No offense, but I don't think the CFTC is going to do him a lot of good in Canada. Last post, enough time wasted. Hope your problem gets resolved.
cftc oversees also sales practice in foreign mkts by intermediaries...if his broker is usa registered da matter will be looked into.
With so many GOOD brokers available why would you even look at this particular broker in the first place? You are obviously new to this game. Nothing wrong with that. We all were at one time or another. You were obviously underfunded and didn't know what you were doing. Did you really hope to succeed by trading 3 shares at a time? See if they will stop the vig running on your debt and just let you pay the principal. Get away from them and find some other pursuit. Please don't go to IB. We don't need someone like you using already limited resources. I don't say that to be unkind. Just do yourself a favor and resolve this and move on.
Thanks again Bitstream. I'll definitely see what I can do with the CFTC. I think the CFTC might be relevant because the broker allows trades in US securities. white, when I signed up with X I was ignorant about what were good commission fees. Furthermore, I think X's commission fees were reasonable back then, but the company never really caught up with the times. I suppose it got used to milking its existing customers as much as possible. On your point to just pay the charge, forget it! The company is not going to take advantage of me like that without a fight. The court process has already begun. However, your advice to get away from X is very good advice. Before I get back into the stock market, I intend to be financially ready. Also, it definitely won't be a 24 hour a day activity for me as it was. It was fun, educational, and maturing, but it is not the main thing I want to do in life.
Very subtle, one particular comment about the broker made it very clear who he was talking about as well.
The thing that suprises me the most about this thread is that the trader was doing such high volume trading with about $1,000 of capital. I don't have a very large trading account yet, but I am very selective with my trading (that was actually one of my goals regarding trading in 2006).
This thread is hilarious, thanks for the laugh. Trader Maniac, it's over, forget it, you won't win cause you're pretty clueless. Hate to say, but it is true. Just too many signals that you have zero idea of what you're doing. Look just don't pay them the $4,000 and tell them to go f**k themselves when they ask for it. If they cannot produce a proper blotter with confirmations, they have not shown proper proof of the charges & debt. By the way, you showed a big lack of intelligence when you stated that online trading was pretty new a year and a half ago. Good luck and keep on trading. Dumb money is always needed to keep this game going.
I'm guessing that this is a pretty straightforward legal issue related to whether the commission shown on the confirms for 44 days is binding over a verbal contract or not. Pay a securities attorney for a proper legal opinion. Do yourself a favor and leave all the other stuff (comparison with IB's rates, talk about going to the media, etc.) aside - it has no bearing on your situation, and can only hurt your position. My guess is that a fair settlement will be for them to forgive the debit balance. Also, IMO, you have absolutely no shot at winning by trading such a small account unless you get a per-share deal with no minimum per-trade, which I don't think exists for such a small account (nice catch-22, huh?). Buy and hold some stocks until you save up some more capital.
I had a similar thing happen long ago when I first started trading...and opened an additional 3rd account with $15k with a new broker to check them out. A few days later I realized that instead of $15k they had credited the account with $50k (plus margin), so I said what the heck and bought the limit! Two days later I received an email for Margin Call on the account, it was a whopper, and when I called they said...oh well, that's the way it works we give everyone $50k BP, but if/when you use it then you need to deposit funds to cover. I hooted, hollered and complained; "Yes, but you're supposed to protect me and not allow that kind of thing to happen!". Net-net...just move on