Understanding IB

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yes, it would have been much better if "Joe" had put you on hold and had his buddy "Todd" pick up the phone and pretend to be a supervisor.. heck, he could have pretended to be the policy maker in question.. unfortunately Joe being an honest guy and not having a supervisor who will take phone calls about the subject asked you to email. whats so hard about that?

it takes so little to bunch ones panties these days..

-qwik
 
I've talked with "Joe" each time I've contacted IB, both on the phone and on the interactive chat.

Hmmm....Has anyone ever talked with anyone else which isn't named Joe?
 
Quote from qwiktrade:

yes, it would have been much better if "Joe" had put you on hold and had his buddy "Todd" pick up the phone and pretend to be a supervisor.. heck, he could have pretended to be the policy maker in question.. unfortunately Joe being an honest guy and not having a supervisor who will take phone calls about the subject asked you to email. whats so hard about that?

it takes so little to bunch ones panties these days..

-qwik
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It certainly only took a little to get qwik's panties in a bunch.
 
FWIW, the first comment has been forwarded to the head of the help desk. While the rep could and should have handled things differently, it shouldn't be expected that a supervisor will be available to drop what they're doing and speak to any client who calls in at a moments notice. A mail requesting info would have been the best avenue to take as it wasn't an urgent issue.

IRA's there are no margin in IRA's. If cash is credited to your account before the trade clears, then a margin loan would be extended. This I believe is called free riding and is not allowed in a cash account.

IB's rule for stock cash accounts is available on our web site and is: full payment of cash, including commissions. Only settled funds are made available for new stock purchases. You may not sell stock short in these accounts. Settlement for stocks is trade date + 3 business days. When authorizing market, relative, and VWAP orders, a 5% cash cushion is required to compensate for market movements.

The policy makers in this regard are the SEC and NYSE. IB's internal policies and interpretation of the rules written by the regulators are driven by a steering committee headed by the chairman of the firm.
 
Def Re your comment "it shouldn't be expected that a supervisor will be available to drop what they're doing and speak to any client who calls in at a moments notice"

Its the ONLY way to handle this, get a Supv on the line. If not you are "CUSTOMER NO SERVICE". I don't care if the customer is wrong, or if the customer will be told the same thing, or what, if they ask for a Supervisor, happily put one on.
 
there are hundreds of calls into the desk each day, hundreds of chats and hundreds of e-mails. at any given time a supervisor might be working on an issue a bit more pressing than explaining something that is available on our web site. In a perfect world, they'd talk to every client. however, in reality that can not be expected. the fact is that IB provides pretty good CS when it counts. We don't hold hands but when there is a problem we deal with it and respond accordingly.

edit: I just checked the stats. There are several thousand calls, e-mails and chats per day.
 
I appreciate that you are working with a large client base.

But the handling of client on the phone is very easy if you don't fight with them over a silly issue,like getting a supervisor.

It's in the consumer bible and every advice column, don't fight it.

That IRA call would have ended a lot better, sometimes a change in personalities does wonders.
 
Quote from def:

there are hundreds of calls into the desk each day, hundreds of chats and hundreds of e-mails. at any given time a supervisor might be working on an issue a bit more pressing than explaining something that is available on our web site. In a perfect world, they'd talk to every client. however, in reality that can not be expected. the fact is that IB provides pretty good CS when it counts. We don't hold hands but when there is a problem we deal with it and respond accordingly.

edit: I just checked the stats. There are several thousand calls, e-mails and chats per day.
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def,

You're a stand-up guy and I know I'm not the only one at ET that appreciates what you do here...but I have to disagree with your opinion on when a supervisor should be called in. A number of companies employ such people to work the customer service department even if they are not true supervisors in every sense of the word. They may be just folks who are assigned a fairly meaningless title but have a bit more authority than first-line reps to make decisions. Having these "supervisors" around to step into heated situations would contribute immensely toward reversing the bad rep IB has for customer service. In fact, that's the only major complaint I ever hear about your firm. If you guys could get that department in order, you would most certainly crush the competition with little added cost, IMO.

But what do I know? I'm just a lowly retail customer, satisfied nonetheless.

BTW, did you ever resolve your keychain issue?

Uni
 
hiring another layer of management just adds cost and someone else to pass the buck to. that does not resolve the issue.

In this particular case our CS rep should have been able to answer the question and if all the facts are true behaved in an unacceptable manner. That is the core issue here and one which we will address internally.
 
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