Thanks Len. Update #1 on this trade:
I did call 888-godatek, and was pleasantly surprised that after negotiating the phone menu, I got a live person within a few seconds. (Nice improvement over past experiences.) He then looked into the trade, and told me he'd call back in 10 minutes. About 60-90 minutes later, he did call back, and politely informed me that they had no record of the cancelation. He then asked if I had a printout of the cancelation screen which I could fax him--precisely as Len suggested. At that point, he was cut off, and he did not call me back. Since I didn't have his direct extension, and gathered I would be unable to reverse the trade since I did not print out the confirm screen, I did not call back.
While a more prompt callback and a callback after the cutoff would have been better, I was satisfied that the operator was making a goodfaith effort to address my problem.
Then, about 1/2 hour ago, I got a polite private SI message from Tim Richter, who had already looked into the trade, and made essentially the same determination. I sent him a reply with some follow-up questions related to the trade, then composed this note.
Conclusions so far:
(1) Save/printout all cancellation screens! Hopefully Tim will confirm that this would be sufficient proof to reverse the trade.
(2) Customer service seems to have improved notably. Congrats, Datek.
(3) I'm not sure that order and cancellation entires are rock-solid reliable in all circumstances. (I should disclose that I placed another order just prior to the one in question, that was also cancelled. The second order, the one in question, didn't get placed until 17 seconds after the close Friday. It was then I cancelled it, checked the "daily activity" screen, and got the second "order cancelled" notification.)
I'll update the thread when I learn more. Feedback is welcomed. |
