iTRADE: The Slog Fucking Continues

by Jack

May 25, 2009 at 7:15 pm
Tagged: ,

Scotia iTRADE is awful, easily the worst online trading service I’ve ever used.

I’ve been trying to close my account with them for a week now. All of my cash — the uninsured part of the account — has disappeared.

I was on the phone with customer service today and they actually fucking laughed at me:

“My money is missing. All my stock was transferred into the account, but none of the cash. I’m trying to withdraw it all and I should have about twice as much as I do.”

Customer ‘Service’ [laughing]: “You can’t withdraw twice the amount of money in your account!”

These stupid dicks moronic shitheads sub-retard cunts are really getting on my nerves.

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  1. Don

    on May 25, 2009 at 8:40 pm

    It could be worse: VerizonMath. Actually, no, the situation described there isn’t as bad as “losing” the money in your account. Still, the VerizonMath audio recording is more humourously frustrating. Anyway, the VerizonMath guy is still using his blog to post any negative stories about Verizon. I see this in your future for iTrade.

  2. Jack

    on May 26, 2009 at 11:10 am

    Quick update: I liquidated my stock holdings today:

    Cash proceeds should be available 3-5 days after your trade is executed and will appear as Pending Transactions until then.

    The order was executed within 5 minutes of me issuing it, but they hold the cash for 3-5 days during which it’s invested in the money market earning them returns (instead of me). I’m expecting a similar delay when I transfer the money to CIBC.

    So the service is useless for day trading, the bread and butter of online trading services.

    iTRADE… Or do I?

  3. Jared

    on May 26, 2009 at 5:16 pm

    http://scotiabank.com/cda/content/0,1608,CID8376_LIDen,00.html

  4. Jack

    on May 26, 2009 at 6:23 pm

    @Don: Ideally no one who reads this blog will use iTRADE, thus avoiding the need to publish their horror stories :)

    @Jared: Thanx, but I have a two-step plan in progress already:

    1. Hit them with sufficient paperwork to prove them wrong.
    2. If that doesn’t work, take them to court.

    Then, maybe, sell them my business consulting services. It’s obvious that I’m more qualified than their internal guys, so why tell them what they’re doing wrong for free? The game is to be sold, not told.

    But at the moment I’d rather just do everything I can to trash their (completely ridiculous) brand. These comments and posts will be here for years and years, and will lurk in the Internet Archive and Google’s cache longer than that. If one person thinking of using iTRADE decides against them because of me I will be repaid fully for my time. Every person after that is gravy.

    And I don’t understand how Scotia’s complaint system will help me. I learned my lesson with EI: bureaucracy is there to slow people like me down, not help us. I suspect the system is there to keep stories like this quiet by grinding down the protagonists, not to help anyone.

  5. Jared

    on May 26, 2009 at 10:54 pm

    In theory that’s why the ombudsperson reports to the CEO: to keep bureaucracy out of the complaint system.

  6. Al

    on June 25, 2009 at 10:43 am

    Terrible company, sneering reps, HUGE fees to close accounts, supervisors no better, can’t even read your emails properly,no online statements, haven’t received ANY statements since I opened an account in JANUARY- steer well clear of this monstrosity

  7. Kirby

    on July 20, 2009 at 7:50 pm

    Itrade sucks shit. It’s bad enough that my $15,000 invested is now worth $3000 because of the fucking economy, but then the fuckers at Itrade have to charge me a $25 quarterly fee because I’m not trading enough and my account value is less than $10,000 (thanks for kicking me when I’m down). So I finally am going to close the account, but first they will stick me with a $50 “fuck you” charge on the way out the door.

  8. Scotia iTrade SUCKS!

    on August 18, 2009 at 11:31 am

    Decided to open a margin & short account with them. The decided to change my account in the middle of the trading day. I could not change, stop, or add to my open orders. I couldn’t get the a**holes to reverse orders that filled will I was unable to make changes.

    The supervisor said he wouldn’t talk to me and the forgeiner rep was acting like an arrogant puke. Nice treatment when you do 50-70 trades a day and have over 300K in your account.

  9. Scotia iTrade SUCKS!

    on August 18, 2009 at 11:35 am

    I should clarify I already had a cash account for years and I requested a margin & short account. Guess the close your cash account while your trading and you are down for 24hrs or more.

    Thanks Winston (Rep x3729) you jerk off! and Bryan (Supervisor x3725) who wouldn’t talk to me.

    I guess the 6.99 * 60 = $420 you get 5 days a week is going elsewhere. BTW you only get $7/trade when you trade a lot so don’t think these guys are cheap either

  10. mc

    on September 22, 2009 at 10:42 am

    they fucking suck.

    etrade canada was better. also kinda fucked up at times.

    itrade fucks with your margin, has terrible customer service, and errors.

    i want etrade back. and i want etrade mobile pro in CANADA!

  11. ITRADE shit ball sucker

    on September 25, 2009 at 8:24 am

    WTF #1 – 90% of the stocks in iTrade can’t be shorted but in my Iteractive Brokers account 90% of stocks can.

    WTF #2 – when I short a stock it goes pending while they manually look it up? this can take precious minutes and if it does fill (rarely) the price is not what you planned by that time

    WTF #3 – when I cancel the pending short described int WTF #2, I can’t!!!! I have to wait for there fucking response!!!! I have been really screwed!

    WTF #4 – when I place the short order in pre-market it goes pending waiting for a manual lookup as talked about before, but you’ll love the fact that no one is there to do it until 9:30AM, pre-market is 7-9:30!!!!!!!! and again you can’t cancel it. I have had orders pending for 1.5 hrs that a) I can’t cancel and b) it might get filled at 9:30 by that time it’s all different.

    OK, I have now signed up for Interactive Brokers, way better. And it makes me realize that iTrade is even worst than the shit I already knew it was.

    I hope it bombs so bad, Bank of Nova Scotia go fuck yourselves and this peice of shit system

  12. ITRADE shit ball sucker

    on September 25, 2009 at 8:26 am

    that was just rant’s about the shit shorting problems, I could write a book about the shit rest of the fucking ass wipe rest of it all.

    shame on you if you read this and still sign up for an iTrade account.

  13. ITRADE shit ball sucker

    on September 25, 2009 at 8:31 am

    oh, and IPO’s don’t get added to there system that day. Nice!!!!

    what a joke…OK I’m done, sorry :)

  14. hi

    on December 8, 2009 at 10:14 am

    So sick itrade and their ‘technical problems’. Haven’t gotten access to my account info for three days! We’re told to call in to trade. I waited for over 32 minutes this morning and had to hang up to something else. What should have literally taken me 1 minute, it’s just retarded!

    This current situation is just another incident in a series of problems this year, for I expect WAY more for my 19.99 a trade.

    Anybody using a better brokerage? I just want to trade. Cheap is good but hopefully with no itrade bullshit.

  15. Jack

    on December 8, 2009 at 10:45 am

    @hi: I was relatively happy with TD Waterhouse back in the day. I haven’t traded with them for about seven years though, so no idea if it’s still any good.

  16. Blitzraj

    on December 8, 2009 at 1:47 pm

    Honestly, I’m not pro at stocks but I think Scotiaitrade needs some serious remanagement. They have a $25.00 low activity fee per quarter. That means every four months I have to do something, otherwise they take my hard earned money! This doesn’t seem like much, but for a new investor like myself this is something thats really challenging to do!

    But here’s the thing for a guy with less than $10,000 dollars in his portifolio, and doesn’t trade often their commission rate of $19.99 is the best around, except for Questtrade, of which I heard a lot of bad rumours. Unless someone else can inform me otherwise, I have no choice but to remain with these guys. Plus, I think its crazy that any of us are charged such high rates – I mean doesn’t a computer do all this shit any ways?

    The system literally fucks you.

  17. 550 trades per quarter

    on December 11, 2009 at 11:31 am

    im on hold with itrade as i write this, for the past week if i get a partial fill and then change the order to a different price, thats it, im locked into that price, i cannot change the order again.

    the rep just said they can change the order for me now, but that dosent solve my problem, what if i want to change it again- sorry you is farked. hopefully fixed over the weekend she says. If its not fixed by monday or I am sufficiently pissed off by the lost $ they have cost me today, I will transferring over to TD or someone else.

    im seeing other ITRADE complainers on the stockhouse bullboards this week.

  18. Worthless Bloody ITRADE

    on January 7, 2010 at 7:23 am

    ITRADE has got to be the worst of the lot. Their reps are rude, under-trained and ignorant. I always feel bad for the decent ones. They should run away from that miserable outfit.

    They screw up my account regularly and then use their big brusk voices to speak over you. I despise the lot of them. Duncan Hannay is just another useless mouthpiece, apologizing for crap service and then repeating the practices. They’ve got the month to get it right, get my accounts in order or else they can take their sad little services and stuff them.

    Maybe it’s time to take this complaint group farther, perhaps demand a few performance guarantees, or as a group go to the ombudsman, as convoluted as that process is designed to be.

  19. Trader

    on January 27, 2010 at 9:00 am

    I really hope this FUCK in service fails. I opened a TFSA account on DEC 24th and STILL NOT ACTIVE yet after a month. Called them 20 times and they kept on saying it will be opened up soon. Finally after calling them over and over they tell me my picture on the photo copy wasn’t clear…….what a fuck in assholes. I asked them to double check because copy could not have been bad as I coped it on be best possible dpi. Surly enough month later someone checked the copy while I was on the phone and told me picture was perfect, he sent in request again and they opened the account after 32 days. What a fuck in joke no one called me to say anything about the picture yet they won’t open the account because some mother fucker didn’t do their job right.

  20. KIERAN

    on March 11, 2010 at 7:20 pm

    THANK YOU ALL……….THE REP I TRIED TO TALK TO RE MY OPENING AN ACCOUNT GOT SO PISSED WITH ME THAT HE CANCELLED MY ACCOUNT REQUEST
    I KNOW THAT THIS DICKHEAD ACTUALLY DID ME A BIG FAVOUR.
    ANY ONE GOR DUNCAN HANNAS E MAIL ADDR.
    I WANT TO GIVE HIM AN EAR FULL AND HOPEFULLY GET SOMEONE FIRED

  21. Jack

    on March 12, 2010 at 1:48 pm

    Here’s his LinkedIn acct: http://www.linkedin.com/in/duncanhannay — maybe you can get him that way?

  22. dan

    on June 14, 2010 at 7:29 am

    what kinda a joke is this Itrade company, I too experienced a lock out from my regular cash accounts after I opened short and margin accounts. All of my cash disappeared along with my securities. It took several days and calls to get them to sort it out, they replied we have nothing in place to prevent this from happening. How about a phone call to let us know first, I mean doing this in the middle of the trading day is completely disrespectful. Stuck in all your positions unable to trade mean while the market is tanking. A 30 min wait to get through on the phone assured the problem will be fixed in 5 mins each time. Give me a break this company needs to get it together, seriously do not even bother with them.

  23. jimmy ng

    on July 20, 2010 at 5:38 pm

    I agree with you, at one point i thought they were ok, then shit hit the fan, my buy order became sell order and the execution price far below market price, their service sure is going down the toilet..as my money