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Non-Tech : Web Street Securities (WEBS) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: J.Fox-President,Web Street Sec who wrote (69)	10/28/1997 5:41:00 PM
From: Esteban	Respond to of 1339

I'm a Hyper Active Trader and I'd like to use Web St. more often than I do. For the last week there have been numerous server errors especially on the order status frame, making it a very slow process to cancel orders, a definite handicap for the Hyper Active Trader. And at least for me, the web page seems slow and too complicated to allow for fast order entry. Speed of execution is a mystery to me, since you don't post time of fills, and order time is not recorded in seconds, only minutes. I have noticed that order representation for orders between the spread often takes 2 minutes to display on the level II quotes. I suggest you check out Datek's Expres Server 7 as the model for fast order entry. But please, don't adopt Datek's recent record for frozen orders and slow executions on large cap Nasdaq stocks. Fast execution and the free 1000 share orders attracted me to Web St. Now if I could just see the "less than 10 second execution on nearly all Nasdaq trades" that you advertise, coupled with faster order entry, I'd be here to stay. As it is I'm still trading with Web St., at the same time that I'm looking for a truly efficient FAST broker at low commissions.

To: J.Fox-President,Web Street Sec who wrote (69)	10/28/1997 5:52:00 PM
From: Esteban	Read Replies (4) \| Respond to of 1339

I would like to commend Web St. for the outstanding customer service I have received since opening my account a few weeks ago. I hope this continues as you grow. I also hope I won't have to call as often as I have had to to clear up trading problems. For some constructive comments on how to improve your service, see my previous post.

To: J.Fox-President,Web Street Sec who wrote (69)	11/21/1997 10:04:00 AM
From: Fred Puppet	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 1339

[ WebSteet 0, NDB 1 ] I recently opened a "test" account at WebStreet, to compare their service against my other brokers, NDB and Datek. My attraction to WebStreet is the potential to trade for zero commissions. My doubts focus on speed of representation and execution. To be fair in my comparison, I'll only place orders before the market opens. That gives the brokers an even starting line. Since Datek is known to be horrible from 9:30 to 9:40, they are out of the comparison from the start. Today, I wanted to short 4,000 ASTM at a limit of 8. I called NDB at 9:22, and within a minute had placed an order in for 2,000 shares at a limit of 8. The only drawback was that you have to call NDB to make a short sale. At 9:23, I placed an order at WebStreet to short 2,000 ASTM at a limit of 8. I received this response: Your DAY order to Sell Short 2000 shares of ASTM (AASTROM BIOSCIENCES INC) with a limit price of 8 in your Short account (xxxxxxxx) failed for the following reason: lid Acct # [xxxxxxxxx ] for user [xxxxxxxx ] while processing 'Order Request' request Can anyone make sense of this error message? I tried again, and got the same response. Next I called WebStreet, and they placed the order manually, giving me a zero commission since there was a problem with web order entry. A minute later WebStreet called back, to tell me there were only 800 ASTM available. I told them not to place that order, since my only interest in WebStreet is to trade for free, which means my orders must be at least 1,000 shares. At 9:32, the NDB web page confirmed my short. At 9:33 I received an email confirmation from NDB. Since I sold at the high of the day (at least until now), I know that I got representation. Sure I paid a $28 commission, but I got a fill. WebStreet was useless for me today. So far, score 1 for NDB, 0 for WebStreet.