4F method of operation.
They establish a market an customer base by offering a product that appears to good to be true, then change the product to a more realistic one knowing they will lose some clients but retain a large number.