I think customer service is sometimes a necessity. Dealing with a stuck order isn't something you can do yourself. Here's what happened to me last year. A sell order got stuck - the platform indicated it wasn't acked by the exchange. I called customer service, waited on hold for a half hour, talked to the rep. He told me to try to cancel the order, I did, the platform indicated it was waiting for an acknowledgement for the cancel. I asked the rep if the order was canceled, he said "probably". I asked if he could cancel it; he said no but that the order would likely show up as being canceled during the sweep at the end of the day. So I queued up on the online customer service chat. Waited another half hour until someone answered. Told the rep what had happened. She asked if I wanted the order canceled. I said yes, and she canceled it. My order was small, but my point was just that if you have a half-million dollar order and you run into a situation where you don't know whether it made it to the exchange, don't know whether it got executed, and don't know whether when you cancel it it's indeed canceled, you may want to go with a broker that has relatively prompt customer service. If that's "newbie thinking" and not important to you, then I apologize for my post and wish you luck.
The wiser thing to do is have a backup broker and place an order that hedges the existing position. I always keep two phones around - a land line and a cell phone next to me. If my Internet connection goes down, I use either and have a list of broker numbers right next to me.
If you don't know whether your order was executed or not, how are you going to hedge that? By sending a wise, yet nondescript order to your other broker?
They advertise $1.00 per trade, but that is not true with many trades, and if you don't trade enough they hit you with a $10.00 per month inactivity fee, and "get this" if you don't have enough of cash in your account they will sell 100 shares of your stock just to get that fee, how does that grab ya? What got me though they sold 100 shares of stock that popped that morning, so I also lost the profit those shares would have earned if they had waited for the deposit that was already approved, but was sitting in their account "Earning interest for themselves" while I waited for the money to be active in my account. Guess what my solution is? As soon as it's clear for the one withdrawal per month they allow, it's going right back into my Bank account so I can leave it empty, then they can charge all they want on my empty account. What you learn about IB is that they are all about Company Service and not Customer Service !
All costs and minimums are clearly displayed on the IB site. IB does cater to active traders and asking for $120 a year in commissions, is not much for what you get in return (I for one save that much doing a basic FX transaction relative to what the banks would charge me do to the same). You also are not complaining about the one FREE wire out each month where IB eats the cost from our end. Do note, you are allowed to make as many withdrawals as you want per month. IB's pricing and policies are quite transparent and I'd urge all prospective clients to do their homework before opening an account with us. I think we are a fantastic option for an active trader but may not be the best broker for everyone. Now I'm not sure what you mean by your deposit was approved but I am guessing you sent a check or other means of deposit which have stated and specified times in which they will be credited to your account. If you did a wire, the credit would normally be within minutes of hitting our bank account assuming all matches up. This has nothing to do with interest (have you checked what overnight rates are these days?) So perhaps, this is a case of being penny wise, pound foolish. If I'm mistaken, and you sent a wire, please let me know as this is not how things should work.
LOL another ET Troll / post generator. Reviving and old thread only to complain about not getting paid interest, and doesn't even have enough cash in his account to cover his maintenance fee. Where do these people come from? Perhaps IB should stop accepting accounts from people in Trailer Parks or the Swamps of Mississippi and Louisiana.
use www.zerolinetrader.com www.buttontrader.com or www.ninjatrader.com and you will never see IB TWS.