well, since we're on the subject... my email confirmation waw somehow disabled in november. i was trading heavily in december and noticed my account wasnt really inching up. checked the statements. line item "P&H"... at $2.50 per trade for physical confirmation. cost of a 60-trade day - $300 for the trades --- and FRIGGIN $150 for the statement. again, that is one day... maybe they dont make much on the trades, 'cause i can imagine they will be losing some clients for crap like this.... BTW, they offered me some free trades as an offset... when i didnt except, they promptly pulled it off the table - guess its their way or the highway... do they know there are other alternatives.
IB has great rates and TWS is great, but they most certainly do not have good customer service. I'd shudder to think what you must have endured in your 31 years.
I spent some time today talking to an attorney and the CFTC. I am filing a complaint next week if they do not resolve the issue. They think they can get away with this, but my attorney said there is no way they will be able...... He use to work for the CFTC I plan on making this a very public situation, so I will keep everyone on the board informed of the situation. These guys are absolute idiots though. It must be a bunch of jack asses that work there who failed at trading. I am pulling everything from them over a couple thousand dollars and they will be losing over $20,000 in business, which I pay them easily each year over the last 3 years.... IDIOTS ALL OF THEM because anyone who works for them and sticks up for THESE practices is SHALLOW Now I understand why they only give out first names, because their ignorance with customers is such that people must hate them!
No experience with IB - - I am just a very hesitant potential customer (hint IB people DO pay attention to others' opinions)....but I do have experience with the legal and securities professions (mutual exclusive in nature)...piece of advice: If you are seriously pursuing legal action, I would recommend you tone down the insults and antagonism. This conveys a bit of unprofessionalism. While this may be unjustified, it will not help your cause. Bystanders are likely to weigh the probability of an error on your part as being less, if you conduct yourself with more restraint. Of course, I do not mean that you are not just in your complaints. If it helps, I value your complaints and posts. IB is less likely to get my business as a result. From similar posts, I understand IB's service to be SERIOUSLY lacking - should I have troubles while enjoying their rock bottom commissions. I would hazard to make guess that I am not the only potential customer turned off by such feedback. Regards Just Another Lurker Edited because I didn't before I decided to post....Sorry
ok, it's flame time. IB's so called cheap transactions costs are bullshit when it comes to the bottom line. The bottom line is that this company screwed up so many times, I payed dearly. I lost 40 grand in one day cause these goons couldn't call globex or someone to get me out of my position. My stops didn't work as they were held on IB's servers. Globex was not having a problem at all. IB was having a problem. They had (and probably still do have, despite promises) only one connection to globex, that goes down and yer screwed. I didn't get an apology from these guys, instead they treated me like shit on the phone with the exception of the vp who was at best duplistic. Heres a few more things. One day they called me and said that I had duplicate fills on a buy yesterday, so i'm actually long the futures at a small but not insignificant loss. Duplicate fills, he couldn't explain. The market is tanking so I immediately sell to cover to make sure there is no more loss. I get a phone call the next day, uh sir, actually there was no duplicate fills and you had no position on, so when you covered yesterday, you went long. this time it's a significant loss. This went on for several days and I was unable to trade due to not knowing what my real position is. Eventually IB owned up that they screwed up big time and they payed for some of the loss. This happened several times, sometimes they owned up, and sometimes they didn't. By then I was pissed and untrusting. If anyone has a problem with me giving them shit, realize that they get what they give. I'm sure there are a rare few nice, intelligent, and just people at IB. BUT I AINT EVER MET ONE on the phone or in chat. edit: these are just a few of the problems i experienced at IB. I experienced these same problems and more numerous times, but on a smaller scale. personally, i'll take this grievance with me to the grave unless IB pays back the losses they caused. i also will rant and rave and flame them with cause until I see my money. Note, this is from a guy who gave them over 100,000.00 dollars in commissions so far. whether I have legal recourse or not, this company is unjust. i still can't beleive to this day that these assholes couldn't call globex to get me out of a position (and i here def talking about how they do big volume) or the least they could have done was offset the position in QQQ stock. but they don't give a rats ass about their customers, so they gave me the run around for about 5 hours until their link to globex came back up. also, if i ever find out i have a case against them, that they actually had the power to get me of that position, i'll sue. this company sickens me. I also got zero response from this company about my grievances, and I worded them very nicely at the time.
abba231 Not true. I am an attorney. As long as you are telling the truth and by all the stories I have read today, it sound like mdmbud is. I am surprised the CFTC has not come down hard on this company yet, it seems that they do a lot of shady work.
ICEMAN ,,,, Thanks for the reply. I understand what you are saying - and I agree with you TOTALLY - as a general philosophy. My point is this,,, YA GOTTA KNOW WHEN TA HOLD EM, AND YA GOTTA KNOW WHEN TA FOLD EM ! It's an individual call - and is different for everyone. It was a good call for me - I have never regretted leaving IB, just like I never regretted leaving Schwab ( yeah - me too ),,, I wish you well with IB and hope you never have a problem. Sincerely, Z When you aim for perfection, you discover it's a moving target.
Just in case, what are the procedures for appealing a brokers actions to arbitration? Do you need a lawyer? Should you contact the CTFC? What is the procedure for this?
QQQBALL: I also had an account with RJT and when I found out RJT was being bought out by TD Waterhouse I closed the account 1/23/02. Things just did not feel right. You have just confirmed all of my suspensions. Catoosa
yeah, hasnt been the same... before RJT was pretty good for a discount broker - referred a bunch of traders to them. i thought it was whatley or watley that bought RJT - at least they still honor the $5/trade fee for pre-buyout clients! the fills have gotten screwy too, i got "pending cancel" for a minute yesterday, which is friggin UNREAL! whats the CTFC? i got a response from the SEC that they dont govern maintenance fees (WTF do they actually do?). itll end up in some sort of consumer protection action.... most upsetting really is that they acted like: "hey, what are you snivelling about." like $150 for a brokerage statement for one day was not a little "unusual." lets face it, the postage has gone up in the last year . that they even TRY to pull this crap is proof that no one is watching and that they regard their clients as sheep - consider me fleeced! (at least for the time being).