I start to realize that this would be the reason, one day, one of there "high" manager decided to close all account with link to any muslim country... (I am not even muslim, french catholic, just sometimes living in Morocco and sometimes in Switzerland) I am in choc, thinking this kind of company where intelligent and competitive. And now ralizing that these are just stupid systems, talking with them is just talking in the wind... Aunyway what broker to choose now ? Change the money from there account asap. Then suing them... NFA, CFTC, FSA,...
It's not just a matter of compliance vis a vis "terror money". What if the account holder complained that his account was hacked? Allowing multiple, simultaneous trading in a single account without pre-verification of each participant opens IB up to a massive can of worms. I'd immediately shit can an account with multiple traders unless multiple names appeared on the permission trailer. There was a rather odd chat transcript from several years ago. OBL: My account isn't allowing me to buy additional puts on UAL and AMR! IB: We see you're using an ISP in the Tora Bora's. When you registered you were in the Sudan. OBL: I'm vacationing in the mountains. IB: You're in liquidation only mode. OBL: It's ME who does the liquidating you infidel! Get me someone in management. I KNEW I should've kept my account at UBS!!
I'm not a party to this situation, but I've been reading this thread and I'm surprised so many people don't know it's perfectly OK at IB to add alternate traders to one's account -- even an individual one. I did so myself for a period of several months, although both of us are in the U.S. Adding a 2nd trader is just another menu item on the IB site. Nothing there says it can't be overseas. Other responders keep raising objections based on this being a foreign account, when he clearly said it's not. It's a U.S. account. IB has customers all over the world. Unless they prohibit customers in country "X", they have no business being so sticky about a 2nd trader in that very country. Not, at least, unless they WARN YOU IN ADVANCE that this could be a problem unless you follow procedures a, b, and c and make sure not to violate rules x, y, or z, all of which they need to lay out for you. Blindsiding a loyal longtime customer who only wants some trading help with this kind of "death penalty" doesn't seem logical. Especially without allowing him to cure the problem. They could simply disallow any secondary traders on his account, taking him back to status quo ante, to which of course they never had any objection. I can think of only one possible reason for IB's action: If the customer created the 2nd trader under one identity, but actually the person doing the trading was someone else. After reading some of the comments on this thread I can see where they might object to that if the 2nd trader were overseas. But such an objection wouldn't have occurred to me before today. Just a thought, but possibly the customer involved might be able to resume trading at IB if he was able to form a corporation, LLC, etc. where he was only a minority owner.
wow! I was reading this thread 2 weeks ago and then last week I attempted a trade and got the message "Account LIQONLY". I called support and the lady basically told me I was an idiot and nothing was wrong with my account I simply was entering the trade wrong. Having delt with the UN-support desk at IB I knew to simply hang up and call again to get a more knowlegeable service rep. Well the third rep asked for my phone number and said someone would call me back from compliance. No one ever called, so I called compliance to find out what was going on - left a message. Well, the next morning I got the we have decided to terminate our relationship letter. No explination, just goodbye please take your money and find another broker. I don't have time to argue with them, I thought they were a decent broker, but I guess our time together has passed and it's time for me to move onto greener pastures. so long Interactive Brokers - it was fun while it lasted.
sorry to hear that. are you based in US? has any trading been done from outside of US? was there a secondary trader on the account?
US based and no secondary traders. I did get a call from compliance in Sept. asking me why I made 2 withdrawals in one day. Go figure...
So you're saying that there has never been any anomalous event in your account, you have never had to deal with compliance, you have never had a margin call, you've never closed the account and opened another, you've never allowed anyone else to log on to your account with your password, you don't routinely do very frequent large deposits and withdrawls into and out of the account, and you've never had a dispute with IB of any kind? In addition, you've never had a dispute with any other broker, you've never had an issue with the compliance department of any other broker and you've never been in trouble with the law for white collar crime? If you answered no to all of the above, it is truly a bizarre situation, seeing as you're based in the U.S. and you've never requested or had a secondary trader on your account. If your answer is no to the above, then apparently you're a run-of-the-mill customer happily trading away from your U.S. address and IB has suddenly decided to close your accounts. To be brutally honest, 90% of guys who posted your info would have something lurking in the background.