I recommend that those that have problematic trades, ask for a refund on their commission from Greenline or other on-line brokerages. They will at least partially fulfill your request.
I will tell you my Greenline rebate on commission story. I have become increasingly dissatisfied with my attempts to access the Greenline web-site. On Friday, I was buying a stock that was running as I could see on the Market Depth that the ASKS were getting chewed up. It was around 15 minutes before close on the TSE. I don't know if anyone else experiences this problem, but if any Greenline page is not completely loaded and you click on a button, you will get Javascript errors. This error, in a nutshell, tells me that the button I just clicked has no function. A Java window opens, and it slows me down a lot, and often refuses to continue loading. The "tekkies" at Greenline have no idea what the hell I am talking about, although they can retrace your key strokes and know exactly what you have done once you enter the site. This is a valuable tidbit to know. Anyway, unlike other websites, the buttons must be activated near the end of loading. Other sites, if you know what the "thumbnail" button is before it is loaded, you can click and proceed. The process near close took me almost 2-3 minutes to get to the order page. I was now unaware of what the going price was, and went to get a quote through Greenline at which point it would not give me it (another 1-2 minutes). Because I wanted to buy the stock it forced me to put an at market bid in. I got filled almost 12 cents higher, than if I could've entered the bid in a minute or so. The whole process of merely accessing the site and doing simple things was more than 5 minutes. To add insult to injury, on Tuesday, I noticed on the Depth that it was likely the stock would open much higher than what my STOP LOSS was. I attempted to access the website at around 9:26-9:27 and was not able to simply go in, and adjust my order until 9:31-9:32 or so. By the time I adjusted entered my new stop, the stock was down slightly and my stop was above the bid. I later entered a new stop and was filled losing around $150. Each end of the trade cost me around $50 plus the higher price I paid on Friday (almost $400) and the lower price sold on Tuesday ($150). So in effect, even though I made $500 clear, Greenline cost me more than $500 and they charged me over $100 on the trade. With the rebate I saved $56, but truly it is no consolation for me.
I called Greenline and spoke to Steve Noseworthy (Customer Service Supervisor) and told him the story. At the beginning, he was hesitant to do anything. First of all, he disavowed a problem, then said it was peak time orders that were the problem. I said it often happens at non-peak times also. He indicated that the website was to be improved shortly, and I told him that is what they have been saying for a year now. He said they were trying, and I told him the first thing they could do is get more servers to handle peak time orders. I finally told him that I was sick and tired of Greenline and, although I would rather give my money to a Canadian firm, I will move to E-Trade (US based firm) if this problem is not dealt with to my satisfaction. I told him that he should give me zero commission on both ends of the trade, and could confirm that my story is true by getting an activity list from Technical Support. He then said he would take care of the one commission on Tuesday. I took this to mean they would accept only half responsibility. I told him this was unacceptable, and if they really felt there was a problem, the total rebate of my trade would stimulate Greenline into improving. Although, I was still dissatisfied, I said for now I will accept the rebate on one end, but want to pursue this further and to get his supervisor to call. He said the manager would call me tomorrow.
Within 10 minutes the manager James King called me. I could tell that someone else was also listening in on the phone, but don't know who it was. I suspect this had something to do with my mention of transferring my money to E-Trade. I re-told the story, and Mr. King said he would investigate and call me back. He called back, and technical support had told him it was apparently normal to take 2-3 minutes to input an order. He obviously ignored the fact that both the buy and the sell took over 5 minutes to input. They didn't know about Javascript errors or anything, and apparently didn't feel there was a problem. Mr. King indicated that it was my computer, my phone connection, the internet, etc..... to try and shift the blame elsewhere. I told him that everyone is aware that Greenline has one of the worst websites for speed and access, to which he said nothing. He indicated that I should have adjusted my stop in earlier (ridiculous). I explained that I was watching the jockeying of the bids on the market depth and felt it would open higher than the previous day (the stock closed very strongly the previous day and looked to be opening strong). Apparently, the factual nature that the higher stop loss price I chose would have been triggered and filled fell on deaf ears. He became argumentative as to whether I could actually know it was going to open higher or not. When I explained to him why, I could just imagine the blank look on his face. He obviously had no clue what I was talking about. Nevertheless, it did, and I couldn't get my new stop loss in which to him was irrelevant. He justified Mr. Noseworthy's approach and indicated that no one else has complained about slow access to the site (this was laughable, but I was also completely stunned). He said there was nothing more he could do. I told him that the higher levels at Greenline are in some sort of denial as to what is going on. I reiterated my disappointment and told him that at my convenience, I would be transferring my funds elsewhere.
I will take this as high as possible and although I saved one commission, I will get the other commission rebate. I will also phone in every order stating that there is a problem with the web-site and get the on-line rate.
It is amusing that the head of Greenline was quoted (by Scott MacDonald-Dow Jones Newswire) as saying they were trying to improve their service, blah, blah, blah..... If customer service doesn't know if a problem exists, and technical assistance disavows knowledge, then I doubt things will improve anytime soon.
Ask for some of your commission back, because if everyone does, maybe that will make them change their system quicker. They haven't had the motivation to do so before, and perhaps this will change their viewpoint. They would prefer to cost us money and potential, instead of actually doing something to improve the situation.
Sorry for the long story.
Regards, Wisam |
