Unethical Conduct by IB

[ddunbar]

Quote from tomcole:

Three curious things-

1. If you see a customer not being treated fairly at other business', most people dont go back. From the comments here, most of you appear to think he was treated fairly. Odd.

Matter of perspective. Yet, if you see one customer being treated unfairly, do you use that as an event indicative of how every customer is treated?

2. No one here knows if the broker's rep has the authority to say any of whats being said. The brokers paperwork involves very one-sided fine print. If this happened in buying a house, car etc, you'd go get a lawyer before you sign. Maybe you should do that with broker docs as well.

That actually isn't a bad idea. Getting a lwayer first to explain what certain things mean in a brokerage agreement. It'll probably put most people in the right frame of mind to be as diligent as possible with their trades and know what to expect when things do go wrong or unfavorably.

3. When Tier 1 houses have a trade dispute, it generally gets split and everyone moves on. The bigger issue is maintaining good relations so that business goes forward in the future. No one hides behind semantics. The issue of good will is what drives the decision - that doesnt seem to be the case here.

Splits tend to lead to abuse and laisse-faire attitudes.

In any event, society has become far to litigious which I find to be a function of a lack of personal responsibility and unrealistic expectations. That has nothing to do with TraderGuy. I'm saying this because some of your sentiments seem to echo that. As if suing will bring people/firms more in line with your expectations. In fact, it does the exact opposite. It creates an us v. them attitude and leads to firms reducing quality of service in order to incur the least bit of liability and stay alive.

My 2 cents or .026 Euros.

 

[tomcole]

1. The brokers create the us v them attitude by immediately invoking agreements that most retail customers sign but dont read and generally lack the legal firepower to understand.

2. Splitting trades is a very fair way to resolve issues of mutual error.

3. None of us know how any court would rule on these cases as electronic trading is very new, the advertising for it is very aggressive and the losses due to it have not staggered anyone YET. Some day a loss will be large and we'll all see how it gets resolved.

Its intellectually very interesting to explore these issues, the comments etc as it affects everyone quite a bit. I dont understand why anyone would be offended by saying its a complicated issue that most dont understand and that legal minds need to review the issues/facts.

 

[kotika]

hi,

you mentioned that the bid/asked was some 50 pip above the price at which you were filled, but the quote you gave was at the time the fill was reported, not when you submitted the cancel. What was the bid/asked when you submitted the cancel? And if it was below your limit, when exactly did it cross, was it seconds after you submitted the cancel, or much later?

 

[kotika]

one more thing, what is IB's position as to when exactly did the execution occur?

This is important because the small-print in the agreement says IB will block orders which result in exceeding your margin, and moreover IF an execution without sufficient margin does nevertheless occur you are not entitled to the gain, AND ARE NOT responsible for the losses.

Look it up...

i know this may not be relevant to the other participants on this board, but in this particular case the execution did result in exceeding margin, so this is a valid point to raise with IB.

 

[ddunbar]

Quote from kotika:

one more thing, what is IB's position as to when exactly did the execution occur?

This is important because the small-print in the agreement says IB will block orders which result in exceeding your margin, and moreover IF an execution without sufficient margin does nevertheless occur you are not entitled to the gain, AND ARE NOT responsible for the losses.

Look it up...

i know this may not be relevant to the other participants on this board, but in this particular case the execution did result in exceeding margin, so this is a valid point to raise with IB.

I think you read that wrong:

ii. Customer expressly waives any rights to receive prior notice or demand from IB and agrees that any prior demand, notice, announcement or advertisement shall not be deemed a waiver of IB's right to liquidate any Customer position. Customer understands that, in the event positions are liquidated by IB, Customer shall have no right or opportunity to determine the securities to be liquidated or the order or manner of liquidation. IB may, in its sole discretion, effect a liquidation on any exchange, Electronic Communications Network ("ECN") or other market, and IB or its affiliates may take the other side of such liquidating transaction. In the event that IB liquidates any or all positions in Customer's account, such liquidation shall establish the amount of Customer's gain or loss and indebtedness to IB, if any. Customer shall reimburse and hold IB harmless for all actions, omissions, costs, expenses, fees (including, but not limited to, attorney's fees), penalties, losses, claims or liabilities associated with any such transaction undertaken by IB. Customer shall be responsible for all resulting losses on Customer's positions, notwithstanding IB's delay in or failure to liquidate any such positions. If IB executes an order for which the Customer did not have sufficient funds, IB has the right, without notice to Customer, to liquidate the trade and Customer shall be responsible for any loss as a result of such liquidation, including any costs, and shall not be entitled to any profit that results from such liquidation.

or maybe there's a different paragraph you're refering to.

 

[ddunbar]

Quote from tomcole:

1. The brokers create the us v them attitude by immediately invoking agreements that most retail customers sign but dont read and generally lack the legal firepower to understand.

2. Splitting trades is a very fair way to resolve issues of mutual error.

3. None of us know how any court would rule on these cases as electronic trading is very new, the advertising for it is very aggressive and the losses due to it have not staggered anyone YET. Some day a loss will be large and we'll all see how it gets resolved.

Its intellectually very interesting to explore these issues, the comments etc as it affects everyone quite a bit. I dont understand why anyone would be offended by saying its a complicated issue that most dont understand and that legal minds need to review the issues/facts.

On point 1; could be a chicken and the egg argument. Broker legalese seems to me to be a reaction to customer litigation in the past.

On point 2; What really is mutual error? Other than shared liability. Would you really be happy with "mutual error" when it clearly wasn't your fault? I don't think I would be. The difference between 100% reimbursement and 50%.

On point 3; agreed.

On the last paragraph I agree academically. I think people get offended when law is brought into things because legal review/intervention means an eventual increase in cost, decrease in service, and more broker indemnification. Though, it sometimes also increases the robustness of service simply as a means for a firm to reduce its own liability. But in this business, some aspects are and will reamin outside of the risk/liability control of any given firm.

 

[kotika]

hmm... sorry, i did misread that. this is the language that some people would call one-sided.

 

[fhl]

Quote from alanm:

AFAIK, there is no need for another status. If you send a cancel, the status either goes red or pink. Red orders get cleaned up and disappear automatically if you configure TWS to do so.

If an order stays pink for any significant period of time on an electronic exchange, there's a problem. I don't think we ever got a confirmation, though, that such an order should not disappear from TWS, perhaps barring unusual events like disconnections, etc. IBj: Is this correct?


BTW: At the risk of being called an IB apologist, I was impressed by IBj's detailed public explanation.

This issue of the pink disappearing from the screen is exactly the point. IBj made reference, I believe, to a pink "flashing for a half second", meaning there could be problems we need to follow up on. This seems unreasonable. If it is pink, it should stay.

 

[IBj]

Quote from fhl:

This issue of the pink disappearing from the screen is exactly the point. IBj made reference, I believe, to a pink "flashing for a half second", meaning there could be problems we need to follow up on. This seems unreasonable. If it is pink, it should stay.

Sorry, what was actually said was very different than what you state. Please see my post on page 23 of this thread and the additional info provided by IBsoft on page 24. Pink status is persistent.

 

[sprstpd]

Quote from IBj:

Sorry, what was actually said was very different than what you state. Please see my post on page 23 of this thread and the additional info provided by IBsoft on page 24. Pink status is persistent.

But what if a pink status order disappears from the local TWS that we are running?