A small trader speaks:
I have been using Datek for about 8 weeks. Up till then I had been paying about $80-100/trade fees using Citibank. Now that was real daylight robbery! From that perspective Datek would have had to have been pretty bad for me to not use them.
I sent datek 2 checks and those funds became available for trading 3-5 days before the checks were presented. I have never requested funds but am very concerned with the comments found here. Thanks for the warning. I'll be sure to document every request thoroughly.
I trade about 10x a week (that's a $100p/w saving over E-Trade) with values in the $1K - 8K range and have experienced a few delays, a couple of price improvements but mostly excellent predictable responses. Slow trade entries have been free of any fee as promised. On high volume stocks I have found myself in a queue and, predictably, had to wait until previous orders placed at the same (or better) price were filled until my order was executed. In those cases I could see my order on isld.com move gradually to the front of the queue. My orders have always shown up on island - don't forget that they are a free service provided by a couple of people as a sideline and is not a business.
I have sent Datek 2 E-mails regarding a stock that was merged and needed transferring, which were ignored. I eventually rang customer service and after being put on hold for 10 minutes by the telephone robot and 5 minutes more by the human assistant, the matter was resolved satisfactorily.
I recieve E-mails & letters confirming all my trades. I have experienced one or two logon anomolies, though nothing serious and nothing I haven't seen at any other web site. Although I do get a 'Not Found' page after I enter my ID/password. It always works on the retry. I thought this was a bug with the Explorer 4.0 beta I'm using but I saw earlier in this thread that someone was experienceing a very similar problem.
So what? well, I have been able to make trades with Datek that wouldn't have been viable using a 'House', I trade in a real time environment (I could never go back to '15 minutes delayed'
), and I get this at the cheapest price available.
Not responding to E-mails is stupid. Not releasing funds is inexcusable. The rest is just what I need out of broker. However, Datek should realise that if someone else moves onto their patch, they will suffer for their lapses. In the meantime, I guess you get what you pay for - customer satisfaction gaurantees not included.
BTW, are funds held with Datek gauranteed/insured or are we all as exposed as a dog's balls? |
