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Non-Tech : bad experience in Charles Schwab recently -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Kona who wrote (65)	8/21/1997 3:27:00 AM
From: Jim Berg	Respond to of 124

Kona try elitetrader.com they have a recommend and evaluation page or try investorguide.com they have one too Jim

To: Kona who wrote (65)	8/21/1997 12:33:00 PM
From: Cisco	Respond to of 124

Kona, I couldn't agree more! I am switching both of my e-Schwab accounts to Waterhouse. For a premium price discounter they sure don't give premium service. My last two e-mails have never been answered. When I called and asked the rep why, he said it must of gotten lost on the www. Give me a break, my first e-mail was asking what happened to last month's statement which I never received. The last straw was when I wanted to buy some Canadian and BB stocks and was told Schwab couldn't afford to trade them at e-Schwab rates. I was told I would have to open a regular Schwab account so that they could charge me 9 cents a share on a 40 cent stock. That's $450 on $5,000 worth of stock. How come Waterhouse can afford to trade it for $12.00. Perhaps they are more efficient than Schwab. Also they trade 24 hours a day. And if you have a problem, you can get help from a real person for free. They even let the broker at the local branch talk to you about your account. Something that Schwab says they can't afford at their low e-Schwab rates. Also, have you noticed how your margin balance can change by hundreds of dollars from day to day when you have no trades pending while the securities in the margin acount are remaining mostly unchanged. In case you are curious my second e-mail is about a margin balance which says that I owe $3,000 on my margin account despite the settlement date being past on a trade where I sold about $3,000 worth of stock. I hope they don't plan to keep charging interest on it. Hope you find a better brokerage perhaps for a better price. Why pay premium price for being a second class citizen. Schwab makes it clear, if you want to be a first class citizen, you must open a regular Schwab account not an e-Schwab. Waterhouse provides the same services whether you trade on-line, by touch-tone, or through an account officer. The only difference is the fee, $12/$35/$45 for up to 5,000 shares for on-line, touch-tone, and real person respectively. Happy trading, Cisco

To: Kona who wrote (65)	8/22/1997 12:43:00 AM
From: Rick Ryan	Respond to of 124

Kona, As a software contractor, you must be familiar with batch processing. That's what the rep was referring to. Schwab, as every firm does, does this every night to update accounts for the day's activity. It takes a long time because it's a very big system. You can't access your account via the Web because the computer the info is on is being updated. They should update it? Well, that's easier said than done. The mainframe is not a Windows 95 multitasking system. It's old and yes, it does need to be revised. However, this is incredibly expensive and infinitely more complex than most people can imagine. By the way, they do this in the middle of the night when 98% of the country is asleep -- can't think of a BETTER time. Seems like a poor reason to move your account but that's your choice. Good luck! RR