Honestly, the only reason I asked for a supervisor was because "Joe" said he did not know who set the trading policy and also didn't offer to put me on hold or something while he asked others. He became defensive and insulting and I don't think that makes me self righteous. This is a controversial issue that is being tested by Ameritrade, and I was interested in finding out how IB might stand. Harmless enough! This thread is getting too long and I don't think new posters are taking the time to read and understand the early posts. Thanks very much for everyones comments and I can see now that this is a very big issue with many online trading/investing people. Best Wishes to all!
Yes, I had the misfortune to speak to three different CS reps at IB. Twice to Joe and once each to the others. Two of the three fellows were rude and all were unresponsive to the issue and one refused to allow me to talk to a supv or mgr, when I four times requested it in a phone call. I decided that one should avoid CS phone calls at all costs, and this was during the time I was first funding my account, even before I started, when there seemed to be a problem with getting the account open! I later met DEF on these boards, after I posted a complaint about IB's service on these boards. I see that complaint is no longer available for view, by the way! He assured me that he would intervene and help if there was another problem. Of course, there was another problem. A limit order was filled at a price lower than the limit and it being 5AM, I emailed the status request. It took them four days to get back to me with the fact that their software had a problem, changed orders weren't going through to the exchange even though they showed as live orders in our accounts. They didn't offer to refund the four points after all that, so I asked for them and got no answer. That's when I asked def to look into it. He did. He got back to me with an outrageous lie, claiming that even though they had all the changes I sent through on that order, that they couldn't tell which would have executed. Amazing. You can't change a FILLED order, so even if they didn't have the time stamps for the order changes, they can tell which would have been live at the time the order was filled -- without any question the last change is the "live" order! So they lied. It was such a small amount of money, I'd never have left over that. I did feel I had to leave because of the lie, however. These guys took four days to status an order so it no longer could viably have been busted. They had a list of all my changes to the order, admitted that their software had a bug in it prevented changes in orders from going through, and they didn't deny that the order appeared on MY screen to have gone through. All that, and then they lied to keep a trivial sum of money. They could have even said, "We never make good, even on our own compounded mistakes, and we never give a credit, even as a one time courtesy." They could have said all that, even though it's bad practice, and I'd have stayed. But because they didn't say the truth, because they told me a blatant lie, I had to close my account. IB is increasingly popular but my personal prediction is that they will be gone in five years, because I had the impression yesterday that there was some sleaze under that veneer. I just don't want them to be gone taking my money with them. But, you'd think that would be the end of it? Because I wired money into my account in parts, they are enforcing a rule that even cash deposits, which wires are, have to be held at IB and not restored to the customer, for ten biz days. Gotta tell you, I have three other active brokerage accounts and not one of them does that, even though IB says they're enforcing the new law related to laundering money. Well, the other brokers I use just don't do that, and in view of IB lying to me about that trade, I think they're probably lying about how long they have to hold cash deposits. I won't rest easy till I have all my money out of there!
def is high level management at IB and he reflects their position on matters accurately. That is to say, they don't really want to provide support to customers. I have brokerage accounts and at each of them I have always been able to speak to a manager when I asked. These are all discount brokerage accounts, and I have NEVER had a problem speaking to management when I asked. It doesn't come up often but when it comes up, you really do want to speak to someone higher. IB just doesn't want to deal with any customer problems, so they get you off the phone fast, push you into email and after having had four terrible experiences with phoning customer service I was happy to try email. Email was courteous but terribly slow. And they ended up telling me lies. So I'm left with the personal impression of dealing with a boiler room operation, and the whole place makes me uneasy. I'm a VERY heavy trader with thousands of trades a year. I occasionally require that an order be statused. It's probably been a year or two since I needed that at Waterhouse but this morning I did. I had a limit order that wasn't filled when the stock traded lower than the limit and I thought the late fill would come in, but it didn't so I phoned. I reached Trade Support, and they explained Redibook had a problem so they couldn't status it immediately, while I was on the phone, but they gave me a case number and said if the trade didn't show up filled in my account in a few hours that I could call with the case number and that rep would see what was going on, but that rep did promise to follow up without my call. Within another hour I saw the trade enter my account, filled. In contrast, an email to IB took four days to complete the status, that's days, not hours. And then even though they admitted they were the cause of the problem, they didn't give me the four points. Instead they told me a really outrageous lie about not knowing which of my orders would have filled. The tape doesn't lie, but some brokers do! This happened yesterday at IB, about a trade that occurred on 9/11, so it took more than ten days for that status to come to an end and a very bad end, at that. This is a bare bones situation at IB. They do have very low commissions and good software (usually good anyway), and they are big and growing so are pulling in a lot of money. They should be putting some of that towards hiring more CS reps and more management and properly assisting their customers. If they have thousands of calls a day, imagine how many customers they have. Most of us don't call. I decided yesterday that they were in my opinion "sleaze" and I can't do business with anyone who lies to me. It just scares me. I don't want them to have access to my money. I get scared they'll steal it. And what could I do if they walked away with a huge sum of my money? With a company you can't get any management on the phone and you're told not to expect to be able to talk to anyone in management if you have a problem? To me, these are just very bad indicators, and they don't inspire trust. Believe me I want the cheap commissions as much as anyone but not at the cost of feeling my funds are at risk with them. I'm not saying they've stolen, but I do think if they'll lie about a small sum, they're not honest people.
OnTheEdge - I think one flame post was more than sufficent. 2 was a bit much. However, we don't need to see a continuous stream of your bitching on every thread related to IB.
Hello, Jerry, if that's you. You do have a business relationship with IB, Don't you? Money does change hands between you, yes? How does that work exactly? Yes, you'll find my posts on every thread about IB from now on, and not only here but on the other sites where brokerages are evaluated. I believe the customers have a right to know what happened and I'm telling them what happened. If you don't want to see my posts, please use the IGNORE button. That's what it's for.
No, IB does not pay me money. don't make assumptions. I have posted my share of bitching about IB. I have no objections to your first post flaming them today. However, we don't need to hear about your problems on EVERY thread.
Money or services that can be worth money does change hands between you and IB, Jerry! Please be open about your relationship to them. You do have a business relationship with IB and I do think as part of disclosure that if you're going to try to silence complaints about them you need to disclose the nature of your business relationship with IB. You don't have to hear about my problems with IB at all. Just use the IGNORE button. You do have a business relationship with IB and apparently don't want to hear complaints about them. Use IGNORE. I see that my original evaluation of them was removed -- I posted it about a month ago, when I was first opening my account with IB. I really don't like seeing complaints about IB censored. If that continues to happen, I will bring these issues to the Press.
you're posting on so many threads it's hard to keep up. 1. I did go out of my way to assist. 2. after bent_prop's call clarification was given to the help staff and they will do their best to get a supervisor on the phone if someone requests. progress was made on that end. 3. your mails Sunday were quite long and frankly I've been very busy on the trading front these past two days. I am not customer service and mainly pass things along. 4. you say there is a blatant lie. you are taking things out of context. BTW, 5 AM = 5 PM HK time and 11? AM in Switzerland. Our help desk was manned and you could have contacted via chat and/or mail or even called overseas. While you sent me all the details of your trade, I did not research them and forwarded them to an appropriate person. I assure you that your situation was looked at in detail. 6. I'm not going to comment on this further and I think it is rather poor taste to post any mails I sent back to you in private in a public forum. You could have asked me if there was a next level of "protest" and I would have given you an e-mail address to send a complaint to the head of CS. I'm sorry you weren't happy with our service. I'm a pretty patient person but given your reaction in regards to someone - namely me - who spent a fair amount of time a few weeks back over my weekend answering your questions and providing information, I can only imagine the tone of the conversations with our help desk. I'll just leave it by saying, best of luck where ever and whoever you end up trading. One more thing, yes, I am high level management. I manage our Asian operations. My main responsibility is our trading/market making. There is another manager in Hong Kong who handles most IB related client details. he reports to me but also to the head of CS. Even if I wanted to add the $40 back to your account, I do not have the authority.
one last post and off to bed... money does NOT exchange hands between IB and quote tracker. Jerry has access to the API just the same as anyone else. he also writes codes for numerous other brokers. it just so happens he has a great program that interacts well with our service. if you look at the posts jerry has made, it is just plain silly to question his integrity.
You're misrepresenting, DEF. I posted the entire correspondence in another thread. NOTHING was taken out of context. A fair review reveals that my emails were concise and polite until you sent me a blatant lie. You told me, quoting the CS rep, that it was impossible to tell which order would have filled, had they gone to the exchange. That is the lie. I should not have needed to request even higher a level of recourse. You should have taken it higher yourself before you passed on a BLATANT LIE to me. You should not have been a party to lying to a customer. I wouldn't take it higher because I feel if someone on your level of management and someone on CS's level, both will lie to a customer, then I don't want to deal with the firm. As soon as you lied to me, I dismissed the matter of the small sum of money. In fact, I would have written it off if you'd simply refused to refund it. I can't get around a lie, though. I can't dismiss THAT. The lying to me about not knowing which order would have been filled became the insurmountable problem for me. I was always polite to CS on the phone and your suggestion that I am not, is just one of the low blows I'd expect from a brokerage firm that endorses lying to customers. As for whether I could have phoned overseas at 5AM, perhaps I could have. But I emailed, because that's what CS often tells us to do, I knew the US offices were closed, and I have never dealt with a firm where I'd be resolving trading in the US through calling overseas. Would the call cost more money than the amount lost in the trade? They received the email in a timely fashion and should have directed it to the proper department to handle it promptly, as status requests SHOULD be handled, when they came into the office. Had they, the trade would have been busted before the market opened in the US, easily. You want to blame me for not phoning? IB accepted responsibility for the bad fill, so why try to turn this onto me? You're dog fighting! This wasn't caused by me, nor compounded by me. The whole mess was caused and compounded by IB. Now you're angry because I'm making it public. You shouldn't do things that are such that you don't want them made public. You're dealing with a customer and I'm talking with other customers and I'm going to make public exactly how IB handled this situation. I left out nothing. I posted the entire correspondence in another thread.