IB unbundled NYSE fees are wrong starting 10/1/07

It's hair raising! I'm still operating bundled and will probably stay that way due to threads such as this one.
 
Quote from fbell50:

I believe IB has been charging my account incorrect exchange fees. On Oct 1 the NYSE changed their fee schedule (http://www.nyse.com/pdfs/2007pricelist.pdf) as follows:

Equity Transactions:
Take liquidity: .0008/share
Add liquidity: No Charge
At the opening or at the opening only orders: No Charge
market at-the-close and limit at-the-close orders: .0004/share

Based on a partial analysis of my executions IB has been charging:

1) Add/Take charges have been correct through 10/25. On 10/26 the take fee has been charged for the add executions that I have checked.
2) It appears all of my on the open executions have been charged the take fee.
3) Some large number (but not all) of my on the close executions have been charged the take fee. Some have been charged nothing.
4) The old schedule was still charged on Oct 1. This would help the takers and hurt the adders.

I have working with support to resolve the situation but progress is slow. At this point they “are investigating this.” If you are on unbundled commissions it might be worth your while to check your fees.

The calculation is #shares * (DTC fee + IB Comm + NYSE fee). If selling add SEC Fee (.0000153 * #shares * price);

DTC fee is .0002 eff 10/1/07 (I’m not 100% sure about the date, it was .00038 before that).
IB Comm is
<=300,000 = $ 0.0035,
300,001-3,000,000 = $ 0.002
3,000,001-20,000,000 = $ 0.0015
More...

I filled out a ticket about my account on Sunday and here it is the end of business on Monday with no response. I am unsure what IB considers a reasonable amount of time to at least say 'we are working on your ticket' but I think it should be sooner than it is taking.

Perhaps Mondays are very busy. I am going to try calling IB and see how that goes.
 
Quote from 1Reason:

I filled out a ticket about my account on Sunday and here it is the end of business on Monday with no response. I am unsure what IB considers a reasonable amount of time to at least say 'we are working on your ticket' but I think it should be sooner than it is taking.
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IB's response time has become glacial. Several months ago they would usually respond within 2-3 days. Now it is weeks. I posted a ticked on Oct 2 complaining that they were using the old NYSE fees on Oct 1. That ticket has never been replied to.

I suspect that you will need to call if you want any sort of reasonable response. It's nice to hear someone else is pushing the issue.
 
Quote from fbell50:

IB's response time has become glacial. Several months ago they would usually respond within 2-3 days. Now it is weeks. I posted a ticked on Oct 2 complaining that they were using the old NYSE fees on Oct 1. That ticket has never been replied to.

I suspect that you will need to call if you want any sort of reasonable response. It's nice to hear someone else is pushing the issue.
More...

I called IB after hours on Monday and this is what they said.
1. Its only monday and that they reply to tickets in the order received. I should get a response within a day or two. This was after the person on the phone who was polite but made obvious that I should not have expected a response so soon.

2. That the 'definition' of adding liquidity by the exchanges were not the same as the average person. He asked how long my orders were in place before being hit. I advised him that one was about a minute or two and the other was over five minutes. He then advised me that the first one (under 5 minutes) would not count as adding liquidity because it was not on the book long enough. He stated I may have a case for the second order (there was actually more than two but I didn't want to confuse the issue)

The IB rep then directed me to the IB website on unbundled fees and I clicked on the NYSE link as instructed. I also advised him at that point that I use smart routing so the additional fees appear to not apply.

It became clear to me that the IB rep upon reading the definition of adding/removing liquidity to me was at a loss. He didnt actually do any of the math to determine if the commissions were correct but rather to try to be helpful while I wait for a response from my ticket.

The IB rep was polite during the whole conversation but IMHO was not trained enough to know what he was talking about. While I have a bunch better understanding of how the markets work compared to the average retail trader I think he should know more.

I do have the conversation recorded as I was at work when I called.
 
Quote from 1Reason:

2. That the 'definition' of adding liquidity by the exchanges were not the same as the average person. He asked how long my orders were in place before being hit. I advised him that one was about a minute or two and the other was over five minutes. He then advised me that the first one (under 5 minutes) would not count as adding liquidity because it was not on the book long enough. He stated I may have a case for the second order (there was actually more than two but I didn't want to confuse the issue)
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I'm not at all surprised at your experience. What he told you about adding liquidity is just wrong. I'm working with the institutional support group. At least they know enough not to make up something when they don't know the answer. They have just been acting as a go-between me and someone else.

It's easy to understand why they are dragging their feet. They've got to decide how to handle it. Do they refund everyone's fees or only the people who complain? They've got to calculate the refunds. They have to change their logic to properly charge the fees. And it's important to get it right the first time. They don't want to do it wrong and have to redo it if the refund is too small or give too large a refund and then try to take it back.

They have gotten the fees wrong before. For a while they were charging add/take fees for Nasdaq open/close when they should have been charging .0005. I didn’t raise the issue then because they seemed to be charging add/take equally, which when averaged is .0005. I figured I was probably breaking even and I knew what the hassle would be to get it fixed.

It would be nice if they would just say, "yes you are right, it's going to take sometime to fix. Please bear with us, we are working hard on it and expect to have it fixed in a month (or whatever)." But, I feel like their attitude is "if we drag our feet long enough maybe the problem will go away."
 
One reason not a lot of interest is being generated is that when unbundled appeared, it was not broken down so you could tell what you were being charged per transaction, and so many, such as myself, said forget it until they do break it down, and, get it right. It sounds like they are at least breaking it down now so you can see individual charges, but they still haven't gotten it right.

Many will wait.
 
It is now Wednesday and I still have not heard one thing about my ticket I placed of Sunday.

thats two full days plus part of a third.

I don't think its good service to make someone wait this long. The chat takes forever as well.
 
Try changing your time "unit" in your expectation. Usually it is not matter of "hours" or "days". Try thinking in terms of "weeks" for these type of issues that involve commission charges or adjustment credits.
 
GTC is right. As I mentioned earlier, IB response times have become glacial, even for non-commission related issues. My next followup is planned for two weeks after my last. If the response to that is not satisfactory I will see if my sales rep can help.

Their poor response time is not adequate. This is one area where Ameritrade is far superior. Ameritrade would respond within 24 hrs and on an issue like this, would have a solution in days.
 
The NYSE updated their schedule intra month. This hadn't been their practice previously. The new schedule will be in place for Friday's trading.

We are making corrections to customers affected by the outdated rates.
 
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