Subscribe Feed (RSS)Pigs fly! IB admits to a problem!
November 14th, 2008 by eyal | Filed under Day Trading. |
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Update on this can be found here: Hell didn’t freeze over, IB spews BS again
I had some GAT orders the other day that didn’t trigger when they were supposed to and I woke up to having 3 daytrading positions open instead of being flat for the day. I managed to close 2 in the pre-market without any damage but for one of the positions I took about half an R hit, very mild loss considering the circumstances but still not something I want to take when it’s not my own doing.
So, I opened a ticket and followed up with a phone call. Initially I got the usual BS of trying to push the blame saying I got the time zones wrong blah blah, obviously that wasn’t the case as I’ve been entering those type of orders for a very long time. Anyway, I went through the whole explanation about timezone etc. which led to the ticket then being escalated and going into “investigation” mode. In addition I also opened another ticket requesting compensation for that 0.5R.
About 1 week later still no news, I update the ticket requesting a status update - nada, completely ignored. I call again, the person handling this ticket is not in, I ask that they call me back or update the ticket - again, nada. I call again a few hours later and get the person on the phone: “oh yeah there was some technical problem on our servers during that time”. Great, can I have that in writing updated in the ticket. That got done pretty fast. Now what about the other ticket about my compensation? Ah well, “that’s not me that’s Pouptitz” (Hebrew pop culture meaning red tape - another department/person, whatever). So he goes over to check, and they’ll get back to me either “today or Monday”. So let’s see what happens with that. I’m thinking of printing the ticket and hanging it on my wall :-)
Sir:There was a technical problem during the “effective time” of your
order , and thus it did not execute.
Just to put things in perspectives, I’ve been with IB since 2004, I seldom have problems with them, 99.9% of the time everything works extremely well. However, on occasion, there were still a few glitches here and there. The typical CS response was either: ignore and hope I give up, or provide incorrect responses, or if I don’t give up and correct them then BS me with some un-contestable reason (related to market/exchange/instrument/whatever). So overall, like ppl say, CS is terrible, but thankfully it’s very seldom needed to begin with.
I’d be shocked if they payed up.
If it took all that to get them to admit a mistake….
They’d be afraid that if they paid up, you might post it on elite trader.
Maybe they’ll pay up if you sign a confidentiality agreement. lol
I encountered a problem in paper account (since it was on paper account, I didn’t open any ticket or complaint). I opened a short position of EURJPY around 123-ish and a day later, my entry price was 0, and a huge loss is there now.
I am not sure if this will happen in live account. I am kinda confused if to go live with IB.
yo - yeah it would be pretty shocking, but in this case, it’s very clear something was screwed up on their side, no mistake, no market related issues, clearly a tech screw up. I’ve seen threads on ET before where IB stepped up and resolved issues like this. In any case I’m not going to give up till I get compensated. If they try to fool around again then posting on ET would be just the beginning ;-)
Gav - this sounds a bit extreme, I suspect it’s related to the paper account thing. I can understand your hesitation but I can tell you I put my money on the line every single day with IB and aside from those relatively rare problems I have pretty good confidence in their system and technology. There’s no 100% reliability when it comes to s/w, as I’m sure you’re aware of it yourself. So really my main implied complaint from this post is that I wish they handled those rare glitches in a more accountable and fair manner.
Any word yet? The suspense is killin’ me. ;-)
:-) They’re still “reviewing”, after my last check-in with them I was asked to wait patiently.. fingers crossed.
IB refused compensation saying that: 1. while I was talking to the CS over the phone I could have exited those positions in the post market. 2. I did not request the trading desk to close it for me (WTF?).
This is still no over though.
1. I looked at the market and there was no way to exit without taking even a bigger hit.
2. I did ask the CS I was on the phone with to offer advice/solution on their suggested steps in this case. I was told to manage the risk myself the best way I can. Which I did.
So basically it’s back to IB bullshitting again to avoid any hint of accountability.