TD Ameritrade = Fraud

http://www.wallstreetoasis.com/forums/trading-with-td-ameritradethinkorswim-beware


Trading with TD Ameritrade/Thinkorswim? Beware...
TylerL's picture
TylerL

(Chimp, 14 Points) on 9/7/13 at 7:00pm
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Hey everyone. 1st post here, long time lurker.

I'm in a bit of a battle with TD Ameritrade regarding their unethical behavior after I exposed a glitch in their charting software that falsely adjusts volume bars so each day's volume looks massive compared to the recent past.

They have shown extreme arrogance by brushing this issue aside, even after I implied that it could be considered market manipulation since investors are being induced to trade on falsely magnified volume. At very best it is extremely unethical on their part to let this "glitch" continue.

I wrote a post about it here if you guys want more details

If you find this to be as outrageous as I do, and they're your broker, then make sure to give them a call, an email or a tweet so they can know that investors won't stand for this nonsense.

But most of all, watch out! These guys (all brokers) are out to get the small investor, no matter how much they want us to think they've changed since the financial crisis. It's always great to have a reminder that a healthy dose of skepticism is necessary to be a prudent investor/trader.

 

They do other things as well that I consider to be unethical, but not illegal. For example they fill trades on their paper trading platform the opposite of the way traders using their real time platform are likely to be filled. On paper trade they will fill a resting limit buy order on the bid and a sell order on the ask, just the opposite of what most of their clients will experience most of the time. This gives the novice trader a very misleading idea of how easy it is to make money. Essentially they are giving the unsuspecting novice two ticks in their favor with each round trip that they won't get when they start trading with real money. I have written them on more than one occasion about this and eventually got an answer from Kaufman, I think it was. He made some excuse, don't remember what it was. As far as I know they are still doing this.

 

They will anything to make money from people .. Just be careful

 

I've submitted a few bug reports on the charts in TOS and they were fixed.. it just took a few weeks likely due to backlog.

Not sure if what you are experiencing is just some backlash from their tech support from your response. TOS must be a beast to maintain.

 

I have stopped short term trading when experienced this type of issues 3 x in a row and this only for 'to be large winner' entries. After this I was in net minus. With these trades balance would be large positive.

Had another couple of identical issues earlier when denied entry to 'to be large winners' with another broker. All these brokers from better side.

f*o* them all, and started swing trading. I wait to get fill, take screenshot, daily reports, etc. Much harder to stop me entering illegal way.

not fair game.

 

Not quite, I had the same problem with TrackData. When I made a complain they gently remind me of I signed off the datafeed contract that hold them harmless from and against any of my losses.

 

Well, if they know about the datafeed being wrong and do nothing about it, then its fraud, but most people don't know this and even the employees probably don't know either .

http://finra.complinet.com/en/display/display.html?rbid=2403&element_id=8726

It shall be deemed inconsistent with Rules 2010, 2020 and 5210 for a member, for itself or for any other person, to publish or circulate or to cause to be published or circulated, by any means whatsoever, any quotation for any security without having reasonable cause to believe that such quotation is a bona fide quotation, is not fictitious and is not published or circulated or caused to be published or circulated for any fraudulent, deceptive or manipulative purpose.

 

I wish they'd just kept Command Center up too, instead of forcing everyone onto TOS. I've been reporting bad quote/order book problems for a couple days now; hopefully they'll get around to fixing them. They're mostly right, most of the time, but I want it as accurate as possible so I report bugs and keep bugging them. I've been working on improving IB's data quality the same way, one bug at a time.

Generally the tech people are pretty responsive (IB better than TDA so far), although I try to help them identify the problem with multiple examples and some testing on my own rather than trying to claim they're doing something fraudulent.

 

http://cheatedinvestor.com/more-investor-complaints/#comment-440

STANLEY FRIEDMAN | April 10, 2012 at 3:10 pm | Reply
I LOST $5735 LAST YEAR WITH AMERTRADE’S THINK OR SWIM. THEY FED ME ERRONEOUS INFORMATION, BLOCKED TRADES, AND WOULD NOT LET ME HAVE THE OPTION OF HAVING THEM CLOSE OUT THE CONTRACT AT A HIGHER NUMBER THAN I WOULD BE ABLE TO.
THINK OR SWIM LED ME TO BELIEVE THAT I WAS BEING FED REAL TIME INFORMATION, INSTED THE DATA THAT I RECEIVED WAS 45 SECONDS BEHIND REAL TIME. IF I WOULD HAVE KNOWN THAT AT THE TIME, I WOULD NEVER HAVE GOTTEN INVOLVED IN THIS ROTTEN MESS.

I AM A 72 YEAR OLD DISABLED VET WITH PTSD AND THER STRESS OVER THIS LOSS IS KILLING ME AS I USED FUNDS THE VA PAID ME FOR MY DISABILITY.

 

http://marginmadness.wordpress.com/

http://marginmadness.wordpress.com/2013/04/04/financial-minefield-dancing/

TDA is a master of marketration. All of the fancy graphics/bells and whistles on their TOS dashboard are heinously well adapted to make one feel savy and in control. Yet you are just a click away from potential disaster. Bloomberg was the first company to incorporate color graphics on their proprietary trading platform, making Reuters trading platform seem obsolete because their system was still formulate in DOSS “via” the green screen. The data feeds were identical. Bloomberg’s system just looked better and in tern, sold better. His company built a better financial mouse trap, but it was not sold to the general public, big difference, and for good reason. Financial institutions are able to sustain massive losses via “error accounts,” offset taxes etc. The regular Joe Schmuck 6-pack like myself is not. The sheer ethical reasoning to allow anyone to gain access to these platforms should be reviewed, especially margin for the masses. People are not corporations, they work for or own them, or so they say.

In my case, many things went wrong. TDA’s glitch in 2011 crashed my computer, leaving me with no access to my screens, while my positions ran out of control. The account continued to spiral downward while on hold with TDA, madness. My financial well being was literally wiped out in a flash. Yet I had no idea at the time. It’s a lot like being in an explosion and waking up in a hospital.

The fact is system problems happen all the time, but they are rectified internally. Public clients of companies like TDA, have no idea of these “glitches”, unless it’s a major one like the “flash crash.” I know because I’d have to work with the IT department if our proprietary system “fell down.” Yet another “layer of flavor” to sugar coat their candy to the masses, while they are put on hold. In the institutional realm, these problems are addressed ”on the hop.”

TDA will say “that’s the breaks,” and deny, deny, deny any involvement in your crisis. But they did load the gun, light the fuse, and run away from the marketing exploitation ponzi they’ve maticulously sculpted through incessant marketing. Pray tell if you dare question their motives. Or they”ll unleash their corporate army of attorneys whose business is to protect the hive.

Successful con artists carefully mark out their prey. All of the angles are taken into consideration, prior to implementation. Leaving the mark/customer/client feeling assured they are in good hands. Hustlers use “confidence men.” Companies like TDA use financial consultants to take you out to lunch, call you with nice things to say, anything for the account.

Or shit, bypass the cheesy sales prick, open a self directed/destruction account, and become a “trade assassin,” like the guy on TV. This will leave the investment “fraud” house legally untouchable if a problem arises, right ? Proper investment planning is so easy, even a baby can do it. A bit cheekey, yet highly effective from a marketing perspective. All while financial companies reap endless trading commissions.

A simple penney tax on financial commission, if ethically allotted to aid our present economies burdens would go a long way towards offsetting the federal deficit, but that might help level the playing field. Take into consideration the global financial trading playground, the metastisation of greed is mind bottling to the rudamentary investor’s knowledge of how seriously it is rigged.

An example of how the government tried to curb global hedge funds was to legally force them the flatten their book daily so the fund couldn’t then trade the left over cash on different exchanges globally based on futures rigging. They could magically correctly make bets based on the different time zones. What was really going on was traders were simply calling their trading desk in the next time zone, and placing the trade according to how the market was predicted based on the “spoo’s ” or other future’s derivative.

Magic, nope, just read any article about the LIBOR Ponzi scheme. The wizards simply predicted the future because the trader in the next time zone already knew. Genious. Almost as good as arbitrage/garbage trades, where two traders pre-arange trades of two different commodities/securities, and still profit from the commission, even if the buy/seller of the financial property wins or looses, pretty cool hugh. Some say financial firm have liscenses to print money?

There’s the long con, retirement planning, and the short con, day trading. In both cases the house wins. 30 year historical valuations reveal no actual gain in some financially planned accounts after taking into consideration the almost daily panic plays based on faux media hyped weather reports that the financial sky is falling for profit.

The key to be successful is a combination of long, mid, and short base, all bracket wrapped etc., balance, discipline, and luck. If you can create an effective HFT algorithmic model, you might even get investigated if your profitable. Or create a sector basket. There really is no formula/valuation when money technically means nothing, especially in the toxic derivative marketplace where credit default swapping causes economic tsunamis for profit at the expense of your home.

A master fixer/firm/hustler can make the mark/client feel as if it’s their fault things turned out bad. That’s the art if the back end of a con. Real art has no intrinsic value, ask any legitimate starving artist.

Cheaters justice. Deuchebag traders love to refer to “the street” like their from it. Back in the day you may be able to come up. But most of these fuck tards are simply trustafarians living off of predicated wealth, posing “as if.” In the movie “Breaking Awayaking

What you don’t know, can hurt you. Ignorance isn’t bliss, and education is dangerous for the elite. The realization you’ve just been taken advantage of becomes crystal while you’re signing up for food stamps. Every second there after is the study of “what if” while your simply trying to hang on, a nice slap of reality for mark. It’s been going on since the dawn if time. When a cave man found out if he chucks a rock and knocks the other guy out, he can take the other guys stuff. But these days it’s a bit out of control, and the rocks more prevalent.

TDA can hide behind the corporate veil. Their loose and bogus contracts are simply nooses for clients. Much like South Park’s rendition of the “Human Centapeede.” But on the real streets there is cheaters justice. Something TDA feverishly tries to avoid through endless litigation, hoping you give up from the financial strain from their evil gain. People like this who have never earned an honest dime have devoted their lives to waste time (in court), creating nothing tangible. They fancy themselves as rockstars, yet play no instrument prodigously, or with feeling. I always thought it was a bit suspect that E-Trade sponsored a Rolling Stones tour, but Mick Jagger was an economics major.

I once worked briefly at a financial cuntsoltant company and felt horrible cold calling innocent people, trying to sell lemons off a FINRA car lot. It was similar to when a group of snotty rich kids wanted a refund for thevcaranted a refund doryhexae they oughyvanced communication capabilities fueled by modern technological advancement , these social economic pitfalls are all driven by corporate survival, divide and conquer etc.e to the scene where frat bratsvtried to het a refundpasn’t born with an ethical bi-pass, but I was born with a double hernia, maybe that’s why I have a high thresh hold for pain. Along with a plastic, rather than silver spoon. The point is the financial industry is truly a countyclub, and I the piss boy. One boss referred to the general public as “peasants,” no joke. I once had to walk back to a deli to redo his sandwich because it had the wrong mustard, and the Italian dressing was not on the side. Humility and compassion are characteristics of genuine leaders. Not the contrary exhibited by “poxy brats.”

In the movie, “Breaking Away,” some rich college kids tried to return their car because didn’t work. His son ended up refunding it, though it practically killed his dad . It showed how Ma &Pa businesses needeevery buck in the real world . His sons nievity cost his dad money. The rich seemed to get all off the breaks, until he relized he was a cutter kid, and won herrch kids on a level/oval track at the y being himself.

OI will try to metamorphically reiderate the haphazards of the modern financial minefield purposely created by companies like TDA. Hopefully it may prevent someone frtom thinking they can swim in TDA’s digital shark tank .