Rodney and Yip are right. I didn't sign a personal guarantee with IB either, but my buddy had to sign one with his broker. But T-man is right that the repercussions aren't immediate. One of my buddies blew his account. His bank, where he has accounts, mortgage and credit cards actually owned the brokerage. These things were not touched. First he got phone calls from the brokerage for a few months, then collections for a few months, then taken to small claims court eventhough the amount was 16k. The small claims cap is 10K here. Then he was served and he had a long time to answer the claim, I can't remember how long. Then a pretrial was scheduled for much later, and the broker's legal rep didn't show because they did not receive the notice of pretrial.So, another was scheduled. My friend fake sicked and so it was delayed again. Finally, after three years, they settledfor 5k or something. Now I tried to sue my home inspector for 19K, but my lawyer said that that was too small for a normal civil claim, but that I should just go to small claims and swallow the rest for a loss.