[IB] Freezing your account for their benefit

[JackR]

Quote from MidKnight:

Final update on this matter. After getting a hold of mgmt contact details and contacting him via email the account was unfrozen within 1 hour. ......

MidKnight:

How did you get the mgmt contact details?

Jack

 

[MidKnight]

Quote from JackR:

MidKnight:

How did you get the mgmt contact details?

Jack

Via PM from a poster here. They offered it as maybe being of use to my situation. They were right!

Best regards,
MK

 

[stock777]

When something of this importance is not handed within days at the most, you should be asking to speak to a manager as a matter of course.

How did you let this linger for weeks?

User error?

 

[kiwi_trader]

Fuck 777 .... I thought I was aggressive.

If lots of people promise to do something and you don't know the management contacts ... well, most would keep going until they reached a high level of frustration. Unless they'd heard a story like this one and realised they'd better escalate fast or experience the same pain.

I suspect that I have more IB contacts than most here with the improvements I've initiated but I still probably don't have the ones MK ended up with.

 

[sprstpd]

I've read more than one thread about IB being a nightmare if you screw up your wire instructions. I always quadruple check anything dealing with wires with IB now. Otherwise, it appears your request falls through their automated processes and lands in a black hole. Obviously IB could do better. However, knowing that they aren't up to snuff in this department makes me extra cautious when submitting banking info. I haven't had any problems.

 

[Bell]

Quote from MidKnight:

Thanks for the info Bell. I've not been interested in using the trouble ticket system because on several occasions my trouble tickets have been 'lost' and remained unanswered for months.

because of just like this reason the instruction has Paragraph 4: "When your ticket is entered go to the chat with its # and ask someone to resolve it."
And always do screen-shots.

 

[Benign]

That is a very horrible story in my opinion. How come IB held your money for so long? It makes me think IB is a wrong choice. Does IB implement this "security" so as to discourage you from withdrawing money?

 

[jsmith]

I appreciate the extra security knowing my money is safe.
I've closed two accounts with IB and it was simple.

I wired the entire account balance to myself in one day and IB will automatically close your account after a few weeks if the balance is 0.

 

[sprstpd]

I have found that creating new ACH instructions at IB, as compared to new wire instructions, does not flag your account for review at all. I know that I was called personally after a new write instruction was submitted but didn't hear a peep when I set up new ACH instructions.

And it turns out my bank credits the ACH transfer as quickly as a wire anyway. Just a thought.

 

[rayl]

Quote from sprstpd:

I have found that creating new ACH instructions at IB, as compared to new wire instructions, does not flag your account for review at all. I know that I was called personally after a new write instruction was submitted but didn't hear a peep when I set up new ACH instructions.

And it turns out my bank credits the ACH transfer as quickly as a wire anyway. Just a thought.

There must be a more complex fraud algorithm in play as I had to call to confirm a new ACH. (One beef: There was nothing telling me this was the case -- the new ACH instruction, once the trial transactions were confirmed, just went poof.)

And ACH is no substitute for same day funds.