when i first started, i used suretrade.com as my broker. looking back, they were TERRIBLE. sometimes they would tell me my order status 30 minutes after i put in an order. i didn't know any better at the time.
yes it was....instead of scaring me away I got angry. Left the office that day determined to make that money back. After 2 weeks of trading 100 share lots I was back in the green.
Suretrade sucked large. Called them SureSlow. I was with them for a small acct only because they had a low flat rate, decent short inventory, and IPO's. Other than that , if they weren't crooks, then they were incredibly incompetant.
I lost 2k on a bad fill on SIRF recently because my market order did not execute right away and I thought it was canceled. Oops. It wasn't. I found out the next day and took the loss like any other trader would.