I'm a victim of serious online fraud at brokerage

[def]

Quote from hajimow:

Yes I have that small calculator like device. I feel more safe using that for withrawal or deposits. If I don't have it with me, I can not even withraw from my own account. That is why I say IB is a head and a shoulder above the others. How about limiting maximum trading size? Will it be helpful?

l'll hold off answering that as it is off topic from the thread which mostly deals with another broker Perhaps you can make the request on the IB Suggestion thread.

Back to the topic, I don't see how going to the press would resolve anything other than to warn of the importance of protecting your personal data. Sounds to me this is a crimminal matter (identity theft). The original poster seems to have dissapeared and never posted whether or not he did a thorough check for spyware. W/o that info, I don't think it's fair to blame TD.

 

[WmWaster]

A suggestion to brokers:
I think it would be a good idea to be able to put a kind of lock or alarm in your account. Like I have asked my phone company to block my number so no one can call 1-900 numbers from my number. Although I am the only user of the phone but I don't want to get a surprise bill and then try to prove that it was not me. I think being able to put some locks like the followings to the account like would be helpful:
Blocking trading penny stocks
Blocking taking out money more than $x in a day.
Blocking trading stocks in the size of more than like 5000 shares.

I like to see IB to be the pioneer of implementing some of the above features in the account. [/B]

Very nice suggestion.

Apart from IB, who else has such locks?

 

[hajimow]

Quote from def:

l'll hold off answering that as it is off topic from the thread which mostly deals with another broker Perhaps you can make the request on the IB Suggestion thread.

Back to the topic, I don't see how going to the press would resolve anything other than to warn of the importance of protecting your personal data. Sounds to me this is a crimminal matter (identity theft). The original poster seems to have dissapeared and never posted whether or not he did a thorough check for spyware. W/o that info, I don't think it's fair to blame TD.

I totally agree with you. He should post his trade to prove that his claim is right. By the way it reminds me of a chaper in the "New Market Wizard" book that a trader was claiming his wife is hiding his trade confirmation from him that the reality was .......
Read the bood.

 

[hajimow]

Quote from WmWaster:

Very nice suggestion.

Apart from IB, who else has such locks?

And what I meant the trader should set the maximum trade size or the withrawal size for himself and it should be different from person to person.

 

[jimrockford]

Quote from hajimow:

I think being able to put some locks like the followings to the account like would be helpful:
Blocking trading penny stocks
Blocking taking out money more than $x in a day.
Blocking trading stocks in the size of more than like 5000 shares.

I like to see IB to be the pioneer of implementing some of the above features in the account.

If I could do so, I would block trading of penny stocks in my account. I don't see how to make the other two suggestions workable, because a customer might someday need to withdraw money more quickly than a previously established block would allow, or to trade a larger size than a previously established block would allow.

 

[WmWaster]

Quote from jimrockford:

If I could do so, I would block trading of penny stocks in my account. I don't see how to make the other two suggestions workable, because a customer might someday need to withdraw money more quickly than a previously established block would allow, or to trade a larger size than a previously established block would allow.

It's up to you.
Just like banking, if you don't mind more risks, you may set a higher limit or no limit at all. But for ohrs, they may appreciate these blocks.

 

[ethos]

[*]YOU DO NOT EXIT THE POSITIONS OR DO ANY TRADING.

But how about damage control? You may loose additional funds, more than you may be able to recover.

 

[winter]

Quote from WmWaster:

Use visual keyboard. Change location frequently.
Type your password in random order by mouse.
Type wrong characters in random, deleted by mouse.

Making your own life difficult by playing these games on the slim chance that you machine has a keylogger installed is not the way to approach this problem and really who would go through the trouble every single time they login?

"Keyloggers" are much more sophisticated these days (they log much more then keystrokes). If someone has gotten a keylogger on your machine and has the means to access the data it collects then the game is pretty much up - anything you do on that machine is for them to know (and perhaps other machines on your LAN if you're networked).

Last but not least, you should try your very best to prevent keyloggers/malware from coming in the first place, eg anti-virus + anti-spyware + firewall + intrusion prevention system should do it nearly all for you.

This is the correct advice: Don't let malware of any sort get on your PC in the first place.

Get one of the well-rated AV packages, configure it download updates every night, configure it to scan your whole PC every night (they often default to scanning only once per week)

Don't run anything sent to you as email (even from friends) and don't visit questionable web sites.

If you think that your machine may have been hacked, shut the machine off, pull the hard drive, install it as a secondary (slave) drive in another machine and scan the drive from there. Don't boot from the questionable drive until you are sure its clean.

I hope the OP lets us know how this ends up being resolved.

 

[Eliot Hosewater]

Sorry, I only read the first page and last page of this thread, so I apologize if this is redundant.

TD/Ameritrade in the US touts their fraud protection. If you can prove that you didn't give away your password and took reasonable precautions they say they will cover your account for fraud.

Also, they should be able to track down the IP address of the transactions, or at least prove that it wasn't the OP's.

 

[WmWaster]

Quote from winter:

Making your own life difficult by playing these games on the slim chance that you machine has a keylogger installed is not the way to approach this problem and really who would go through the trouble every single time they login?

"Keyloggers" are much more sophisticated these days (they log much more then keystrokes). If someone has gotten a keylogger on your machine and has the means to access the data it collects then the game is pretty much up - anything you do on that machine is for them to know (and perhaps other machines on your LAN if you're networked).

I'm not sure.
But does a keylogger collect all sorts of information regarding screen, mouse, keyboard, clipboard.

Missing either 1 will fail them.

The visual keyboard and random order/deletion can be done quite quick if you are used to it.

By the way, I don't do all of them.
My best bid is still to prevent them from entry.