Interactive Brokers Customer Reviews

by Nathan, 6/21/2019

Pros: Cheap for low volume trading

Cons: Expensive for high volume trading, customer service

If you only trade a few hundred shares then the commission will be very cheap. On the other hand if you trade thousands of shares of lower priced stocks, you will always hit the 1% max of trade value. So 1% of 10k is $100 each way when it would otherwise be $14 round trip on ETrade or TD Ameritrade. And as everyone knows their customer service is horrible. They just hung up on me when I was trying to understand their short margin requirements.

by Jason Black, 6/11/2019

Pros: At one time their fees were reasonable

Cons: Their inactivity fees are criminal. I am a disabled Veteran. I did not know Interactive Broker was TAKING $20 per month from my account for a total of $1400.00 over the last few yrs. When I finally realized it there was less than $600 left.. Interactive Broker never sent me anything to let me know. They just kept stealing money. Thanks for depleting what was left of the retirement account

My money is apparently gone. Illinois Attorney General should investigate IB fees

I hope someone reads this and realizes that Interactive Broker is a horrible broker. They lack ethics and morals. They steal from disable veterans. They are anti-American!

Be careful folks - find a better broker like Fidelity or Ameritrade. They care about the little guy.

Interactive Broker has terrible software, horrendous customer service, and greedy management.

by bio, 6/4/2019

Pros: None.

Cons: Website will log on with trading capabilities about 50% of the time, and when it succeeds, there is a delay. The representative said it was a server problem, but it happens regularly and makes trading a nightmare.

Website will log on with trading capabilities about 50% of the time, and when it succeeds, there is a delay. The representative said it was a server problem, but it happens regularly and makes trading a nightmare.

by Frank, 4/10/2019

Pros: CHEAP, many exchanges, many trading options

Cons: LOUSY customer service at times, buggy website.

Very cheap unless you tarde penny stocks. Many exchanges.
Problem: cheap prices = cheap service. Well, lousy, frankly.
Phoning support - forget it - cracking lines, foreign weird accents, re-routing of calls to exotic places, and too much incompetence at times. You call them to ask lot sizes in a given exchange for a given stock - they do not even know that.
Chat support = spinning buttons for 5 minutes, 10 minutes, 15 minutes. Finally someone answers who pretends to chat to you and 5 others a the same time - and you need 2-factor login to get support! Bad. Finally you get timed out or session terminated before the chat jerk even answers.
Ticket support = I cannot open any NEW support TICKETS. Maybe their website has another bug or they banned me from asking questons. Tried in 3 browsers and their Ticket Submit button has stopped reacting, it simply won't submit my legitimate question (regarding their lot sizes on Hong Kong exchange)
So basically - you are left with NO tickets, NO Chat and some guy in an exotic place with no desire to help.
CHEAP - yes their SUPPORT is as CHEAP as their PRICES, so if you need STRESS and HEADACHE you've found the right broker.

by Brian, 8/26/2018

Pros: Fees, global access, API, and universal account

Cons: None

This broker is a must for professionals. I think they should raise the minimums to keep the LOW IQ types out.

by David, 8/17/2018

Pros: Nice selection of products

Cons: Basically, everything else

I've been with IB for over 6 years. They were my prime broker for my hedge fund and I had my personal account there. I've had problems in the past, complained bitterly to them, fought them, took them to arbitration, etc. I don't know why I stayed with them, familiarity breeds contempt I guess. But this latest incident, although somewhat trivial, could under different circumstances blow up into a genuine problem. I had a GTC order to close an option position when the price got to 5 cents,, and the order had been sitting there for about 2 months. It finally filled, however, it executed twice. Once to buy to close the option position, then it bought the same thing again, thus opening a new option position. OK, it was only 50 contracts at 5 cents each, plus about $20 commission. However, it could have been much much worse than that. I complained to "Customer Service", and got some smarta$$ reply about managing risk the way I saw fit (WTF? nothing to do with the issue I brought up!). The rep goes on to inform me that the execution would stand. The entire tone of the reply, the unwillingness to even attempt to dig into the problem confirmed to me that if you're a customer, everything is cool until you have a problem. I'm moving my assets to TDAmeritrade. If you go with IB or are with IB, good luck, and pray you don't run into any problems, especially using their clunky, outdated, slow platform.

by A Trucker, 8/1/2018

Pros: low margin interest rates, low commission per trade.

Cons: poor mobile device usability, software is from 1995, mediocre customer service, slow fund xfer

WHY IBKR: So I switched to IBKR from Scottrade a year or two ago because, at the time I was paying 7% or more for margin. As someone who leverages out to like 60% or more that was killing me. IBKR offered 2.19% and so I switched. Now it's up to 5% but again, the Federal Reserve has been raising the benchmark interest rates so waddaya expect? Rates are going up *everywhere*. Also, scottrade wanted 7 bucks per transaction, ibkr wanted only like a dollar or something.

PRO: Interactive Brokers is CHEAP. Let's not get that wrong. Cheaper than the competitors.

CON: Their software is antiquated. Think a black background, neon green text... reminds me of the 1990s when I was a little boy learning to use my granddad's windows 3.0 computer. Yeah... it's old.

CON: Forget about customer service. They have an attitude, but will still answer my dumb rookie questions. Besides, I'm used to dealing with sour employees at warehouses and shippers and the like, so this is nothing new. And since I spend 10 hours a day driving, I could care less if I'm on hold for 30 minutes before getting to speak to a human being, I just let my hands-free headset play the muzak while I drive past cornfields...

CON: ACH funding takes a while... and don't use a wire transfer you dolt, it costs 25 dollars when ACH is free!

WHY IBKR: I am not a professional, I am not even a "prosumer", I am literally a millenial trucker (i.e. consumer) who is investing and managing under 100k for the long term (i.e. retirement). I just need a cheap brokerage that gives me a place to stash and manage my securities, mostly big-cap stocks. I just need a brokerage that's been around for a few decades that is unlikely to go belly up. IBKR fits that bill.

THE SHORT: I can't speak for professionals, although I hear IBKR's shtick is making money on "volume". But if you're a consumer needing a place that has lower margin rates and that you can just shovel your securities into and forget about them for months at a time, IBKR fits the bill. For a truck driver like me, it works.

by Tim B., 3/8/2018

Pros: Cheap

Cons: Terrible Customer Service, Buggy Unreliable Technology

"You Get What You Pay For with Interactive Brokers"

You pay very little, and get very little. The website and technology is very buggy. The customer service is the worse I have ever experienced with any broker. Fidelity is the best. E*Trade is OK. TD is not very good. IBRK is terrible. Perhaps the worst is that with Fidelity, E*Trade and TD, when you do a US ACH funds transfer, the entire transaction is completed in three business days. However, with IBRK they "hold" your funds for another 4 days, which is unheard of in the industry. It takes twice as long to ACH funds and get them credited to your account to use than with top tier brokers like Fidelity. I tried IBRK and immediate moved the money back to Fidelity never to trade with IBRK again. If you want terrible customer service and buggy technology with useless error messages at a cheap price, then Interactive Brokers is the place for you!

by Jerry Saia, 1/13/2018

Pros: Cheap

Cons: Arrogant, indifference to complaints - it is as if they cannot read English. Obvious airheads.

If you ever will need your account fixed, or corrections made, you can kiss reason goodbye. This outfit apparently has robots handle all their trouble tickets. There is no intelligence here. Stay away.

by Experiencedtrader, 9/6/2017

Pros: Low cost if you trade 100-200 shares

Cons: Incompetent rude customer service

Customer service at interactive brokers is incompetent and rude except maybe technical people. I am completely astonished, they are allowed to talk to you like they are rebellious teenagers, but atthe same time really don't know what they are talking about which makes them sound stupid, no offense. Management needs to do a clean sweep there otherwise they will not have any customers left.

by IB Screwed Me, 3/23/2017

Pros: None

Cons: Arrogant

They restricted my account to closing trades only because they took exception to my social media post of a policy of their I disagreed with. 100% fact and opinion.

by Michael, 3/6/2017

Pros:

Cons: Bad fill

One time i put in Or Better order. Stock opened substatially below the OrBetter price. They filled my order at OB price and not where market was trading. They would not adjust the price. Pocketing the differance.

by Julian, 5/25/2016

Pros: Overall a good solution for all types of traders.

Cons:

I've used these guys for pretty much everything and its all 'decent'. Having one broker over multiple asset classes is why I use them. I've traded equities, futures, and forex with them and the costs are relatively comparable to their competitors. The two things they need to improve would be customer service (bleh) and they try to stick you with filtered data for futures which is totally unacceptable IMO for a professional to use. You can get the data through a 3rd party provider for futures, so its not that big of a deal, it just bothers me that they nickel and dime their clients like that. They are also one of the best places for Canadian accounts since the rules changed earlier this year. I would recommend this to someone who wants to trade different asset classes because you WILL pay a small premium for that convenience.

by MR, 4/28/2016

Pros:

Cons:

I have both interactive broker, and a Trade King account, and by far like IB's trading app. better (although not as straight forward as others). I have recently switched to day trading lower dollar stocks so I use TK. Depending on how much money you are trading, if you plan on trading fewer high dollar stocks IB might be cheaper, if a higher number of shares of lower dollar stocks TK might be a better bet to save on commissions.

by James, 4/2/2016

Pros: Low fees, low margin rates.

Cons: Website malfunctioned when I was setting up account. No customer service help.

I probably made the mistake of trying to reach them by phone. On an ordinary day at 11:00 Eastern time, I could not get an answer in 16 minutes. I did not try chat, however. I have large accounts and cannot afford poor customer service, especially in the case of a website malfunction.

by Stephan, 3/20/2016

Pros:

Cons:

I've been using IB for over 6 months. It took me at least 5 months to get used to the platform. I tried the classic interface, booktrader and charttrader. Everybody knows IB customer service is not good. When I tried calling them, I usually have to be put on hold for quite a while. I didn't have to call the trade desk so my guess is that line should pick up a lot faster since that's more time sensitive but I don't have any experience with that. I emailed them 2x for support and 1st time I received a reply with the solution i was looking for. The 2nd time I asked about a problem I was having with booktrader and i never received a reply back. After a few months, I finally tried a 3rd party front end DOM instead of using booktrader.

I don't know why some people say IB is expensive because after trying other brokers, Scottrade, ETrade, TDA/TOS and Tradestation, IB is actually cheaper for me overall. I also compared IB with Tradestation side by side for a while and I thought IB execution was better at least with my limited experience.

Overall if you like TWS or find a way around it like me, I think IB is a good broker for us retail traders.

by Angelo, 1/24/2016

Pros: Great margins

Cons: Terrible customer service

I get paid in USD, but am living in Canada, so need to exchange decent chunks of CAD to USD (to pay taxes and expenses). I did a lot of research, and found that the spread charged by IB is extremely small relative to most other choices. Also, you can EFT/ wire your money in and out of IB without being charged any fees (by IB).

What's annoying though is that they have a ridiculous holding time if the bank transferring IN the money is different the bank that you are transferring the money too (which I'm guessing will be the case for most forex conversions).... as in months long.

What's worse is the first few months I was a customer, they never enforced this holding time so I wasn't even aware of it, and acted accordingly. Then spontaneously, they started enforcing it. So I had a lot of USD that I had converted to CAD that was just sitting there. Meanwhile the CAD was plummeting (I think it went from like 1.25 to over 1.4). If I was aware of this holding period, I would've made the conversion at the very last minute for hedging purposes (I was using the money on a transaction that would be based on the current exchange rate).

To avoid this wait, be sure to wire the money instead of EFT... the hold time is signficantly shorter.

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