Thanks QuantPlus, your input is appreciated. I forgot to mention that my account is under Interactive Brokers (U.K.) Ltd, so I guess that would mean dealing with FSA in UK/UK court system (although I would still prefer to settle this with IB directly). Thanks everyone for the feedback. It's greatly appreciated, please keep it coming. I'll reply to every question/post soon, when I have some free time.
One clear problem with TWS... Is that you can have a live order... That you cannot see via TWS. I just had one like that execute 5 minutes ago. In theory... TWS does not allow you to delete a symbol with a live order... But this is not reliable... And there are VARIOUS circumstances... Where orders can exist that you cannot see via TWS. If you are making $100,000 trades in fast markets... You cannot trust TWS alone... Because TWS is not a professional grade platform. NOTHING about IB is professional grade... It's a FREAKING retail broker. If your trades can have 5 or 6 figure losses... Then you MUST have additional proprietary software that uses the API or a FIX connection or whatever... And does a lot of surveillance and cross-checking of orders/executions.
Saxon, I'm aware that order can "stuck" and show in magenta. In my case, there was no line with the order in the TWS and there wasn't any working order.
there is another angle here that is messed up. TWS was disconnected for >2 minutes. based upon my experience and understanding of this security device, for your TWS to reconnect, it would have required entry of the new security code. if TWS had not reconnected (as should have been the case without the new code entered), it would have never resent those orders anyway. agree with the poster above- given the size of the error and the time that has gone by, you should only settle for talking to the top- i suggest calling their HQ (not a toll free #, check yhoo finance) and ask for the president (know his name). you WILL get his office and the people who handle escalated issues. document everything. here ya go: Thomas Peterffy 203.618.5800 http://finance.yahoo.com/q/pr?s=IBKR
I agree. But I have called Ib and asked them if anything was working on their end to be safe a few times. No problem with that. But you have to be in front of your screen. I have been dealing with electronic futures platforms since day one and it has always been a nightmare scenario of orders stuck in the pipeline that you cannot see. I always just call and check if I am worried. (of course technically --calling may not insure you) Electronic futures are a no mans land. If you call an order into a desk it is on them but with electronic futures platform on your desk it is on you. And many of these types of things go into legal no mans land.
I had a few similar problems with I.B. back in 2001 and 2002, but programming upgrades to the TWS through the years has eliminated any further problems for me. On one incident I ended up having to eat the losses and on the other incident it proved to be a favorable glitch. One thing I will mention is, there is constant upgrades to TWS coming up all the time to eliminate these kinds of glitches and errors. So either use the browser version of TWS, or make sure your stand alone version is upgraded everytime an upgrade message pops up.
Oh, I'm sure you did. IB is the most professional broker I've dealt with. It seems like a high percentage of your posts are IB attacks. Perhaps you have an alternate agenda.