If IB's Website Contains Falsehoods, Customers are SOL

Quote from IBj:

The issue is NEVER about right or wrong, This is not a morality question. We handle all issues in the framework of 'responsibility'.

IB does not work in "grey". If we did, we would have stayed in the old-boy way of doing things and would not have made the commitment to technology. We are a black/white organization. Philosophically, we believe in creating a clear structure for our services (technology) and adhering to that structure. When an error occurs that is due to IB negligence or gross error, we eat the whole loss. If something happens that is not due to some negligence on our part, we don't eat the loss.

Inside these broad boundaries, we strongly evaluate issues based on the 'free option' principle. If a problem is reported immediately, we consider it about 20X more carefully than if there is any time lag. We have seen dozens of events where some system wide error occurs and there are unexecuted orders (or conversely late reported orders). If there are a lot of them, we see without exception that people who win by the error never report the fact. People who lose, do.

I assume most people are honest in their lives. If they saw someone drop $100 on the ground, most would give it back to the owner. But in trading, there is somehow a different prevailing ethic, namely ' to take what one can get'. Ot to rephrase: good luck is "luck" and bad luck must be someone's fault. Because of the asymmetry in the way people view unentitled gains vs losses (the free option factor) IB developed a very black/white policy on errors and problems. Clients who eliminate the perception of using the free option, which is usually time dependent, will find our working policy acceptable.
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Simple question IBj,an dyou don't have to answer publicly: "Given the circumsances, how would YOU want to be treated if you were the customer ('himself") in this scenario"
 
Quote from himself:

IBj says that is not what happened, he says that the order type WAS supported, that the website was CORRECT but that the floor rejected the order. Under that scenario, IB got the reject at 10:10 but never told me about it so I could reenter, which I would have had plenty of time to do since the price was not hit until 12:30 PM.
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Sorry missed that.
 
Quote from Choad:

Give me a f**kin break. You can't expect compensation for a trade that "might have been". My computer crashed right when I was going to put in an order for 10 ES today at the open. I'm going to sue the crap out of Bill Gates!

If it had gone against you, you would have been happy as hell.

Okay, so if you already had a position that needed closing THEN you were misled by the allowed order types, you probably have a case.

Yes IB has some growing pains occasionally from constantly adding new markets and capability, but that's their strength.


- Markets
- Execution
- Costs

IB is the best broker for most retail traders by a large margin.

Good trading to all.
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I make 150 trades/day with IB... and I agree with Choad.
IB is as good as it gets.

Complaints about IB are almost always by ** rank amateurs **...
Who do not understand that trading is NOT playing some cool video game...
But more like setting foot on a battlefield.

Rules may or may not apply... and sh*t happens.

I make 30,000 trades/year...
And there might be some kind of issue with 5% of them.

Do I throw a hissy fit 1500 times and waste my energy on blaming someone?
Or do I just forge ahead, learn to minimize shrinkage... and make a good living?

Grow up or die.

rm+

:cool: :cool: :cool:
 
Taken from http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showt...rpage=40&highlight=ib retail pit&pagenumber=2

Quote from def:

Commission info is posted on our website. For now, there is no minimum order commission, although we may add one to frankly discourage 1 lot trading. The pits are not efficient and the brokers will ignore small orders that are frequently modified or cancelled. Traders used to the unrestricted ability to control their trading in electronic markets will be in for a rude awakening.

There is a risk disclosure when you sign up for the US floor access that is, if anything, an understatement of the issues you may experience. For instance, you can fully expect to only get a fill on a floor contract when the electronic version is already priced to make an easy arbitrage against your order for the local on the floor. Trade reports can easily be 30 seconds and 2 minutes will be not uncommon.

The above is not meant to discourage use of the floor for products whose primary liquidity is on the floor. But we do want traders to recognize the realities of the floor, namely the order is being managed by people who will make errors, be slow, or have a conflict of interest (dual trading, for example). Additionally, there is a significant inherent latency in the execution/reporting process. IB will get your order to the floor in a few seconds. After that, we lose a significant amount of control because the orders will be in a non-digital environment. One of the main reasons IB has avoided pit access is that the trading environment on the floor effectively undoes all the work we have invested in high speed order routing, SMART technology, etc.

But for those who need/want Lean Hogs, etc, they are now available. More CME products next week. CBOT in a few weeks. NYMEX a bit thereafter.

Good luck and good trading.
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I think IB has been forthright about the inherent risks in trading products where human performance is a variable. It's not Globex.
 
You were trying to open a position, correct? So you didn't actually lose any money, only potential profits. Not quite the same thing. Sh@t happens, fills are busted, there's nothing you can do. Especially when you're pit trading. From what I understand it's not uncommon with pit trading to not know if you were filled until well after the event, mainly so the floor brokers can decide if they want to keep the fill for themselves (if it's profitable) or if they want to give it to you (if it's unprofitable).
 
You waited at least 15 minutes to call. That's 10 minutes too long.

The entire matter has been explained carefully. If you get a bad fill or no fill that you cant explain, you are responsible for calling promptly.

To put it another way, the delay makes it look like you are gaming the objection.

That's clear right?

And the sooner you get a for sure 'out' the sooner you can put that great trade on for real. Right?

This is not a game for children in short pants.


It's unfortunate that IB had to change policy in midstream, but maybe your complaint should go directly to the exchange floor for cancelling legitimate orders and creating confusion.
 
Quote from SideShowBob:

You were trying to open a position, correct? So you didn't actually lose any money, only potential profits. Not quite the same thing. Sh@t happens, fills are busted, there's nothing you can do. Especially when you're pit trading. From what I understand it's not uncommon with pit trading to not know if you were filled until well after the event, mainly so the floor brokers can decide if they want to keep the fill for themselves (if it's profitable) or if they want to give it to you (if it's unprofitable).
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Trading is hard, how else is a big dumb, ex ballplayer gonna make a living.
 
Quote from stock777:

You waited at least 15 minutes to call. That's 10 minutes too long.
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I would agree were we talking about an electronic exchange where there is instantaneous communication of a fill.

But this was not that. There was no instantaneous communication that would indicate by its non receipt that anything was wrong. In the IB pit situation IB had previously indicated that there would be no such communication. So on what basis could you say that 10 minutes or any special time was the time after which one should be suspicious?

Here when I contacted IB the price was still about the stop price, so there could be no "gaming".
 
Quote from rhymeswithorang:

A previous poster had a good point, IB is always right, customer is always wrong. Period.:mad:
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This is not true. I have been compensated by IB before due to an IB system error. Looking back at it, it is unclear whether I should have even been compensated for what happened (IB's compensation policy at the time was not as strict as it is now).

Overall, IB is the tops.
 
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