Hey Guys,
I have an IRA with Interactive Brokers - rolled it over from a 401k - I took a pretty big risk with this money and put the majority of it into a penny stock (about 7k), although I wont mention the symbol.
Subsequently to the investment the stock started decreasing and eventually went down to around a penny a share leaving me down approximately 80%.
At this point I really didn't want to even look at the account. In my mind when I invested here I knew it was a big risk like it would hit or I would lose it all.
Long story short - about a year and a half later there started to be some chatter on this stock, news etc and its back up closer to where I bought in, but IB sold out 20,000 shares of my stock to cover IRA fees for accounts below 2k (when I started the account it was over 7k).
Because the stock tanked obviously they sold me out near or close to the low. I admit that I did receive liquidation emails from them but I wasn't regularly staying on top of this account because it was an IRA and I was really a little sick over the loss (which I know it is my responsibility to watch my own account).
I called in when the stock started going up and I still had 30k shares left from my original 50k which they did not liquidate for fees. When I realized what happened I immediately wired in funds to cover any future fees for the account staying below 2k.
I told them that I was unaware of these fees and that I would have appreciated a phone call as this is an IRA account, but they basically told me too bad. Now the stock is increasing pretty substantially and my loss from their sale to cover the IRA fee is above 2k or more.
(when i originally called them it was a few hundred).
On the second call to them she said the fees are "all over the website." I asked specifically where the were and she started scrambling to show me multiple links to click where they are listed under some "other" link.
I am wondering if I have any recourse whatsoever to recover my shares. I know I can just write it off as a loss, but to me i think it isn't right to sell stock in someones IRA account to cover fees - I could see if it was margin, but IRA maintenance fees doesn't seem right.
P.S. I did purchase more of the stock in another account.
Thanks for any insight.
I have an IRA with Interactive Brokers - rolled it over from a 401k - I took a pretty big risk with this money and put the majority of it into a penny stock (about 7k), although I wont mention the symbol.
Subsequently to the investment the stock started decreasing and eventually went down to around a penny a share leaving me down approximately 80%.
At this point I really didn't want to even look at the account. In my mind when I invested here I knew it was a big risk like it would hit or I would lose it all.
Long story short - about a year and a half later there started to be some chatter on this stock, news etc and its back up closer to where I bought in, but IB sold out 20,000 shares of my stock to cover IRA fees for accounts below 2k (when I started the account it was over 7k).
Because the stock tanked obviously they sold me out near or close to the low. I admit that I did receive liquidation emails from them but I wasn't regularly staying on top of this account because it was an IRA and I was really a little sick over the loss (which I know it is my responsibility to watch my own account).
I called in when the stock started going up and I still had 30k shares left from my original 50k which they did not liquidate for fees. When I realized what happened I immediately wired in funds to cover any future fees for the account staying below 2k.
I told them that I was unaware of these fees and that I would have appreciated a phone call as this is an IRA account, but they basically told me too bad. Now the stock is increasing pretty substantially and my loss from their sale to cover the IRA fee is above 2k or more.
(when i originally called them it was a few hundred).
On the second call to them she said the fees are "all over the website." I asked specifically where the were and she started scrambling to show me multiple links to click where they are listed under some "other" link.
I am wondering if I have any recourse whatsoever to recover my shares. I know I can just write it off as a loss, but to me i think it isn't right to sell stock in someones IRA account to cover fees - I could see if it was margin, but IRA maintenance fees doesn't seem right.
P.S. I did purchase more of the stock in another account.
Thanks for any insight.