What should a first time user of IB expect?

I have decided open an account with IB. What should I expect in terms of user friendlyness with their stuff? Can I pick it up and make a trade first time bang bang? or will I have to fumble through it a time or two? I would also just like to say thank you to all the sharp people in here, I have learned a lot.

 

Cannot be easier, providing you have a login id.

Open the TWS, go into the stocks tab and type in the Rapid order entry starting from the Symbol field: GOOG "tab" 100 "tab" "down arrow to select MKT" "tab" "enter"

And you have just become another proud investor in GOOGLEmania ( providing you did this during NY market open hours)

That'll get you started.

Who said it was diificult

Happy trading and welcome to the club.

 

i think it's straight forward but suggest you play with the demo and take a look at some of the interactive tours under the "university of IB" on the IB web site. also depending on the level of sophistication you require, read through selected topics in the user manual.

 

Call them up on the ringer, and "feel the lurve"!
Oh, you said "stuff", not "staff"

 

Sometimes they are friendly and human but there are some androids in there. Sadly in my experience whether they are friendly or not I seem to waste HOURS on the phone being moved around depts. being told or promised one thing and it never happening.

Two examples. (1) I transferred some funds from my personal bank account to IB and it went 'missing' Three weeks later, after IB continually blaming my bank they finally admitted the funds were in IBs holding account. No apology, nothing. I had spent hours on the phone and couldn't trade during this time. I know I am not the only person this has happened to.
(2) I am trying to set up a 2nd user on my account for some time but have given up for now. I even spoke to somebody in Chicago for 30mins (some of this time was security checks) who gave me a temp. password after spotting that a typo at their end had rendered the user name invalid. Does this temp password work. Of course not ! That would be too easy. I just can't be bothered to have to go through the whole thing again.

On a positive note TWS order execution and charges are great. BUT considering how much they make out of me on commissions would it be too much to ask for a bit more personal service?

Have they ever made a follow call for example? "Hello Mr X, just ringing to see if the issue we dealt with last week has been resolved satisfactorily and you are happy with our customer service because we value you as a customer."

The odd thing is that when I lived in the US I found customer service to be the prime concern for any service provider. Even Nat West bank have started to make customer courtesy calls!

So the answer to your question is; sometimes friendly but next to useless customer service.

I feel much better now!

 

Ha ha ha, that made me laugh, the National Westminster bank, now there's a bank without peer

 

How do you clear zero positions in the portfolio window. This is another mystery IB have been unable to solve. Yes I've ticked the box and yes I have the latest version of TWS. After selecting 'clear zero positions ' they do disappear for about 30 seconds then come back.

As you can imagine after about 20 transactions it drives me potty!

 

close and restart

 

Been there, done that. Still get all the day's positions returning!

 

I would pretty much use IB for data and order executions only, but I'd definitely use a third party platform and/or software for everything else.

Happy trading