Do you mean that because let's say IB matches the orders, you are losing money in your trades? or your HFT system gets filled at 7 pico seconds late and that makes you lose 173 million dollar a month? Or you could get 0.000001 cent better fill if they did not do that? Let me make it simple. For example,you put an order to buy an option at 0.37 cents when the bid and ask are 0.34/0.37. I am also another customer of IB who is selling the same option at 0.37. IB matches your order with me and you get filled at your requested price. Your order was not market order. Your order was limit order at 0.37 and you got filled at your requested price. What is the next complaint? You might want to buy your option from a seller with a special gender or race? !!. If in the above case, IB stops your order and says we do not have an internal seller so your order cannot get filled, then you are right. To be honest, I believe you are losing in your trades and want to blame someone.
If IB shopped your order to all the dark pools you may very well have been filled at .35. You'll never know, because they never showed your order. To be honest, you can be unhappy with behavior that provides suboptimal fills for customers no matter how you're doing in the market. Most of us would in fact consider that an immenently reasonable thing to do. If you were managing my money I'd say it was even your fiduciary duty to do so. Not sure why the ad hominem attack on the OP for daring to question the great and mighty IB, completely unjustifiable.
"My wife cut me down to once a month. Hey I'm lucky -- two guys I know she cut out completely." -- Rodney Dangerfield
It is what it is. The problem for retail algo traders is that you won't find a more capable broker routing algorithm or back end. They got you by the balls. Even smaller hedge funds are getting into their prime brokerage services.
I have been with many many brokers and since 2004, I am with IB and I have never looked back and the things that you mention, has never happened to me. I never pay the ask price to buy or hit the bid to sell. I am patient and set my own price and in many cases my commission is negative (get rebate). Based on my experience, these posts in ET come with some follow up posts. Like I have tried broker AAA, I have heard that they are awesome and they are much better than IB and I am happy with AAA and if you want to be happy too, please sign up with them
If you are squeezed by margin hikes you are taking too much risk. I would say you deserve to get spanked. They need to protect other customers and the firm it self. If you do not like the rules, you may go to an other more liberal broker.
If you don’t like IB, move your account to somewhere else. As far as I’m concerned IB is by far the most ethical broker out there. IB’s shareholders have been pushing the management to accept payment for order flow for years. Management wouldn’t do it. Guess what, they make an extra $25 million a year on that. Also, IB gives you on option to route your orders to dark pools with their JEFF OR CSFB algos. I usually get significant price improvements with those algos.