IB almost totally blocked access to my account management

[steve42]

Wtf, are you retarded?

It's a general procedure to make a large obnoxious firm start dancing if they try to f*** you over. I did it to a belligerent oil company and it ended up costing them $50,000 to pay their lawyers when they could have rectified the entire problem with $300 to put a muffler on their pump that was shaking my house

 

[Once bright now dull]

Maybe try clearing your web browser cache or use a different browser. It sounds like this could possibly be the problem. Best of luck.

Hi comagnum, thanks for your suggestion(s), but unfortunately it's not helping. I had already tried several browsers, including the ones on an iPad and an Android tablet. Clearing cache also didn't change anything. Thank you, it seems I could use some luck with this, I also wish you best of luck wherever you might need it.

 

[Once bright now dull]

Tell them you'll be filing a claim and small claims court and pay the 20 bucks for chat GPTs new GPT4 implementation with access to the web it will be able to do a lot of these sleuthing and footwork through the various pages regarding rules and regulations and come up with a decent way to advise you on what to do and even if you have to do it yourself learn how to do it properly and do it and if they don't respond you win by default and then they will have to pay money to pay a lawyer to defend themselves so then therefore they will be incentivized to rectify the problem

Hello Steve, thanks for your advice, but it sounds rather complicated to me. I've never done anything with ChatGPT so far. And I also know very little about legal issues. It does seem however something is needed to incentivize them to rectify the problem, because thus far they don't seem very motivated to do something about it. But I shall give them a call again, and who knows maybe this time I will get to speak to someone who's actually going to solve this issue... I shall find out soon enough.

 

[Once bright now dull]

Simple: call up IB and request to have them close all your positions. They are required by regulation to do so.

Hi M.W., thank you too for your suggestion, but you see I don't want to close my positions, it's the opposite of what I want. I am very much concerned that I will be forced to close my positions if the market keeps moving against me. I am trading on margin and my excess liquidity is getting uncomfortably low, I'm moving closer towards a margin call. That's why I need access to my account management urgently. Because I want to be able to add funds to my account to prevent a margin call from happening. Trading is not a problem. I can still trade, buy and sell everything normally in TWS.

 

[M.W.]

... Hence why you should have the positions requested to be closed NOW, not when everything goes against you. The first lesson every junior at a trading desk learns is to immediately flatten exposure when out of control.

Hi M.W., thank you too for your suggestion, but you see I don't want to close my positions, it's the opposite of what I want. I am very much concerned that I will be forced to close my positions if the market keeps moving against me. I am trading on margin and my excess liquidity is getting uncomfortably low, I'm moving closer towards a margin call. That's why I need access to my account management urgently. Because I want to be able to add funds to my account to prevent a margin call from happening. Trading is not a problem. I can still trade, buy and sell everything normally in TWS.

 

[Once bright now dull]

def works for IB and could potentially offer some help if he sees this.

Many of us long time IB customers feel that IB's technology is really good 99% of the time, but sometimes when it goes bad it will put you in a tiny little box that you feel you will never escape from.

Hello ktm, I myself have been with IB for a long time and I totally agree with you that their technology is close to 100% of the time really good. But you're right it really feels right now as if I am in a tiny little box from which I might never escape anymore. I can only hope that either @def or someone else at IB will help me with this. I just can't understand how IB can do such a thing. I mean blocking your access to so many important functionalities just because you have to fill out a questionnaire about market data which they say you still have 4 weeks time (until November 24) to do. If IB wants to present the questionnaire whenever I sign into account management, that's totally fine by me, but give me an option to skip it (especially when some error occurs), so that I can do it later and move on to other parts of account management which I urgently need to go to. Anyways, thank you for your reply, I appreciate it.

 

[Once bright now dull]

use another pc or smartphone to fill in the form.

Hi ZBZB, thank you for your suggestion. I tried that, but it didn't help at all. I tried to do this on an iPad, my pc and an Android tablet, but there's no difference whatsoever. It gives me the exact same error message. Maybe I could still try to use my old BlackBerry smartphone, I will do that later on, but I don't think it will make any difference.

 

[Once bright now dull]

... Hence why you should have the positions requested to be closed NOW, not when everything goes against you. The first lesson every junior at a trading desk learns is to immediately flatten exposure when out of control.

I'm sorry but I don't really understand your logic, I mean I don't want to close my positions at all. I never intended to close them, I am always monitoring my positions carefully and when necessary I will deposit more money into my account. When I do have access to account management, it's very easy to do. It only takes a couple of minutes after which I can transfer the money from my bank account.

With most of my positions I am at a loss right now and with others... well I've price targets and I don't want to sell everything I have just because IB decided to block access to my account management because of a not really important and most certainly not urgent questionnaire. IB said in an e-mail I need to have it filled out before November 24, that was still 4 weeks away yesterday. Failing to do so would not have a disasterous outcome, I would no longer be able to get North American market data anymore. Although that's of course really very annoying, it wouldn't be the end of the world. And I assume that as soon as I would see that I had no market data anymore I could still fill out the questionnaire and get access to this market data again.

Now what if I did what you suggest. Suggest I am going to sell all my positions and let's say as an example they are valued at $100.000. Then what if these positions would actually be very close to a bottom and they would turn around and rise substantially? I mean I would miss out on a lot of money then. Suggest it takes IB one more week to give me back access to account management and suggest that by then the positions I would have sold are now worth $110.000. What should I do then? Will IB give me $10.000 in compensation? I don't think so! Wait for them to come down again? Which they might. If I buy my positions back right away I have a loss of $10.000 just because IB did something this stupid. If I wait for the positions to get back to $100.000 and they would, I would have no damages, but if I would be waiting for my positions to get back to $100K value, and they wouldn't but instead they would keep climbing for perhaps a few years even. Then I might miss out on let's say $200.000. That seems a little bit expensive to me for not having had access to my account management for about a week.

Of course I understand that there is this risk that if I do not sell and I won't get access to account management in time, and therefore I wouldn't be able to deposit funds in time, I could be forced to sell my positions for even less. But according to my logic that's not my fault. If IB hadn't blocked access to account management I would have been able to fund my account in time and I could have kept my positions. I believe IB should NEVER block access towards such critical functionalities. Why block access to customer support because you can't complete a questionnaire for whatever reason? Why should it be impossible to access and download your statements?

I can't look into the future, all I know is that quite a few of the positions that I have are already down by so much. And of course they can always go lower, they could all go to zero. But they could also be really undervalued by now and soon take off. I don't know how long it will last before I will have access again to account management and when I will be able to deposit more money. I don't know what will happen next week with the markets. The Fed, the geopolitical situation etc.

Basically there's uncertainty and risk, keeping my positions or selling them right now can both lead to financial losses. My point still is that if IB wouldn't block access to account management I could fund my account all the way to zero if I choose to. And it should be my choice.

 

[ajacobson]

Assuming no material omissions in your claim. Call the AFM on Monday when they open. Griping here is a waste of energy. Let us know what happens.

 

[TheDawn]

Hi all,

Yesterday I received an e-mail from IB saying I needed to fill out a Non-Professional Questionnaire and do so before November 24 or my access to North American market data would be suspended. Well when I logged in yesterday this questionnaire immediately showed up. I answered all questions and typed my full name, which is IB's way of an electronic signature. I then clicked on "Continue". But then I got a message saying: "An error occurred while submitting your request. Try again in a few minutes."

So I tried later, all through the day, but it was still the same. And today it still hasn't changed. I have no idea why I am getting this error message. I've checked over and over again, I have really answered every question and if I intentionally don't answer one of them, it will warn me it's required.

Although that's already very annoying, it gets much worse than that. Because the website won't let me go anywhere else. There's no way to skip this or to get past this questionnaire or the error message after I fill out that questionnaire, meaning that I can't manage my account configuration at all. I can't deposit, withdraw, change market subscriptions, modify trading permissions, I even can't contact Support Center by chat, nor by ticker. I also can't get access to my statements. Whatever I try, IB's website keeps directing me towards that questionnaire.

I've tried several different browsers, tried it through the Interactive Broker's app on my Android tablet, but that gave the same results. Tried logging into Account Management on an iPad, but that also didn't make any difference.

I wanted to contact IB by chat, but on their general site there are only two options. One for general inquiries, but that one doesn't allow you to start a chat conversation, it just says something like that it's very busy and that you should try to look up the answers you're looking for from their FAQ. The other is for urgent matters, but if you select that one, you have to log into your account, but instead of getting someone to chat with, I immediately get that very same questionnaire again.

So I called IB, I've spoken to at least 3 different people, they promised me they would solve it today, the last person I spoke to sent me an e-mail with some instructions to make a log file (from my browser) and asked me to send him this file, which I did, but I haven't heard anything back thus far. And I am beginning to believe I won't hear anything from them again. Meanwhile I still can't access anything.

Now this comes at a really bad time for me, because I am trading on margin and my excess liquidity is getting too low, so I want to deposit funds to my account to prevent getting into a situation where I will get a margin call or where I will be forced to sell some positions to prevent a margin call. But considering that you need to first notify IB that you're going to send money, I can't, because going to funds management or deposits will only get me that very same horrible questionnaire again!

I really don't know what I should be doing now. I have filled out that questionnaire dozens of times, but each and every time it ends with that error. I've tried to access account management through TWS in every possible way, including "Help --> Customer Service --> Open Message Center & Customer Service Chat, but it all directs me towards that very same questionnaire!

I just can't comprehend how IB can do such an idiotic thing. According to the e-mail I still had 4 weeks to fill out the questionnaire, but IB is forcing me to do it right away. I think this should NEVER be the case, it's fine by me if they take you to the questionnaire or show a simple reminder that you need do that before a particular time. But I think it's absolutely ridiculous when they block access to all other functions of account management as long as you haven't done so. What if you are in a hurry to do something within account management and the questionnaire or whatever it is they want you to fill out or agree with is very complicated and needs some studying and/or contemplating? And why can't you contact customer service (by chat or ticker) while you're at the questionnaire? Or in this case when there is some technical issue and I can't complete it because of that technical issue?

I find it however strange that I see no other people who are having this same issue right now. I've had it since yesterday. I would think with so many other customers there should be others who have the same problem.

Monday the markets will open again (obviously) but I am financially vulnerable right now, and there's so much going on, the situation in the Middle East, we are getting the Fed with an interest rate decision next week, some of the companies I have shares of are going to report their quarterly results, so I would really want to add some funds. I don't think IB is going to compensate me when I still can't fund my account next week and I get indeed forced to sell some of my positions after which they might bottom and go up a lot.

Does anyone perhaps know how I could solve this? Because I don't know what to do anymore. I will try calling IB again on Sunday, but I don't have high expectations. Besides I hate calling, especially in English.

Thanks, and sorry it seems this message has gotten pretty long.

This is not an idiotic thing but something that's required by the exchanges to determine your user status in order to determine the data fee structure that you pay. If you are a "non-professional member" which is just a regular investor who uses the data purely for yourself, then you pay a much lower fee to access the data of the exchanges but if you are considered a "professional" member meaning that you actually use data not just for yourself but actually use it to manage money for others or for any kind of business, then you are supposed to pay a much higher data fee. Every single broker is required to collect updated user status from time to time for all of their clients, not just IB. The only problem with this is IB's not able to receive your information and as a result barring you from using their system. That's concerning. And this problem is clearly on IB's end and not yours. IB's portal ever since it's upgraded to the new format to use context-sensitive IB bots, it's been very hiccupy to say the least. You would be stuck sometimes using the most routine functionalities it's really annoying. I would continue to hound IB until the problem is resolved. It does take a while with IB sometimes and you need to be really persistent.