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Technology Stocks : America On-Line (AOL) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: RocketMan who wrote (5538)	2/23/1999 10:41:00 AM
From: Lee Martin	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 41369

Don't get me started on Etrade. Four years ago they were great. Now their service and trade executions are so poor I had to switch to Brown. The last time I bought NSCP I NEVER got a confirmation back. It just showed up when I checked my acct. the next day! How can people make trades when they don't even know if a trade went through or at what price until the next day. Last week an Etrade broker called me up and asked me what it would take to get me to stay at Etrade. He offered me a %5.25 margin rate, offered me his private # so I could get through to him to make trades or "fix" any problems if I wasn't satisfied with a trade I placed online. I asked him where was he when I was trying to get someone to fix all the screwups with my acct. that have occurred over the last couple of months and have cost me over $100k? I told him he was several weeks late and $100k short. Etrade's ad campaign is pulling in a lot of new "green" investors and daytraders who only have a few $k and don't understand that Etrade makes it's $ off of the "spread" between bid and ask which is greater at Etrade than at Schwab and other better brokers. On smaller orders it doesn't matter that much, but on a 5000 share block 1/4 point is $1250. That's why longtime customers like me are leaving, the poor executions are killing us and the poor customer service just makes dealing with them unbearable. Don't believe me? Pick up the phone and try to talk to someone at Etrade. The battery in my cell phone went dead after 2-1/2 hours waiting on hold after they screwed up a stop order for 9000 shares of AOL at 141 that got executed at 138! They admitted that several thousand trades got executed at 141, but not mine. "Sorry but it becomes a market order and there's nothing we can do about when or at what price it gets executed." I bought NSCP after that and have more than made up the loss, but it's this kind of crap just frustrates the @#$% out of me. Hopefully Brown will be better. Ooops, I guess you did get me started on Etrade after all....sorry. Regards,Lee