1, You want to know how much buying power you have: stock or options buying power. That info is wrong on line. They said they'd fix it ages ago, but never did. It's just wrong and useless.
2. If you ask verbally, they often tell you wrong, too, including the so-called margins staff. They give you wrong info and then punish you if you trade based on it. Happened to me, Ryan, margin clerk, gave me wrong info, I traded, overspent, and they made me sell stock, and then they agreed to give me some money toward commissions, to compensate, but I think they never did. These are not unusual but are routine, chronic problems.
Other brokers: my buying power is immediately available every day and always correct. This broker, it can take 1/2 hour to get the info and then it's often wrong.
3. I trade infrequently in my account there as a result, but did have a trade Monday. The commission charged was $65 instead of $15. If I had not pointed it out, it would not have been fixed. But John, the margin clerk assistant insisted this is a frequent glitch and is automatically fixed the next day. Tuesday, no surprise, not fixed, talked to Cust Serv who said the only way to get it fixed is to give it to a supv for correction. So if I'd listened to John never would have been fixed. In a busy account I'd never have noticed.
4. You can't place two orders on the same stock on line, like two buys or two sells at different prices. Bug in their system. You have to do it "live."
5. There are a few other problems, but I forget right now. Thing is they LIE. They promise things will be fixed and they aren't. Or they pretend they don't know of a problem that is universal on their system.
6. The Level II doesn't work for all stocks and I found it to be buggy. I'll be curious if you find that, too. If I go to Level II, when I go back to dynamic, all the quotes freeze. The dynamic quotes work okay and I like them, but the site slows down my whole Mac. I don't like to log onto it because it's so slow and effects the Mac, sometimes leading to crashing.
I'd like to hear your impressions. I don't trust the company and I'm leaving.
Linda |
