I am just wondering if any of you have had problems with the service or lack of service from OptionsXpress? I have a Schwab and Ameritrade accounts and went to Optionsxpress.com after reading a review recently and some forum members mentioning it. I do not know anyone personally with the service. I have had nothing but problems since the beginning with setting up the account. I wanted to do the ACH funding and gave all the information and sent in the required forms and replied with the deposit and withdraw amounts they required to verify the account. Still , I sit to this day with an unfunded account. I got a rep named Missy who basically could care less about it. And she also told me the system could not verify the account, and would not forward me to the appropriate department, and in my opinion was very dismissive. All I want to do is trade... any suggestions from the masses out there who they would recommend I go to for trades? Or should I just stick to what I got? Thanks all, I have l have learned so much just sitting on the sides listening. I value your opinions. Take care! Kip
You can do a search function to see what most people here in Elite Trader think of the various brokers or click on the word 'broker' on top of the page The more common ones are IB and MB Trading as the commissions (both stocks and options) are much cheaper. Of course there is a flip side to it. With regards to OptionsXpress, I have to agree their service is lacking. That's why I did not open an account with them in the end. If you are a newbie and want better service, then Thinkorswim may be more suitable as their service is pretty good. However, their commissions are higher and they do not provide level II and T&S, DAT etc. This is the nutshelf version of it There are many areas to consider such as commission cost, cancellation cost, charts, level II, execution speed, historical data etc besides service. Best of luck,
My advice is to move your account immediately to TOS. That's what I did recently and I could not be more pleased. I was with OE for several years before that, and just put up with the lousy CS they gave, basically because I wasn't that active. Don-
Thanks, I do appreciate the valuable input and respect all of your opinions. It has seemed that I have not had real good luck with CS at OptionsXpress. I will check out the other as directed. I am interested in others that fund their accounts with ACH/ online checking /bill pay Regards Kip
Hi Kip we use TOS and I LOVE them and the overall service especially in trading options/advise...we have set up ACH transfers automatically to our checking account from both the IRA side and cash/margin side. They can only automatically transfer to checking accounts and there is no bill pay function. However we do all that thru our regular bank account anyway. I don't think there is a bad review of TOS from any of the actual users of them. Its a terrific brokerage.
Get on the OX forum on the OX site and state your problems. The OX president and Sr VP both review the site and very often directly respond to postings. They will work with you. I've found OX to be very responsive. I had one issue getting someone on the chat CS interface, complained and had one of the CS reps call me directly. Also, as I found out, not all financial institutions support ACH. I had to use a wire transfer to fund my OX account. Sure, it cost be $25 but my account was funded the next business day.
I'm currently searching for a different broker, having become dissatisfied with optionsxpress. Their computer systems can't keep my account balances straight, resulting in some sometimes scary errors! and as a result of their computers not keeping things straight, I've gotten margin calls and restrictions put on my account which I shouldn't have gotten. When I get them to agree to the error and ask them to have their systems people fix it, nothing happens, no follow up, and the errors keep coming back. I imagine each broker has their own problems, but I've never have seen it as bad as with optionsxpress. Especially if you try trading with their limited futures, there may be problems, since they are new to this and don't seem to have worked out all the kinks yet.