Are those complaining trade some very illiquid stocks/futures? Do they get the filling problem with ES, ZN or Bund? I also dislike their customer services but the filling doesn't have problem.
and try to clear that. I saw two threads from you on the same issue - talk with them and make things clear. I'm not their customer, but looks like lots of happy customer.
It's a little unfair to say that complaining about bad fills is like asking for handholding. If the problem is that there's a minor delay before posting or cancelling the order, that may not be worth complaining to the broker (at Schwab, humans may get involved with some orders, such as certain option spreads; at IB, a change or cancel of a PHLX order within 2 minutes of its having been posted may result in a delay until the 2 minutes has elapsed). But if the broker fouls up or something is broken, it's reasonable to ask them to fix it. I call whenever an order takes longer than 5 minutes to post or cancel, or if I get a fill more than .25 worse than the NBBO. Both IB and Schwab are usually willing to look into most problems. Both of them sometimes don't follow through and you have to call again and hope you get somebody different. And both of them sometimes claim that, when there's a hung (uncancellable) order, there's nothing they can do. If anyone knows a more responsive broker, let us know and we'll beat a path to their door.
there are other good brokers out there. but saying IB is not good is simply ridiculous. it can happen to anyone to have a bad fill or an issue with your broker. so I am not saying you are not having a problem. on the contrary I fully believe you and hope you can resolve to your satisfaction. but indeed, so many of us use IB for so long, with the ups and downs (and clearly it's a bullish trend !) that it's hard to understand all the complaining. I traded illiquid NYSE markets and now very liquid bonds futs markets and IB is really great. Since late 2001, I think, when the API was first introduced, it's ever better, now I and so many , can do things with IB that required very high end (or straight proprietary super expensive) solutions. fills, speed, confirmations, reports, really hard to find any complaint. like others I could not tell you if the customer support improved or not, I never had to call there. (once or twice a year I need a little chat with a rep, always solved an issue, obviously low priority ones). Sure I can't wait for IB to lower the futs commission, but since so few are serious competition to them, I guess they have no need to reduce comms for now (it did happen a few times you know ! ). you know what, while I am there, since I have only praises, let me ask for a couple of things : market depth updates : more often please. specially for futures if you have the data available. thanks anything else ? not really..
any chance you can give us daytraders some hints on what works / doesn't work for you in bonds and or what indicatorsyou look at in the bonds? ( see bond Futures thread ) <I traded illiquid NYSE markets and now very liquid bonds futs markets >