I know a way around the inactivity fee. Keep your balance below 15 dollars. My balance in my Datek acct is only $10.00 and no fee has been charged.
agent, Here in Europe I have several dormant accounts, both banks and brokers, I didn't count, but it could be 10 or so. Never have I been charged a single penny or was I asked to decide whether I wanted to use the account or else close it. In fact you get the impression they're happy to wait for you to come back some day. So a dormant account costing them money, I don't believe that. And the only reason Datek comes up with themselves is their Streamer which I didn't have access to anyway. aldrums, I wouldn't be too sure. According to their own rules they will take from your account whatever they can get their hands on. So you may just have been lucky somehow. I read about someone else on this board having a zero account at Datek and still being able to use the Streamer. Maybe they just don't check very accurately.
I don't think Datek actually closes accounts. When I took all my funds out of my Datek account and tried to close it, I got an email stating that they don't close accounts, and that I will continue to have an account with them I can always fund without going through the application process. I thought at the time that they do this to inflate their open account numbers, since that seemed to be one of the major things in the fundamental data for a stock broker people looked at. Maybe something's changed. voodoo
Aldrums, You're lucky, they took my $1 I had left in the account. Voodoo, I too can't close my account with them. Seems $15 inactivity fee is a hefty price when they are willing to keep the account open for free if I have nothing in it. I don't get it?
a friend of mine has had the worst time closing out her Datek account. Took several weeks to get them to issue the check. She later received 25 cents in MM income, Datek then charged $15 maintenance fee \. After several months she is still "fighting" them over $15 fees, getting the account closed etc. Unbelievable !
First off, I am not a Datek customer, so I cannot comment on whether they imploy deceptive trade practices or not. However, if you feel that this firm has done something wrong, you can file a complaint with the attorney general's office in your state. If Datek really does charge $15 after refusing to close an account, this probably should be reported to your attorney general.
can you tell when was that? i'm currently in the process of withdrawing a portion of funds from Datek, and after a two week struggle, my progress is pretty minimal. - jaan
that sounds very frightening to me, how can they make withdrawing funds a problem? please keep us updated as things advance cheers, nemo
well, we are very atypical customer: an european LLC. so what they tell us is that in order to wire the funds they need a proof from our bank that the wire instructions we gave them are correct. which basically means that in order to get the funds, i need to get two large financial organizations (datek and our bank) on different continents to communicate to each other. which is a herculean task, i can tell you. - jaan