FYI: The National Futures Association oversees these brokerages houses and if there are complaints you can go to them at 800-621-3570.
NFA's compliance department is what you'd want. They take the phone complaint and they follow up. They also sometimes want written material to back up the complaint. They also have an arbitration process which is available to settle disputes.
In the case of my own complaints, I initially called because someone named Ernest in the Banking Dept of IB told me that no money is sent out for ten business days, even if it comes in as cash, because of the Patriot Act, and reasons of money laundering. I believed this was yet another IB lie, because I have three active brokerage accounts and they do not follow this law. Since the other firms are established, reputable, firms, I think they'd be doing the ten biz day hold just as IB does if it were actually a law. When I told Ernest that I believed this isn't true and I was going to file a complaint about it, he snickered at me. So, I did phone NFA.
Compliance at NFA phoned IB's Compliance Officer about this and came back to me with the following. It's not a function of the Patriot Act or related to money laundering, however IB can hold your funds for ten biz days, as the actual law about returning your funds to you is a little vague. They have to give you your money in TWO business days or further time necessary to do due dligence. IB's taking ten biz days is not usual, but NFA isn't going to pursue the issue now, certainly not without a lot more complaints about it, because IB's policy is to not give you your money for ten business days after they receive your money, even if it's cash, and because there is that vagueness in the actual law. I'd bet IB would be hard pressed to show what due diligence they are doing on all of us that causes them to hold the money for eight extra business days, but with only my complaint about it, NFA isn't going to do anything.
They do take complaints about trading and other matters and they follow up on them when they audit the company, and each complaint is pursued and it matters if there are a lot of complaints, too. I know for my part, I never bother to file any complaints, but this time I will. That, in regard to the way the statusing was handled and right through to the final lie to me about how they couldn't know what price would have filled. So, I'll then leave it to NFA to pursue and I hope this will make it better for other customers in the future.