Troubles with Scottrade..

motyeh · Apr 15, 2006

Scottrade has lousy system reliability, with their website or active trader platforms down or unable to accept trade orders, or unable to execute submitted orders lately, more than 20 minutes a day on average. On occassion they've been down for much of the trading day. Even reaching a broker during those times has taken from 10 minutes to over 1/2 an hour. This has occured often, even during slow market days, and it has been very costly.

Even worse is their lousy order confirmation/notification/execution system. Often times when I have submitted either market and limit orders on their Elite Trader platform the orders just disappear into the "void". After pressing the "buy", "buy to cover", "sell", "sell short", "modify", or "cancel" buttons on the order entry screen, there is no response confirming order status - submission, or completion - nothing. I can reload my order entry, activity, balances, positions, executions and open orders screen all I want and still get no confirmation information. On several occassions I have had absolutely NO feedback on the status of my order for minutes or hours.

On one occassion after I had no confirmation of my order for over half and hour, I submitted my order a second time. Again, nothing showed up on my trading log so I called the office and they reported that I had not bought any stock, had no open orders, and there were no problems with their system. With their assurances that all was well, and thinking I had screwed up somehow, I resubmitted the order a third time, and again received no acknowledgement. After the third try I gave up. It wasn't until after the market had closed that my trade confirmations came in. All three of them. Completed.

On another occassion I tried to cover a large short position I had opened half an hour or so before, but couldn't get the order through because according to Scottrade I wasn't short the shares. I called the office, explained that my records showed I was short the shares, that their system said I wasn't, and therefore it wouldn't allow me to close the position. They said that I wasn't short the shares, and that I couldn't buy to close a position I didn't have. When I insisted I was short, but couldn't close the position - they suggested that even though I wasn't really short the shares, if it made me feel better I could certainly buy the shares long and see how things work out later. But of course, they couldn't be responsible should I go long the shares. They had the nerve to tell me I should "just be patient".

Scottrade has told me I am responsible for the risk when I trade electronically. That there are flaws in the system. Their system may not be reliable, may not be accessible, my real time order, trading and transaction records may not be accurate. Even if their system inaccurately reports my positions and prevents me from trading that position because of their error I am responsible for any losses I may incur. I have lost many thousands of dollars on just a few trades from their screwups.

Well, this isn't just a bitch session, but I've paid over $5000 in commissions so far this year, and I've given up more than that on their screw-ups. In an account my size (small six figures) that hurts.

So, what are my chances of any sort of recovery on their screw-ups? They offered me 3 free trades, lol . Any help would be appreciated.

Second, and perhaps more importantly, what can I reasonably expect from a broker? I concur that I'm a complete idiot for staying with Scottrade so long, but I am moving to a different broker. To prevent this craziness from ever happening again, I need some guidelines on what I can reasonably expect from a broker, and I need some recommendations on what brokers fill that bill. Any and all advice is appreciated.

Sincerely,
Bruised but not beaten

Kastro_316 · Apr 15, 2006

Head over to Interactivebrokers!!!

-Kastro

Martin Gale · Apr 15, 2006

What markets and what kind of size do you trade?

Cheese · Apr 15, 2006

Quote from motyeh:
Bruised but not beaten
More...

I have never used Scottrade. But I think these losers don't have a long term future.

iceman1 · Apr 15, 2006

Quote from motyeh:

Scottrade has lousy system reliability, with their website or active trader platforms down or unable to accept trade orders, or unable to execute submitted orders lately, more than 20 minutes a day on average. On occassion they've been down for much of the trading day. Even reaching a broker during those times has taken from 10 minutes to over 1/2 an hour. This has occured often, even during slow market days, and it has been very costly.

Even worse is their lousy order confirmation/notification/execution system. Often times when I have submitted either market and limit orders on their Elite Trader platform the orders just disappear into the "void". After pressing the "buy", "buy to cover", "sell", "sell short", "modify", or "cancel" buttons on the order entry screen, there is no response confirming order status - submission, or completion - nothing. I can reload my order entry, activity, balances, positions, executions and open orders screen all I want and still get no confirmation information. On several occassions I have had absolutely NO feedback on the status of my order for minutes or hours.

On one occassion after I had no confirmation of my order for over half and hour, I submitted my order a second time. Again, nothing showed up on my trading log so I called the office and they reported that I had not bought any stock, had no open orders, and there were no problems with their system. With their assurances that all was well, and thinking I had screwed up somehow, I resubmitted the order a third time, and again received no acknowledgement. After the third try I gave up. It wasn't until after the market had closed that my trade confirmations came in. All three of them. Completed.

On another occassion I tried to cover a large short position I had opened half an hour or so before, but couldn't get the order through because according to Scottrade I wasn't short the shares. I called the office, explained that my records showed I was short the shares, that their system said I wasn't, and therefore it wouldn't allow me to close the position. They said that I wasn't short the shares, and that I couldn't buy to close a position I didn't have. When I insisted I was short, but couldn't close the position - they suggested that even though I wasn't really short the shares, if it made me feel better I could certainly buy the shares long and see how things work out later. But of course, they couldn't be responsible should I go long the shares. They had the nerve to tell me I should "just be patient".

Scottrade has told me I am responsible for the risk when I trade electronically. That there are flaws in the system. Their system may not be reliable, may not be accessible, my real time order, trading and transaction records may not be accurate. Even if their system inaccurately reports my positions and prevents me from trading that position because of their error I am responsible for any losses I may incur. I have lost many thousands of dollars on just a few trades from their screwups.

Well, this isn't just a bitch session, but I've paid over $5000 in commissions so far this year, and I've given up more than that on their screw-ups. In an account my size (small six figures) that hurts.

So, what are my chances of any sort of recovery on their screw-ups? They offered me 3 free trades, lol . Any help would be appreciated.

Second, and perhaps more importantly, what can I reasonably expect from a broker? I concur that I'm a complete idiot for staying with Scottrade so long, but I am moving to a different broker. To prevent this craziness from ever happening again, I need some guidelines on what I can reasonably expect from a broker, and I need some recommendations on what brokers fill that bill. Any and all advice is appreciated.

Sincerely,
Bruised but not beaten
More...

open an account at Interactive Brokers on Monday!

icE

motyeh · Apr 15, 2006

My bad experiences with Scottrade (I listed just a few) have happened for the most part in 2006 when I became a more active trader with shorter holding periods. The trades I described were for smaller order sizes from 100-500 shares, for less than $30000, and in liquid but not extremely fast moving markets.

As to order size, my orders have been anywhere from 100 - 20000 shares, or 1-10 contracts on options. Usually nasdaq, because Scottrade does allow you to see some hidden orders with their TotalView screen.

Bruised

jimrockford · Apr 15, 2006

Try Interactive Brokers.

hajimow · Apr 16, 2006

It is not Scotttrade's probem. It is your problem !!!!. Here are the reasons:
I had`accounts with Fidelity, Scottrade, Ameritrade, Datek, Etrade, TD Waterhouse and now with IB. Scottrade is great if you want to buy 200 shares of a stock like DDP!! and keep it for like 3 months and then decide what you want to do. I don't say there are not other good brokers out there, but for your daytrade, there is a solution and that is

IB

The other brokers that I listed above will cheat on you and will get you frustrated.

krazykarl · Apr 16, 2006

Quote from motyeh:

Scottrade has lousy system reliability, with their website or active trader platforms down or unable to accept trade orders, or unable to execute submitted orders lately, more than 20 minutes a day on average. On occassion they've been down for much of the trading day. Even reaching a broker during those times has taken from 10 minutes to over 1/2 an hour. This has occured often, even during slow market days, and it has been very costly.

Even worse is their lousy order confirmation/notification/execution system. Often times when I have submitted either market and limit orders on their Elite Trader platform the orders just disappear into the "void". After pressing the "buy", "buy to cover", "sell", "sell short", "modify", or "cancel" buttons on the order entry screen, there is no response confirming order status - submission, or completion - nothing. I can reload my order entry, activity, balances, positions, executions and open orders screen all I want and still get no confirmation information. On several occassions I have had absolutely NO feedback on the status of my order for minutes or hours.

On one occassion after I had no confirmation of my order for over half and hour, I submitted my order a second time. Again, nothing showed up on my trading log so I called the office and they reported that I had not bought any stock, had no open orders, and there were no problems with their system. With their assurances that all was well, and thinking I had screwed up somehow, I resubmitted the order a third time, and again received no acknowledgement. After the third try I gave up. It wasn't until after the market had closed that my trade confirmations came in. All three of them. Completed.

On another occassion I tried to cover a large short position I had opened half an hour or so before, but couldn't get the order through because according to Scottrade I wasn't short the shares. I called the office, explained that my records showed I was short the shares, that their system said I wasn't, and therefore it wouldn't allow me to close the position. They said that I wasn't short the shares, and that I couldn't buy to close a position I didn't have. When I insisted I was short, but couldn't close the position - they suggested that even though I wasn't really short the shares, if it made me feel better I could certainly buy the shares long and see how things work out later. But of course, they couldn't be responsible should I go long the shares. They had the nerve to tell me I should "just be patient".

Scottrade has told me I am responsible for the risk when I trade electronically. That there are flaws in the system. Their system may not be reliable, may not be accessible, my real time order, trading and transaction records may not be accurate. Even if their system inaccurately reports my positions and prevents me from trading that position because of their error I am responsible for any losses I may incur. I have lost many thousands of dollars on just a few trades from their screwups.

Well, this isn't just a bitch session, but I've paid over $5000 in commissions so far this year, and I've given up more than that on their screw-ups. In an account my size (small six figures) that hurts.

So, what are my chances of any sort of recovery on their screw-ups? They offered me 3 free trades, lol . Any help would be appreciated.

Second, and perhaps more importantly, what can I reasonably expect from a broker? I concur that I'm a complete idiot for staying with Scottrade so long, but I am moving to a different broker. To prevent this craziness from ever happening again, I need some guidelines on what I can reasonably expect from a broker, and I need some recommendations on what brokers fill that bill. Any and all advice is appreciated.

Sincerely,
Bruised but not beaten
More...

My Elite display has been hosed 2 days(in a row) of the past 16 months. That day they got me fills on my hung orders at 5:30.(NYSE) As an FYI - that means they pulled money out of their own pockets to get my fills afterhours.(marketmakers are out at 4)

EDIT: comments on the other points from the parent:

-The elite display is slow to give confermations the first and last 30 min of the day - the pros know why. I get confirmations on every order I place.

-Did you have a stop-loss order in for your short position? It will tell you that if you have a conditional order in the queue and you try to place another one, because you really aren't short the shares.

-I have never gone a day where they were down the whole day, or even the majority.(the 2 days i mentioned above it was reporting incorrect spreads the 2 days after they sent out an upgrade to their software.)

-their option spread reporting is incosistent on the 'positions' box - but their option chain spread is dead nuts. I was able to watch quite nicely my GOOG options disintegrate the day that ass of a CFO opened his mouth at a morgan stanley conference. It was really something to watch the bids dissappear from the option chain in seconds, then glace at the level2 for goog and watch the bids plummet...

Cheese · Apr 21, 2006

A few years back, I used to talk to the top execs at Scottrade. As already said I have never used their services. Sadly, I found their top people to be lightweights.

Nevertheless, make your own decision on your own experience.