For another unfortunate IRA account story, check out: http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=51251&perpage=6&pagenumber=1
Fidelity gives a warning when you try to sell mutual fund shares that have a $2,500 minimum investment in an IRA, and the window appears clearly stating that there will be a "maintenance fee" if you choose to hold fund shares below the minimum amount, so it gives you a chance to cancel the order such that you will not incur the fee. In your case with IB they sent you liquidation email warnings, which you chose to ignore. Perhaps at that time you could have added more funds to avoid the fee. I don't believe they owe you the service of a phone call, not unless you had a personal broker managing the account. If it's a self-directed IRA from a rollover, then you're on your own. It always sucks to sell any stock near the lows, however it seems you were able to recoup some losses by purchasing the shares again.
Wow. Hope the "monitor your accounts daily/weekly" lesson didn't cost you too much in absolute terms. And for the record, IB is not the right broker for you if you're going to put 100% of your equity into a penny stock and ignore it for months. If you have your heart set on holding something forever with IB, there is a setting called "liquidate last," although it would not have helped if you only had one position in your account and no cash. You know the minimum activity fees for accounts under $2000 is $20, right? Keeping an small account with IB just isn't' worth it.
Hate to say it, but not much more to read. Why you were so stupid and naiive? Now you know not to buy penny stocks again. Go to school or find a mentor to teach you how to trade and become a multimillionaire. Futures makes it easy with leverage, you just need to devote months to a fortified edge. You basically sent $7 k of your IRA to some guy in a Brooklyn office with milk duds melted between his legs and chair And as far as using IB....day traders dont like using them, so why would a IRA customer use it? Regarding your "lost" gains on the stock - means nothing. You would of made $3k and had a $4k lost. Do you know how stupid this sounds? If someone secretly did this at any firm (bought, lost, held for a year and complained when their losses were 99% instead of 40%) you'd be fired and probably put on a black slist across different companies. Forgive for being harsh, but some one needs to get the picture across
ShortInterest: Something wrong here. IRA fees are charged at the end of each quarter. If I recall, IRA fees started in the last quarter of 2010 and were initially debited in January 2011. On the other hand IB has always had a number of charges that apply to all accounts. Those fees become due monthly. Amongst them are an inactivity fee and possibly a data fee. Info on those fees is very clear and readily found on the web site. You said you were not trading at all after you bought the speculative penny stuff. IB was probably drawing the monthly fees against any credit balance remaining until it ran out. The IRA fees hit every quarter. So precisely what fee caused the sale is not clear. It would appear that you completely ignored the account, and the readily available statements, as it was drawn down. So it probably wasn't just the IRA fees that caused the sale to cover fees. I don't think you have any real recourse if my hypothesis is correct. Jack