Questrade Review, Coupon Code and TFSA

the 4.95 for 495 stocks, is there a cap on the price of the stock for that to happen or is it regardless of stock price?

i’ve been also looking at Etrade. They have a promotion right now where they give you $5 for ever 1000 that you deposit with them, up to $500.

The only drawback of questrade is that they don’t provide wash trade like many other brokers except TD waterhouse. If you are in Canada and mainly play with US stocks, you have to suffer the loss of currency conversion every trade. They charge 0.95%, so a buy/sell action will cost 1.9%. For $10,000 trade, it is $190, which is not acceptable.

Another broker TradeFreedom charges much less, 0.2%, which is $40 for $10,000 trade. So it only beats TDW when the trade is less than 10,000.

So that’s why I still stay with TDW.

Just a personal thought.

I too have an account with Questrade – the low trade commissions are good. My primary account is with Canadian Shareowners Association but I purchase my small-cap stocks and covered calls with Questrade. The point about the wash trades is a good one – I am going to start hounding them about this.

Hey Canadian Money Blogs Reviewer,

I have been quite happy with the CSA – they provide good service if I need to get a hold of them (which I rarely need to do) and the pure fact that they allow you to hold fractional shares and reinvest those dividends has been very valuable to me. The only downside is you need to select investments from their list of stocks – which is ok since most of the stocks they offer are ones that dividend investors will be looking for.

TDG

The Questrade $50 credit (and $100 for the referer) comes in the form of a credit to the total amount of commissions you’d accumulated in the 3-months since the time the new account was opened “up to $50 or $100″. In other words, if you made no commission-based transactions within those 3-months then you get no credit dollars at all.

Emil, how can you say that Questrade has a cheaper forex spread when your support just told me that theres a 1% charge for each exchange? The big banks charge 0.90% each way.

I have a CSA RSP account and I’m quite sure that it does the same thing as TDW does as far as reinvesting dividends from US stocks goes. I’m not sure how they do it, but they convert the dividend first to CAD at the going rate on the day the dividend is paid. Then, when it comes time to reinvest (not right away, CSA has a monthly schedule of buying/selling shares) they convert the dividend back to USD at what is apparently the exact same rate they used earlier.

For example, I held PG shares up until recently. Here is the activity for the last dividend I received and reinvested:
15-FEB-2007 Procter & Gamble: 19-JAN-07 (record date) 4.8013 shares, gross 1.49 USD, convert to CAD @ 1.1529, credit $1.72
15-FEB-2007 Procter & Gamble: Non-resident tax withheld at source (0.22 USD convert to CAD @ 1.1529), debit $0.25
19-MAR-2007 Bought 0.0210 of Procter & Gamble for 60.840000. Commission: 0.00 @ 1.152900., debit $1.47

Again, I’m not sure what they do in the background, but it works well for dividends. Selling PG was a different story. The proceeds were converted to CAD right away.

Emil,

I am looking forward to what your solution will be to eliminate the currency conversion losses in registered accounts. I am sure if you can overcome this that you will see a lot of people’s registered capital flowing in your direction.

Tom

Just some additional info…
I am planning to only trade 10 stocks at any given time, mainly small caps.
For example:
if i am planning to take 3-6K to start out.
so i will purchase 300-600 dollars worth for each of the 10 stocks.
I will probably only trade no more than 10 times a month.

Is questrade my best choice with their 4.95 plan ??

Thanks for the quick reply FrugalTrader!
Yes, i understand that the stock price may be high.

Just making sure, Questrade let’s me trade all U.S. exchanges (NYSE, NASDAQ, AMEX), correct?

And in order to follow through with my plan, i should have $5000 to start, to reduce my commissions to 1% ?

Hi Goby,

Thank you for your interest in trading with Questrade. As a beginner in the trading world I would strongly encourage you to start trading with Questrade. Interactive Brokers may be suitable for certain types of traders but certainly not for beginners. Do not expect them to help you with any part of the initial learning process, (I speak from experience) and do not expect to learn their platform as easily as you would learn ours. There are other disadvantages if trading with them as well. You will have to have at least $25,000 in your account in order to be exempt from the Day Trading Pattern rule that may block your account in you trade 4 times in about 5 days. They do not have Registered accounts either so I do not see why exchange rates should be of concern in your case.

If you will open a standard trading account and plan to trade in US markets you can deposit US dollars in your account. If you’d like to deposit CAD and exchange it over to USD in your Questrade account, you will be better off than exchanging it in a bank.

In order to trade for $4.95 you have to trade up to 495 shares at a time. (1 cent/share, min $4.95)

I hope this helped.

Please feel free to contact me directly if you have more questions.

Regards,

Emil Vojkollari
Client Acquisitions Supervisor
Web: http://www.questrade.com
Phone: (416) 227-9876 ext.380
Toll Free: 1-888-783-7866 ext.380
Fax: (416) 227-0078
_____________________________________________________________________________
Questrade Inc. | 5650 Yonge Street, Suite 1700, Toronto, ON M2M 4G3

Trade Stocks for $4.95

My experience told me never, never deposit uncertified check to Questrade. Here’s my experience of depositing by check. I needed to transfer USD from a US bank account. I have no way to made a certified check without leaving Toronto. So I decided to deposit a personal check. After I sent out the check I found that they would hold money for 20 business days (almost a month in calender). On 6/18 or 6/19 I contacted the livehelp, trying to cancel the deposit. The representative told me they already deposited it. Later I found the fund was drawn out from my bank on 6/20. Yesterady I contacted the representative. She told me the fund would be available today. So last night I made a trading plan for today. Today when I wanted to trade, the fund still didn’t arrive. I contacted the representative, it was the same person. She told me it would be available tomorrow. I am really pissed off by this experience. I did expect I need to wait for 20 business days. But I didn’t expected I need to request for fund release by myself.

Hi Wood,

Please give me a call or write me at evojkollari@questrade.com. I need to know your account number or your name. I will look into the matter right away.

Emil Vojkollari
Client Acquisitions Supervisor
Web: http://www.questrade.com
Phone: (416) 227-9876 ext.380
Toll Free: 1-888-783-7866 ext.380
Fax: (416) 227-0078
_____________________________________________________________________________
Questrade Inc. | 5650 Yonge Street, Suite 1700, Toronto, ON M2M 4G3

Trade Stocks for $4.95

Manny, you will find that these questions are asked by almost all brokers. I think these questions are more valid if you plan on opening a margin account with them, aka, an account you can borrow with.

Hi Emil,

Thanks for your helpful comments / explanations. I finally bit the bullet and opened a Registered account with Questrade. Still haven’t made any trades yet. What kind of interest Questrade pays on cash balances ?

Would appreciate your input on this.

Thanks in advance

Manny

Emil,
I am wondering what type of people can you not open accounts for?
I am still in college and i do not make that much a year.
Am i still able to open an account?

I have deposited money three times into my Questrade account by using the bill payment option. That takes between 3 days to a week. However, exchanging funds from CAD to USD has usually only taken an hour to a day at most for the transaction to be processed. So, I don’t consider that to be a long delay. =)

Goldmember,

Please call me ASAP, or send me an e-mail with your contact information at evojkollari@questrade.com. I will need your account number as well.

Thank you,

Emil Vojkollari
Client Acquisitions Supervisor
Web: http://www.questrade.com
Phone: (416) 227-9876 ext.380
Toll Free: 1-888-783-7866 ext.380
Fax: (416) 227-0078
_____________________________________________________________________________
Questrade Inc. | 5650 Yonge Street, Suite 1700, Toronto, ON M2M 4G3

Trade Stocks for $4.95

Thank you goldmember for taking the time to post the additional comments on the blog. It is important for anyone reading this blog to understand that Questrade is absolutely the best choice among all the Canadian discount brokers, and we will do anything we can to live up to our good reputation.

To clarify this specific incident, Questrade will be paying the platform fee to the platform provider. In order to avoid similar incidents, I urge every new client to carefully select the appropriate platform, and know all the fees associated with holding an account at Questrade. We take pride in disclosing these fees on our website under the pricing section. They are among the lowest fees in Canada.

It is difficult for Questrade to give money away considering the thin margins that we operate under. We do our best to offer our clients the lowest commissions, and we will maintain this important competitive advantage for many years to come.

Good luck trading,

Emil Vojkollari
Client Acquisitions Supervisor
Web: http://www.questrade.com
Phone: (416) 227-9876 ext.380
Toll Free: 1-888-783-7866 ext.380
Fax: (416) 227-0078
_____________________________________________________________________________
Questrade Inc. | 5650 Yonge Street, Suite 1700, Toronto, ON M2M 4G3

Trade Stocks for $4.95

Re: comment of Casual (#48)– agreed, my brief experience with Questrade has not been so hot either. I called about opening an account and was placed on hold for a while before being transferred to someone who answered ‘Hey’. Granted, the guy thought it was an internal transfer but he followed this up by being generally patronizing and indifferent regarding funding an account, US dollar issues, etc. I may still go ahead and think of opening, but there are definitely some red flags re: customer service..

Danel,

I do not know the reasons why a Mac computer is not supported by our applications. That is a technical question that I’m not interested in asking right now. I have, however asked the question: “Can we make our applications compatible with a Mac computer?” The answer was: “Yes” but the cost would be prohibitively expensive. In order for us to be able to do that, we would have to increase our commissions. I wonder if you will still consider us at that point? Probably not…..

Danel, Judging from the long e-mail, you’re quite passionate and knowledgeable about the issue. If you are able to make these changes and you have an approximate price estimate for me, I promise to run it by management.

Please try to understand that this is a business and in order to maintain our competitive advantage in the industry, we have to keep our costs down. We have been the best since 1999 and we will be going forward. If we had problems with a Windows Operating System, we would not have been able to be that. Rest assured that everything works flawlessly with Windows.

Regards,

Emil Vojkollari
Client Acquisitions Supervisor
Web: http://www.questrade.com
Phone: (416) 227-9876 ext.380
Toll Free: 1-888-783-7866 ext.380
Fax: (416) 227-0078
_____________________________________________________________________________
Questrade Inc. | 5650 Yonge Street, Suite 1700, Toronto, ON M2M 4G3

Trade Stocks for $4.95

Looking for feedback from Questrade clients…

Is it true that Questrade charges 0.5% forex spread on the US$ trades in the RRSP accounts? I got that number from the FAQ on their Web site.

Would be interested to hear people’s first hand accounts of doing RRSP trades on US exchanges. Is the posted number correct?

Thank you!

*** The automatic currency conversions in RRSP accounts is 0.5%. I’ve checked it several times.

Good to hear. Thank you!

*** They are saying they will eliminate it alltogether now.

Do you have any links? Or was that a private conversation with them?

I would like to add my comment on Questrade customer service, it is non existant.Iam now into the 3rd day of a trade issue without any response
Mine is a fairly new a/c but Iam probably going to close it.

Thanks for the tip Lina.It resolved the problem

Never mind the TD Ameritrade question from my post, I figured it out.

Frugal,

Thanks for info. But what about trading stocks? What would be my best bet?

Frugal,

I dont think I will be trading both stocks and forex more than 10 times a month. I’ve gotten as far as the paperwork portion with Questrade but now I have to complete a few steps which will require a little more time from my end. with TDW, I don’t think it will take a long time to open up the account.
I’m trying to find the best fit for trading Forex and Stocks about 10 times a month.

With IB, would I require $5k to open an account if I was to ONLY trade forex?

The Exchange and ECN fees are fees charged by the Stock Exchanges and the Electronic Communication Networks. Most of them charge only on orders that remove liquidity. It’s a way for exchanges to incent traders to enter orders that will stay in the market and increase its liquidity. Please see this link for the breakdown of these fees. http://www.questrade.com/pricing/exchange_ecn_fees.aspx

Please keep in mind that if you trade directly in the stock market, these fees are disclosed to you. If you trade with a platform that is not direct access (routes the orders through a market maker or internal trader) you will have these fees incorporated in the price of the stock. This is called “Slippage”. Most of the times, the slippage is significantly more than the Exchange fees.

Trading direct, assures speed as well as the best fill.

Regards,

Emil Vojkollari
Client Acquisitions Supervisor
Web: http://www.questrade.com
Phone: (416) 227-9876 ext.380
Toll Free: 1-888-783-7866 ext.380
Fax: (416) 227-0078
_____________________________________________________________________________
Questrade Inc. | 5650 Yonge Street, Suite 1700, Toronto, ON M2M 4G3

Trade Stocks for $4.95
Ranked # 1 for both Fees and Customer Satisfaction – The Globe & Mail

Since Questrade lost Cybertrader I highly urge all customers using this program to close their accounts and leave at once. Their insulting offer of Axis 3.0 or Sterling is a joke. This company clearly has little respect for their most important customers..those that PAY the most commissions. Oh well, everyone to Interactive Brokers.

Let me preface this by stating I have nothing against QT personally , however this is business. I have reviewed both Axis & Sterling, although Sterling is significantly better than Axis or QT Pro or whatever it is called..it simply does not stand up when tested against TWS from IB & the multiple user interfaces which can be attached to TWS. I think their licensing fee with Axis or Sterling is low and thats why QT went with them…not because it was in the best interest of their customers. imo.

Woodwood, I will look into this personally. Can you please contact me directly at the number below and I’ll ensure your account is rebated the free trade rewards you’ve earned.

Korsh, you address a very important aspect of online trading: people become very loyal to their trade platforms. The more active the trader, the more important it is to get to know every tool and shortcut – and it takes time to gain that knowledge. In addition, CyberTrader Pro is excellent software and active users are justifiably very loyal to it. For both those reasons, we knew there was no way to instantly replace CyberTrader Pro. Transitions and phase outs are always most demanding on end users. This is why we developed an array of choices and worked, wherever possible, with every client individually to find the best option for them.

As an active trader, Korsh, you have no doubt noticed that you are dealing directly with a member of our dedicated CT transition team. You will have also noticed that at no point did anyone misrepresent the capabilities of our replacement trade platforms. We hope you will continue to keep an account with us as we work towards building the high-end platform needed by active and pro traders. But if you choose to leave Questrade, as much as we regret the choice, we understand it. And we will work very hard to win you back.

As always, I wish you great success in the markets.

Emil Vojkollari
Client Acquisitions Supervisor
Web: http://www.questrade.com
Phone: (416) 227-9876 ext.380
Toll Free: 1-888-783-7866 ext.380
Fax: (416) 227-0078
_____________________________________________________________________________
Questrade Inc. | 5650 Yonge Street, Suite 1700, Toronto, ON M2M 4G3

Trade Stocks for $4.95
Ranked # 1 for both Fees and Customer Satisfaction – The Globe & Mail

Emil,
I am glad to hear that QT is working on a “platform that’s compatible with Cyber Trader if not better”. Very exciting news. That, if truly on the horizon would probably be appropriate to share with your clients, including details of the platform & a time frame for completion. That, in my opinion is how you maintain loyalty & build customer relationships that have been strained due to upheaval, even if that upheavel is not your fault. As for this moment in time the current solutions are poor and the new software development is lip service. I look forward to learning more about Questrade’s new platform in development and await the day it comes out. Until then, I feel let down by the lack of ‘vision” presented to me as a customer & feel forced to move on.

Hey Dave,

Registered accounts cannot hold USD, thus you need to convert back and forth for each trade (unless you wash trade).

Non-registered accounts however, you can trade in USD, thus there is no need to exchange your money both ways / trade.

Holy, that was fast Frugal. Thankyou.

I mailed a us draft to questrade 1 week ago, 2 days later, I was able to trade those founds.
3 days ago looked to my account and all my positions were sold, and all my money is gone, I have been talking with them for 2 full days, they say they will contact me or email me, but they haven’t. I cant believe that they don’t know where my money is. I Talked to my bank and they said the draft has already been cashed. I don’t really know who to contact.
Painful situation .

their is another online low commission fee brokerage company. $4.95/trade

https://www.tradeking.com/PrivateView/services/Services/commissions.tmpl

besides

https://www.zecco.com/trading/freetrading.aspx?tab=CompareUs

not clear on Lina’s answers…

ETF supported by Questrade for USD?
Any free trades per month?

What methods available for US dollar deposits?
will US money order works?

Suppose you have $4.95 plan, you trade & buy 5000 shares(in single trade… what happens… do I pay $4.95 for that trade or $9.95 for that trade or some crazy amount over that?
(example, saw some online traders charge $5/trade for 1000 shares & max up to $10)

In this above example, how much cost would occur for this trade?

Jas, you can either choose their $4.95 plan where you pay one penny per share with a $4.95 minimum. Or you can choose a $9.95 plan where you pay $9.95 per trade no matter how big or small it is.

Most investors would probably do better with the $4.95 plan even if they go over $9.95 for the occasional trade. You would need to have a trade with 995 shares before you hit $9.95.

For a 5000 share trade you could pay $9.95 if you are on that plan or you would pay $50.00 if you are on the $4.95 plan. As FT said you have to decide which option fits your needs and change it accordingly.

Mike

Hi Questrade,
Just a quick question. Is there a timeframe in which you are planning to make your website compatible with non-windows customers? I run linux and macintosh at home. Specifically, is there a reason why the website is not compliant with Firefox/Mozilla?

Please advise at your earliest convenience.

CD

Here is some hidden fees you will not find unless you apply for an account.

You must open an account with least $1000
if your account falls below $250 anytime, it will be suspended & liquidated within 24hrs. (info not listed on the site)

EFT does not support USD

If you open new account do not fund it as they ask you to till your account is approved, otherwise your money is lost forever if you use Bill payment to deposit money to Questrade. You should wait till they approve it first b4 making any deposit.

OK done. mailed the paperwork for questrade.

FT, a correction about the forex spread.
When I called Questrade this morning, I asked again about the spread rate, and this time the rep asked a trader, who told him it was 1.2 each way! I know, this is way too ramdon!
But they told me that this information is available in myQUestrade. I will look at it when my account is open

Thought I’d share my thoughts – I’ve been a Questrade customer since July ‘07.

- Customer service is no problem to get through, but is fairly abysmal otherwise. Examples:

#1 I applied for options trading over a month ago, and although the customer service reps can verify they received my paperwork, they can’t tell me when my account will actually be enabled. They email their ‘manager’ but then nothing is ever done and a response is not obtained.

#2 FrugalTrader referred me back in July, but Questrade lost the referral and will not give me the credit until I can prove the referral was made (FT – can you help with this? I emailed you the info they’re looking for)

- The basic Webtrader interface is very basic, but good enough – for $5/trade I’m happy enough with it. I don’t like having to log in to a separate company (Penson) to check my up-to-date dividends, cash balance, etc though. It would be nice if I could see all this in Webtrader.

- It would also be nice to not have 3 separate logins/passwords – one for MyQuestTrade, one for Webtrader, and one for Penson. With the banks or e-trade, there’s only one login for everything. On top of that, getting a password reset for Penson took almost a week – this doesn’t appear too automated to me..

Overall, I’m reasonably satisfied – if the above was better, I’d be happier. If e-trade came along with similar commissions, I’d probably jump ship in an instant – I hate changing providers, but the smaller guys need to be attentive to their customers needs otherwise people just get fed up and will pay higher commissions at one of the bigger guys. If the above weren’t an issue, I’d be more likely to stay put with Questrade. I’m sure there are other people who probably feel the same way.

cebolao – the forex fees are 0.5%.

I don’t think the ‘hidden fees’ that Tom experienced are actually hidden. The problem is that he accidentally choose one of the trading platforms that charges a monthly fee.

Mike

cebolao – the forex fees apply to any type of account – rrsp, unregistered, resp whatever.

There are no fees for inactivity. I am a very inactive investor so I would know!

Mike

Hi Emil, I was wondering if theres a tutorial on how to use the Webtrader platform. I am using the test demo of the platform so far, and frankly I can see where Tom is comming from. The interface is quite comfusing. Maybe it’s because I am new trader, and dont know the “common” knowlege or terms, but it would be helpfull to have some kinda tutorial or guite that tells you what each on the tabs are saying.
thanks alot for any info you might have.

hey Stefan
out of curiosity, which platform were you on when this happend? Webtrader or questraderWeb?

Stefan, I would suggest that you contact Emil directly with your complaints. I’ve contacted Emil before and he is quick and courteous with his clients.

“Hmmmm… to place three orders one after another, without receiving any feedback from the system… not the smartest thing to do, to say the least.”

As a customer, shouldn’t I have be protected agains such situations? It is an IT system and – if QA is done properly – it should behave according to the specs, ok? It’s not behavioral finance, probability theory here, but black or white, zero or one.

I know that I should have called right in the morning, but unfortunately, I don’t have enough time, especially for checking other people’s bugs.

Nothing is sure with questrade. I’m also wondering what could happen if I leave the country and trust that they will behave responsably with my account.

Stefan,

Ever heard… better safe than sorry??

The safe thing to do was to STOP right after you placed the first order and the system failed to give you any feedback. It’s just plain common sense.

BTW:

Computer systems are NEVER 100% reliable. No amount of QA will change that.

I used to have a brokerage account at TD Waterhouse. Their IT budget is orders of magnitude bigger than anything Questrade will ever be able to afford. Guess what? Their systems, too, failed once in a while.

Stefan – it sounds like you had a bit of a problem with the order status.

I’m not sure why you would be placing trades at midnight but I agree with ig17 – although the system should have indicated the proper status of the orders, you shouldn’t have assumed they were discarded.

I know this is a secondary issue but how is the system supposed to know that you didn’t intend to place three identical orders one right after another?

Mike

*** You hit submit and nothing happens…. Frustrated, you enter the info again and re-submit. ***

You should never ever do that, period. Not with amazon. Not with Questrade. Every time you hit “submit” button, treat it as if you are signing a written contract.

BTW: reversing a book sale is a trivial matter. Not so with stock trade. So your amazon analogy is not a good one.

*** The biggest difference between TDW and Questrade would be that TDW would have appreciated my feedback and the fact that I HELPED them identifying and solving an issue and they would compensate me for the situation. ***

If you believe that, I have this bridge I’d like to sell you. Great views and real cheap.

And you said before: “Computer systems are NEVER 100% reliable. No amount of QA will change that.”

Yeah, I couldn’t agree more – especially when the system has a bad design from the start or/and you have the wrong architect and developers, no matter how much QA you put in it.

The modern cars and planes are beginning more and more to be computer based. So, if you car won’t start from the first “key”, you stop there and call the car dealer, eh? Don’t you try 2-3 more times first?

You know what? These questrade guys are a bunch of amateurs, they are simply an intermediary to the Penson services. In Penson I will trust, in Questrade, no way. BTW, perhaps Penson can also offer direct retail services for order execution (obviously at a bit higher commission), does anyone know something about this?

I see the point from both sides, and I have to agree with Goldmember. It’s kinda easy for us to say that “computers are never 100% safe” since we aren’t the one who lost money. Yes systems like this are never 100% safe, but lets say your pin number was lost, or worse, stolen, due to a computer glich. Of course the chance of that happening is a lot lower, but if it actually happend, in technicallity it would be no different than what happend to Stefan, but I am sure, it would make a lot more “noise” and call for alot more attention.
So I guess what I am saying is for the rest of us to keep what Stefan said in the back of our heads, it won’t cost you anything anyways. If anything, hes already paid our dues for us.
So thanks for the heads up Stefan.

I am on Stefan’s side. This is how I see it:

My investments are a very serious thing and I expect my broker to be professional and reliable. I would not tolerate a system that is ambiguous as to whether my order was placed or not. If the system does not work well at midnight and they can’t fix it, then Questrade should make the system completely unavailable until the time when it is reliable. I’ve I can’t place an order at mignight I’ll be mildly annoyed, but won’t care in the morning. If I lose money, or if I otherwise feel that I cannot trust my broker with my money, I will leave.

Remember that we are talking about my wealth, the fruits of my labour, and my retirement. I will only use a trustworthy broker.

You can always transfer your stocks/ETFs to another broker. They belong to you. But there may be a transfer out fee.

I don’t know. I hope someone knows, I’m interested in the answer too.

For a discount brokerage account it’s not CDIC that you want, it’s CIPF. CIPF will protect you for up to $1 million in the case that the brokerage goes bankrupt. As to whether you get stock back or just cash back, i’m not sure.

Check out the CIPF coverage for more info:
http://www.cipf.ca/c_explore_coverage.htm

For Daniel reply 129. If we wait until computers and systems are 100% reliable then we would not use them!! Did you see the news piece about hacking into Canadian banks online web site? How about you stop using computers now. Let me spell it out for you. You CANNOT TRUST a bank or broker or school or government’s or airlines or whatever’s COMPUTER SYSTEM. They will all break sometime.

Does questrade execute orders almost instantaneously or is there a delay? Anyone have any experience with this to share?

My account was just created today. I still need to fund it but I can now login and view my platforms etc…

So far, the site has burped up errors almost a dozen times while just switching between pages. There also doesn’t seem to be a way to change my password, just my User ID.

Can’t wait to throw a couple thousand dollars at these guys in the hopes that they can catch it.

In reply to post #140,

Daniel, I couln’t agree more. I am a software developer as well and Questrade’s application left the same impression on me. Exactly, no software can be 100% perfect, but efforts towards achieving an acceptable level of quality and minimizing critical failures should be done. The customer pays and must get some value in exchange.

That’s why we need to increase public awarness about financial service providers like Questrade and their problems. I’m gonna post also a messages on that RFD forum which is dedicated to Questrade.

I suspect that Questrade might achieve its cheap trades by cutting a few corners, including software quality.

RDF is “Red Flag Deals”. It’s a Canadian bargain shopping website, but has forums and as chance would have it, it has a “personal finance” forum with a lot of intelligent members and very good information:

http://www.redflagdeals.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=41

Personally, this forum is the only place I visit at RDF.

Yes, the personal finance forum (besides the other good stuff about deal anouncements) at RFD is an excellent complement to the better known Financial Web Ring.

This would be the Questrade-related thread in that forum:

http://www.redflagdeals.com/forums/showthread.php?t=350256

I like RDF better than Financial Web Ring. FWR has more gold bugs and market timers whereas RDF has more sensible investors.

hey jack you mind posting some documents to back up what you said? Not that I am saying you lying or anything, but if what you said is true, then questrade shouldn’t even be allow to have a business.
I mean from what you said, sounds like their data feed system literally had a glich about MBI dipping bellow your margin limit. Or did MBI actually went down to 8.98? Even just for a second?

I just opened an account with then, but i havent started trading yet, and if what you said is actually how it sounds, I will not think twice about closing my acc. Cheap commission is not worth this kind of risk!

I had been enticed by a recent Ottawa Citizen article (22 Jan 2008)to move all my money over to Questrade but after reading all of the horror stories here and a multitude of other websites (thank God for the internet!), I will stay put!

I know the meaning of: “penny wise…pound foolish”!

I’m a Questrade customer and customers to them don’t matter whole lot. As we all know, the stock market hasn’t been too bright (for many it may have been otherwise) and I was experiencing a loss. I wasn’t informed by anyone regarding the ‘Buying Power’ and other terms (yes, I’m an amateur) and I emailed them regarding this but I didn’t get complete answers. I used some of the buying power and experienced a loss due to the drop in the stock market. Well, I receive an email stating that I am on a margin call and if I don’t pay in 2-3 days, they will sell whatever I have…can you believe that..2-3 DAYS is my window!! It takes about 2 days to get money funded in the account due to all the paperwork and approval which also take time to complete! Obviously I got upset so I decided to email this Emil guy. Now a little about him: he will be like your best friend when he has to sign you up with an account and he will answer all your questions promptly..right till the day you sign up and start using your account. I sent him a few emails to which he repsonded back with the department I’m supposed to contact. I was trying to seek help to at least get to that department but no one would respond and I sent this guy loads of emails and he never cared to respond back. I finally turned to their online chat, which thank god this time the person talking to me wasn’t rude. He tells me that I am in negative standing and so forth…he explaing how I’m supposed to be in an OK status…I was too frustrated at that point to even start calculating everything. Right now, I’m just waiting to have a bit of profit and I am OUT! I’m taking my money and go with a business that doesn’t always have me on my toes regarding my money. Before I take my money out, I am going to start calculating my funds since day one and check of any inconsistencies with my account. I will keep you all posted on what happens but one thing is for sure, these people, especially this guy, are not a tad bit concerned about customer support. Really, you’re better off paying a little more than to have to go through all this crap!
It’s like every movie trailer…they’re enticing till you watch the movie!

Daniel,

My post was basically focused on their customer service. I don’t believe I mentioned anything regarding their fault that the stock market crashed and I lost money. I know how much money I had in my account…the number crunching comes into play when we gather up all our numbers to check and see if consistency has been adopted…just like auditing. I never said that it was because of Questrade that I lost in the stock market. I’m blaming them for their horrible customer service and the type of response,of lack thereof, i experienced from them. Had I made profit, it would have been treated the same way as a loss…calculating the account balance.
I am very well aware of the fact that any investment made holds no one else but ourselves responsible but that doesn’t mean we completely trust companies like this one and have them deal with calculations.

In reply to post #152,

That’s interesting, Mr. Robert was the same manager that refused to compensate me for their technical problems. It looks like there may be only one or two managers in total at Questrade :) Or maybe an agent playing the role of a manager, fooling the customers :)

But you have to tell us what mistakes Questrade made. Please explain that part. It’s very important. What did Questrade do? What did they do wrong? I really want to know.

This blog is an excellent source for investors and traders to learn about Questrade. It is also provides great feedback about ongoing issues, one-off problems and general hot button topics for Canadian traders and investors. Honest criticism is part of the feedback. But partial disclosure or misrepresentation of a service or incident is not.

There have been some recent posts here that are way off – inaccurate, misleading, partial stories. This does a disservice to everyone who visits this blog – including new investors doing due diligence researching a brokerage that suits their needs. So I’d like to clear up a few things:

Post #152: You had a margin call. We followed normal brokerage procedures and if you had experience you would have known that. As for your issue with buying power, it was cleared up within 3 hours. You then repurchased the shares of MBI. We reimbursed you completely for the difference between your sell price and your buy as well as the commissions that were a direct result of the delay in buying power update. You were therefore able to take advantage of any price increase without any penalty. Any subsequent gain was yours to have. If you sold prior to MBI reaching $15.98, that is your responsibility. There was no $5K loss, paper or real.

Post #157: If you borrow money from Questrade to purchase stocks you are using what is called leverage. There are strict guidelines imposed on brokerage firms by the regulatory bodies about the amount of leverage we are allowed to give. All brokerage firms have strict risk management procedures in place in order to protect the company from losses. By industry standards, 2 to 3 days is very generous. If you cannot handle the risk, do not use leverage. If you do not understand what you are doing, then don’t do it.

Post #159: Client service: this is very important to us, and we are continually implementing improvements based on feedback. If you have specific problems – real problems, please, not dramatic re-enactments in which pertinent details are conveniently omitted – then we can work with you.

Post #160: Education: we will shortly be rolling out training videos for platforms. This request came in to us from a few clients. It is an excellent idea and we are fulfilling it as soon as we can, one platform at a time. What else would you like to see in our education area?

One last point I’d like to make about client service. My job at Questrade is Client Acquisitions Supervisor. I do not work in the client services department. I took on the role of problem solver because I believe it is important to address some of the issues raised in blogs like this one. The problems themselves are being solved by the client services team – I am simply directing concerns to the correct person. I am glad to continue to do so.

Keep the comments coming, bad or good, but in the future please include complete and accurate details.

Emil Vojkollari
Client Acquisitions Supervisor
Web: http://www.questrade.com
Phone: (416) 227-9876 ext.380
Toll Free: 1-888-783-7866 ext.380
Fax: (416) 227-0078
_____________________________________________________________________________
Questrade Inc. | 5650 Yonge Street, Suite 1700, Toronto, ON M2M 4G3

Trade Stocks for $4.95
Ranked # 1 for both Fees and Customer Satisfaction – The Globe & Mail

post #165

refering to what you said “There was no $5K loss, paper or real.”
I bought 1000MBI at $13.94, your company made mistakes forced me sold at $8.98
that’s real $4960 loss, how can you say no loss.
I repurchase MBI, then I got some gain, that’s not matter to your mistake,
you can’t say because I repurchased back at almost the same price so I did not get the loss,
so your mistake did not make me loss, so you don’t need to compensate me.(don’t forget that’s me buy back, not your company
realize your mistake buy back for me, in that case I can forgive your company)
your company made mistake, then you should take the responsibility, otherwise
if everytime your company made mistakes, no penalty, then you’ll make more and more mistake,

I do something to save my loss, but it should not save your mistake, since your company admitted mistake, you should be brave to cover the hurt to the customers, otherwise, really your business will have problems.

Mr. Emil Vojkollari
post #165
how could you still say I had a margin call.
if I had a margin call for 1000 MBI, how could I not have a margin call for 2000MBI and 1000ABK that day, if you need I can show you the trading report account summary of that day.
also you can check the record of my conversation via phone with Robert of Jan 28 afternoon about 4pm, he admitted the mistakes.
Robert did’t say reimbursement is for delay, he admitted margin call was mitake,
as you said rebate is for delay, why you need to pay the the difference between my sell price and my buy .
obviously you’re lying,
I know it’s impossible for me to get compensation from your company, ( maybe sue can do a little help) I’m just really angry for the way your company act,
it’s you hurt customer, but your people acted like customer treat you unjustly.

Jack, both myself and Daniel have been asking you serveral time to post something more concrete about exactly what happened. If you are saying that Questrade did an unjustified margin call you your MBI, then post the concrete data: you margin limit, all your outstading positions during the call, and maybe post your reccord for that day.
I understand your pain of loosing 5ks, who wouldn’t? but just complaining without posting hard evidence is not gonna help your case.

Jack, both myself and Daniel have been asking you serveral times to post something more concrete about exactly what happened. If you are saying that Questrade did an unjustified margin call on your MBI, then post the concrete data: you margin limit, all your outstading positions during the call, and maybe post your reccord for that day.
I understand your pain of loosing 5ks, who wouldn’t? but just complaining without posting hard evidence is not gonna help your case.

post 171

hi cebolao

Jan 16 close
I have 1000 MBI close 13.4, 800 short VRUS close 33.9,
equity $15854 buying power -45855, this because of VRUS
Jan 17
11:07am I covered 800 VRUS $33
12:09am they called me said my MBI margin call, ask me sell MBI, otherwise they will sell, I explain, they don’t listen ,sold $8.98
no shares, my account still negative,can’t buy,
untill 3:20 they fixed it, I can buy, I bought MBI2000
and ABK 1000, next day I sold.
that’s all
I think their system have problem, I have margin because the short position 800shares of VRUS,as it need 1:2 maintainence, but I already covered, their system still think it’s there.

I’m using the new Questrader web platform (production, not demo). And, for example, their TLS 3.0/SSL digital certificate is bizzare. Firefox and Opera complains about it and I need to always explictly acknowledge its use. And the opera browser can show the login page only after 4 minutes. With IE7, it’s quicker but you still get a warning message, saying that there are secure + insecure items in the page and prompts you to confirm that’s that what you want.

Just opened and account with Questrade then found this thread. Even after reading all the complaints (some unwarranted) I am still willing to give them a shot. However, if I see 1 suspicious response from my browser, or 1 untimely trade response, that will be enough evidence for me to get out with whatever losses i have to inccur for the privelage of leaving.

Frankly i don’t believe anything Jack says anymore…. I don’t listen to anyone whom states his case leaving out all the facts just to get a sympathetic vote.

how do you get a key fob for ib?
just opened my acc with them last week.
so far heard nothing of the fob

ok, I will try to find out. I will post the answer here when i get it.

Ok just got my fob from IB last week. I guess they are makeing it madatory for everybody. I do have to say i am pretty impressed with the system.
so far so good

Think twice before opt to Questrade!! I’ve a RESP a/c transfer to Questrade back to Oct 2007 but still not ready. Try to email Emil (mentioned in this forum) last week but he’s out of office, referred by the out of office email but that Christopher Sklad never reply you a word, no need to mention the support@questrade.com. The worst reply is you never get a reply!

I believe “confidence & communication” are the most important ingredients for an online brokerage. Questrade failed both! I am in progress finding another online broker to do the job. So don’t just judge by the $4.95/trade, as this might be too thin for the company to operate effective & efficiently!

interesting. never heard of them thogh, could be worse than questrade. You never know. Are you gonna try it?

Richard, if you already have an IB account, they have the lowest forex spreads that I have seen.

Here is a summary of various broker forex spreads:
http://www.milliondollarjourney.com/review-canadian-discount-brokerages.htm

really Emil…talking about post #157…when you know that the person is new to this and is seeking information from you OR the team, you ought to respond back to voice messages and/or emails when the individuals are asking you questions and seek guidance and not ignore them. I have found faults in the calculations you guys have made with my account, considering i’m new to this you thought might as well screw this customer, so according to the norm Questrade is carrying here, it has F**ked up with its calculations and upon confirmation, I will make sure you are taken under consideration when I file a lawsuit. You indeed are a hypocrite as you talk about responsibility and coherent actions, you should respond to the customers who are seeking answers and who keep asking you necessary questions.
One more thing, the ‘leverage’ was already provided without displaying that it was leverage…you ought to keep a secure account where IF the user wants to use ‘leverage’, they request that amount from the broker instead of just making it so readily available that it creates such issues, especially for the new people who you just ignore upon signing them up. But wait a minute, how else are you going to make your money…right?

Post #186 hst During the week that we were investigating this incident, members of our client services team spoke with you daily, providing status updates. Every effort was made to speed up the process. Your withdrawal request was entered the same day you made it – February 11th.

Post #187 Ringo: The account transfer form was sent to your original financial institution several times with no response. We finally heard back and it was rejected. It seems that you provided the incorrect account numbers for the transfer.

Post # 192 Stefan: your eStatements and eConfirms are in pdf format and printable. Historical statements remain online and fully available to you for up to 10 years. As for charging a fee for printed statements and trade confirmations, this is a new fee imposed on us by a third party. Feel free to contact the David Suzuki Foundation to inquire about our arrangement, if you have any concerns.

In regards to your earlier post — #177 – and post #176 (SInoed), I have collected your feedback regarding our beta platform to send to the development team.

Post #193 Silence: Margin and leverage are not suitable for every trader. Margin accounts clearly show buying power. It is updated daily. Buying power is the amount you can leverage to trade in a margin account. If you are trading on margin, you should know what buying power is. If you have questions about account calculations, please contact client service. By the way, Emil does his best to respond quickly to all clients. He happens to be on vacation.

Note: Both Emil and I can continue to respond to queries or concerns here. However, we are not client service specialists. Any account-related discussions should be with a member of that team. If you would like to make suggestions or provide feedback you can also go to
http://www.questrade.com/why_questrade/feedback_your_turn.aspx.

Thank you,

Lynn Suderman
Communications Manager
Questrade

Hi Lynn,

Re “Post #187 Ringo: The account transfer form was sent to your original financial institution several times with no response. We finally heard back and it was rejected. It seems that you provided the incorrect account numbers for the transfer.”, I’m “happy” to get some response finally. Question 1: From last Oct 2007, I keep on calling/emailing/live chatting with you guys, the answers are “in progress & everything is fine” and you are the first one in Questrade told me that I gave a wrong a/c no. Need a Communication Manager to tell me, what your other colleague did? Q.2: I received notice from the transfer out institution yesterday that they eventually received the transfer paperwork 3 days ago & they acted the next day & sold my holdings. Who dig out my correct account no. as no one contact me for that? You guys finally guess it right? From your response I can’t feel any sense of apology from the poor custmoer service, so other readers may judge the case by themselves. Think twice before you join Questrade!!

Lynn Suderman, Communications Manager, Questrade wrote:

“Note: Both Emil and I can continue to respond to queries or concerns here. However, we are not client service specialists. Any account-related discussions should be with a member of that team. If you would like to make suggestions or provide feedback you can also go to
http://www.questrade.com/why_questrade/feedback_your_turn.aspx.”

Clearly your clint service is totally ineffective. Otherwise, you would not be here trying to suppress negative feedback.

Could someone from Questrade confirm the commission policies for partial filling of order. If I make one transaction for buying a stock and it takes 3 order to fill, will I be charged 3 transactions?. Seems to me it is really unfair.

I accidentally added a period at the end of the link. Here it is without the period:
http://www.questrade.com/why_questrade/feedback_your_turn.aspx

I’m looking into the policies for partial fills and the points made about QuestraderPRO.

All feedback is welcome — positive and negative. To repeat what Emil said earlier: “Keep the comments coming, bad or good, but in the future please include complete and accurate details.”

Lynn Suderman
Communications Manager
Questrade

Lynn’s comments:
Post #186 hst During the week that we were investigating this incident, members of our client services team spoke with you daily, providing status updates. Every effort was made to speed up the process. Your withdrawal request was entered the same day you made it – February 11th.

Your client services team were very unhelpful to say the least. Instead of them calling me to provide me status updates about my account as they had promised, I had to take the initiative to remember and call you guys every time. When I do talk to them (especially Kyle), he has absolutely no idea what is going on. I’m sorry, but how does that make a new customer like myself feel confident with the people running your business?

And you are wrong in that that I get my request the same day I made it. I had asked Kyle many times to get my money withdrawn because I wasn’t able to take this any more. He refused and tried to reassure me that it’ll eventually be fixed. I’m sorry — but “eventually” is not good enough.

It’s funny though because the day after Feb 11 — when I made the withdrawal — Hector calls me back and say everything is magically fixed and that he hopes that I will continue to use their service. No thanks.

And I still have yet to receive my withdrawal funds. I expect to make some phone calls in the next day or two to investigate further. Sigh.

Post #198 JJ1900 and #207 FrugalTrader:
You would only be charged extra commission on partial fills if those fills occured over several days. Contact our client services team if this is not the case.

Lynn Suderman
Communications Manager
Questrade

just a side question, and sorry for my ignorance, but is there a definition for “even” or “odd” lots?
I mean for a penny stock 15 shares my be odd but for google i think even 7 shares might be ok wouldn’t it?

And how does the partial fill actually work? so you arent actually geting you entire order at the same price after you put a limit order on it?

Does Questrade offer IPOs buying? if yes
Will they have IPO offerings for VISA ? if yes
Any account requirements ?

Their will be lot of new accounts in next 1-2 months due to VISA IPO, as new comers will be diving into this.

How long does it take to process certified cheque and will I make 2007 RRSP deadline if submit certified cheque on Feb 26.
Thanks,

My questrade experience:
I opened an account with Questrade last month. The account opening was smooth. Within a week, I submitted forms to transfer my RRSP to Questrade. I was told the process will take 2-3 weeks. I called in to check after 4 weeks and to my dismay, I was told that the forms were lying around in their office for 2.5 weeks and so the transfer will take another 2 weeks. The customer service rep did not seem to care that I could not trade for the last month and kept on insisting that its normal. Spoke to Emil who assured me that the transfer should happen within a week. Eventually, it took a total of 5.5 weeks for my RRSP to get transferred from Tradefreedom (agent : penson) to Questrade (agent: penson).

I got my trading passwords within 1 day and I executed some trades on Friday.
I could not login to my account today (03 March) and contacted Questrade again. They told me that there are network issues and my account needs to be reactivated. Again, no reasons given for why it needs to be reactivated. Other than that, I saw that my RRSP positions were incorrect. The positions did not include the 2 trades executed on Friday and my cash balances were way off. To this, i got a standard answers – we are having problems with RRSP positions. I just don’t know what to say now … This is really pathetic … Having such major issues especially during trading hours is just not acceptable.

All in all, I am pretty frustrated with the overall experience. I thought I will share my experiences while I wait for my account to be reactivated :((

Probably, this is the service that we can expect for $4.95 a trade !!!

Regarding VISA IPO – if you reside in Quebec it will not be available because the prospectus was not made in a bilingual format – so it cant be offered to Quebec residents.

Secondly no broker clearing via Penson will get any shares so forget about Questrade,Tradefreedom, Disnat, Etrade etc…getting you any shares.

If you have another broker and your not a big shot client -forget about getting any shares either. Don’t want to sound negative but the only way to play the IPO is in the secondary market.

Wise choice.

As a new account holder, I have recently had some problems with QT. Although one gets prompt 1st level help desk service, I must say it is often of suspect quality…..many of the 1st level reps cannot speak English well enough to be on the phone or doing online chat support IMO. However, my issue(s) escalated to a manager (Andrew) and the service/resolution I received was prompt, courteous, and fair. All in all I am happy with QT as I do like to purchase from the low cost operator to keep my transactions below 50-75 basis points per trade. Worth noting….being a buy and hold investor, if I had a 100-150K+ account there would be no question I would go with a traditional broker like TD Waterhouse.

hi, where is your office ? it’s not in downtown toronto but in rural area – (YORK ), am I wrong ?

It’s a bit strange that representatives from a professional-wannabe brokerage are coming to post online (on a personal blog!) and therein discussing private client details.

This is quite worrisome.

Breach of privacy. Unprofessional. Client matters should be done in private over phone or in person or in personal email.

I have to say, I’m definitely turned off of Questtrade after reading what I’ve read here.

I’ve had the account for over a year now and have yet to encounter any problems. The only complaint that I have right now is that in order to access trading history, you need a separate login.

Paco, yes there is a conflict of interest involved where I’m paid for referrals. However, when I first wrote that review, there was no referral link in it, it was added after the fact. I stand by my review as it has been my experience with them thus far.

Lynn:
I’ve recently opened a Questrade account with no issues. However, I am disappointed by the fact there was no clear reference that the account that was opened was actually a margin account. A margin account is something that I do not require at this point since I am somewhat new to trading and do not want to expose myself to the risk until I have more experience with trading.

Is it possible to convert and/or open a Cash-Only account with Questrade?

If not, what can be done to avoid using any margin? I assume that if I do not trade more then the value of the equity I placed in the account then I will incure no interest. Can you please confirm?

Thanks

My personal experience on Questrade (QT).

I have an account with the big green that has been there for over 12 years, and almost everything is switched over to QT.

Before big green, I was with Nesbit Burns

I have been with QT 3-years, love the products and services, and a big change from 3-years ago.

The are miles ahead of the others
They are not cry babies
They try hard to please
They call you back
The fees are good and the web trader for me is all that I need
I understand you can pick and choose levels of trading that you want. You can on a simple call say … Hey! I dont want a margin account, -or – just let me do only covered call options.
Their live stock quotes are within 30-seconds accurate
Placing a trade is easy
Checking your account, balances, history, open and executed orders is childs play

The only negative is they seem to have a large staff turnover or employ a lot of newly qualified brokers .. but that does not bother me one bit … why, because they are an electronic trading service

99.9%, worth the money & Lynn, I miss Stan who was sooooo helpful

Hi Cloudnine:
I understand your perspective on margin. It is not for every investor. However there are a number of benefits to margin – give our new accounts specialists a call. They can discuss your specific case and if margin may be helpful to you.

In response to your question, yes you can trade a margin account as if it was a cash account. Under the Your Account tab, click on Balances. The line item Cash Balances is the amount of cash you have available for trading. It is updated next day, so remember to monitor your daily activity – including fees such as commissions. In QuestraderWEB, your daily activity is recorded in trading centre > executions; in QuestraderPRO it is in your account box.

One thing to keep in mind: we charge interest only when the stock settles, three days after purchase (T + 3 days). If you do trade on margin, you have three days to deposit additional funds and avoid interest charges.

Hi Market Mack:
Brokers don’t absorb ECN fees. If your broker is not direct access, ECN fees may not be displayed as a line item in your statement. ECN fees are imposed by the networks or markets. Most brokers act as middlemen for the transaction, profiting from mark-ups and other benefits of managing order flow. But the fees are still there – you can’t see them because they are hidden in the price you paid for stocks. With Questrade, you can also avoid the appearance of ECN fees by sending your order to market as MNGD – or managed. We will then manage your order flow. As an alternative, Questrade platforms are direct access, meaning no middleman. You trade directly with the markets. There may be ECN fees, but there are no middlemen hiding fees in the price you pay for your stock. Read more about direct access here: http://www.questrade.com/services/direct_access.aspx

JR:
We all miss Stan.

Lynn Suderman
Communications Manager, Questrade

Emil,

I have an ETrade Canada account, and I’m tired of $20 commissions and currency conversion charges. Can you give me the basics of what is required to transfer my stocks in-kind from ETrade to Questrade? Will there be any fees involved?

I would contact you directly, but I thought others might benefit from your answer.

Thanks!

Just an update – looks like it was an error on both parts with my transfer – so I’ll put it up to ‘user error’ on my end and poor initial customer service on theirs.

I find Questrade’s initial (1st line) customer service pretty poor, but once you talk to a Manager – they were very good, explained everything nicely and even followed up as promised. So happy with their 2nd tier of support!

Patrick,

First step is to complete the online application including the transfer form. We will take care of the transfer process. We do not charge for Transfers coming to Questrade, but most likely E-trade will charge a fee for transferring out.

Regards,

Emil Vojkollari
New Accounts Supervisor
Web: http://www.questrade.com
Phone: (416) 227-9876 ext.380
Toll Free: 1-888-783-7866 ext.380
Fax: (416) 227-0078
_____________________________________________________________________________
Questrade Inc. | 5650 Yonge Street, Suite 1700, Toronto, ON M2M 4G3

Trade Stocks for $4.95
Ranked # 1 for both Fees and Customer Satisfaction – The Globe & Mail

Anca,

I have not heard from you yet. Please call me directly if you have a complaint to make. We always keep our promise, so I’m sure it’s a misunderstanding that can be corrected.

Thank you,

Emil Vojkollari
New Accounts Supervisor
Web: http://www.questrade.com
Phone: (416) 227-9876 ext.380
Toll Free: 1-888-783-7866 ext.380
Fax: (416) 227-0078
_____________________________________________________________________________
Questrade Inc. | 5650 Yonge Street, Suite 1700, Toronto, ON M2M 4G3

Trade Stocks for $4.95
Ranked # 1 for both Fees and Customer Satisfaction – The Globe & Mail

In defense of no one but myself

For those of you that have signed up with questrade and say it is as bad as you say it is, and questrade cant answer or fix your individual issues, then why do you still have accounts with them?

If the service is that bad (anywhere) and there is zero fix … then move on without bad mouthing the service, it serves no purpose IMO.

I say no matter where the disatisfied customers of questrade go, they will moan and complain no matter how good or bad a brokerage house is.

However, for those bad mouthing questrade, is it possible that they could be from one of the other broker firms just trying to discredit questrade?

I say its a free world and always buyer beware.

If any of you negative posters here are genuine customers of questrade and believe they have really screwed you over and are unable to resolve your issues … then move on, because they are not worthy of your business.

Stefan and anyone else on here … no I’m not a questrade employee.

Read back at the top of post 249

So Stefan, that then makes you one of questrades competitors right.

My experience with questrade has been 99% great. I like the webtrader, I like the easy access, I have had only a 1% person-to-person discussions with any questrade staff on all or any of my trading activties, and that is only when I need to buy or sell stocks on the CNQ exchange.

I do not have to worry about anything I do using questrade.

Why am I explaining this to a questrade basher … stefan

What were you hoping to achieve stefan by bashing questrade?

JR : By what you say, you are opposed to the whole idea of having this forum open for dicussion. People have a right to be angry and discontent about not having a pleasant experience with a company. And yes, your post does sound like you are a Questrade employee or have a vested interest in it.

Voicing negative experiences more aggressively than positive ones is a natural consumer tendency. This is why companies spend significant amounts of money on PR and consumer satisfaction programs. Its just the way our society is wired.

to #176 Sinoed and others

During my research for choosing the appropriate web-broker, I talked twice with Christopher at questrade within the last 2 days. To date all my questions regarding fees for all possible levels and scenarios have been answered satisfactorily; provided they reflect the facts.

Using the demo beta version for webtrader, i encountered MANY problems from incorrect (double) “charges” over, failure to enter orders, rejecting attempts to sell, program freezes, incorrect account history, no date & time stamp on account statements, disfunctional “printing” ability on account history, etc. et. etc.

After 12 failed attempts to contact questrader help by phone , I reached Christopher (shift-worker) who explained :

‘……our DEMO platform has flaws and is intended to provide a quick feel only for the program. Therefore, not all functions work properly as we do not spend time on the demo package’.

In reply to my concern voiced that the demo package reflects the functioning of the real package, he stated that ‘the ‘real thing’ works absolutely flawless without any glitches’.

Asking him how they handle customer satisfaction in case of a glitch in their software, he said, “there are no glitches”. Also, ‘once a client is signed up, there is a array of help service respresentatives standing by for phone, internet, live chat communication with no waiting time ever’.

Reading the 256 client submissions above – there seems to be an obvious contradiction to the verbal information i received today. –

Are there any SATISFIED customers who trade regularly or daily on questrade for one year or more who are able to speak up regarding these or other concerns???

humpelpumpel, With all due respect I find what you were told REALLY hard to believe. A demo platform is supposed to attract customers not turn them away in droves and with what was said something just doesn’t add up. I honestly don’t believe that they hired two sets of programmers to work on the demo and then the actual trading platform – so the same people that created a very flawed ‘test’ platform, rolled the same stuff out to build the user platform. It would be nice to be proven wrong and have access to user friendly, error free trading with the cost structure offered by Questtrade but I really doubt that would happen. Further, at this point I’m not willing to risk my money to find out if even half of what many of the replies here have indicated is likely true. If you like to hold long positions, not being able to access a critical feature for a couple hours or a day might not be that important. Re-think your strategy if you prefer to capitalize on short swings or are a day trader because these kind of problems could put a serious dent in your capital. I admire your persistence for calling twelve times but you should never have to do that. Just the fact that you had to call not once, twice or even three times but TWELVE is a huge red flag. As you’ve noted, its very hard to believe that once you’re a *client* suddenly there are tons of people lining up to help you. I’m interested in hearing what others have to say, since I can’t speak from experience and likely won’t be opening an account anytime in the foreseeable future to get some.

I’ve just had a conversation with a Questrade Rep concerning the $50 credit. When I opened the account, I was told (twice) I would get a refund on trade commissions of up to $50 after 3 full months. Nothing showed up on my April Estatement. So I called customer service.

I’ve just been told it’s not really 50$ credit but 5 free trades once 10 trades are completed. 5 free trades can be anywhere from 5 to 10 trades according to the new (or old) pricing. Furthermore, thisis what the website says:

How does my friend qualify and get his reward?
To qualify, your friend must open an account with a minimum of $1,000. At the end of the rebate period, Questrade will issue your friend a rebate based on the total trading commissions paid during that three month period up to a maximum of $50.

Nowhere do I see 5 trades after 10. I’m starting to feel a bit irritated here. In legal terms, this looks like misrepresentations.

Now, before I get irritated, I’ll wait for the rep’s reply which should come shortly, though I never got a reply for my 2 other questions in the past.

On the good side, I do enjoy the online chat support when I need quick help.

I had all my Questrade paperwork signed and completed, but after reading a number of bad experiences from Questrade members I decided not to mail in my application. I went with Credential Direct. Will let you know how things go.

So many complaints! Didn’t you ask any questions before you signed up? Don’t you have any experience in trading? Haven’t you ever used a trading platform?
Stefan, you sound like a crank from the competition, get a life a switch to some other online disco so you can whine against them.
Jack, you are really confused and should let somebody look after your investments before you lose your shirt.
I have been with 3 of the major banks online disco’s over the last 10 years and neither one of them will babysit you or hold your hand.
As for waiting times for help, I’ve never had to wait for more than 3 minutes to get to a rep by phone or Live Help. I can’t believe anybody would wait over an hour to get a rep by phone.
Questrader web is easy to use, the trades are executed swiftly and accurately.
I am quite satisfied with the service so far and recommend it to anyone who is serious in investing and has experience with online trading.

Unfortunately it’s been 3 months (yup 3 months) since I requested an account transfer and still no luck for something that should have taken 3 weeks. 4 weeks after making the transfer request I enquired and after initially telling me I did not send the transfer request it miraculously appeared. After 7 weeks I did another enquiry and I was informed that they are still working on the transfer. Went on vacation and came back hoping it was transferred but still no luck! Same when I opened the account had to call them after 3 weeks to find out what was the delay.
All I want is a small amount to play with in my RRSP. For that quest’s pricing structure and systems works pretty well but with some of the ancillary services like account open and transfer my experiences are very poor.

It took me 2 months to get the money transfered from Altamira. But it was Altamira holding it up. They kept making excuses for not moving the money. So far I like Questrade alot. Have had no problems.

In reply to #266 (Gerry)
Thank you so much for you beatiful characterization. I can prove to you anytime that I am a questrade customer. Do you want me to give my account number btw? On contrary, perhaps you are a Questrade employee. I plan indeed to leave Questrade, rest assured. But as I said already in some previous post (have you read it?), only the ones having a brokerage account know what that step involves. It’s not like returning a product to the store, ok? Second, you don’t know what is my exact context. I may have a debt to pay to the margin account, etc. So, please keep “characterizations” like these for you only, until you know what you’re talking about.

So, in your opinion, it’s my fault (and thus I don’t take responsibility etc etc) for the 2 very bad issues that I’ve recently experienced with them? Oh my, the consumer is always the culprit :)

Other than the lowest comissions possible here in Canada, I don’t personally have other positive feedback about Questrade.

It’s very frustrating to find this brokerage (and I did a lot of search until I found them and subscribed to their services almost since the beginning of their existence) to just be disapointed now. That’s why I was hoping that realistic feedbacks will ring them a bell and try to improve the quality of what they’re offering.

Sorry, that’s my 2 cents. I wish you good luck with QT and to never have any bad experience with them.

We still haven’t heard back from Questrade regarding their mistakes on Net Calculations. Their customer support is unable to investigate this issue till now. I will keep you updated on a daily basis till we get a response from Questrade. It’s frustrating that the Net Amount for your stocks are all less than the amount you actually paid for them because Questrade feels that they should subtract the fees from the net amount instead of adding it. It’s surprising that 1 account is calculating it correctly, while other accounts are wrong. I urge all USD in RRSP Questrade members who haven’t checked their Net Calculations to see if they are calculating it correctly or not. Net Amount in your transaction history should be Amount you paid + Commissions ($4.95) plus the Exchange Fees, and not minus the exchange fees. Unfortunately, Questrade seems its okay to not reply to my ticket.

Stefan, I don’t know whether you trade short term, long term or swing but if you are concerned that Questrade is not able to keep your money safe, then definitely you should move to a different broker. Staying there will only increase your anxiety and undermine your ability to trade profitably. If you are leaving the country and are unable to track your accounts by laptop, then park it in a safe place until you decide how to proceed. At least that’s what I would do if that were happening to me.

My experience has been different in that when I have had some growing problems with QT, I make sure I have all my bases covered before contacting them and I do not leave without having resolved the problem, albeit sometimes I may have to escalate the issue to a higher level.

But that is what I have had to do at all the Big Bank online discos as well. Sure, maybe the first tier help is better than at QT but it is sometimes quite difficult to get the problem rectified and harder to escalate it to a supervisor. It seems like they are afraid of losing their jobs if the super has to get involved.

IMHO, I do not think QT deserves the bashing that it gets in this review. I find the trading platform is a big plus, very intuitive and I keep a very close eye on the $ bottom line $.

I hope you get your issues resolved promptly. I would recommend that you call Emil if you are not satisfied with the results. Ciao…

I do not get how to calculate the ECN fees

bought 30 shares on NYSE for 75.26.

Why ECN fees are 34.62?

$0.011 share billable – what does it mean?

Emil can you comment please?

I am curious will Questrade ever have a promo to cover the costs of transferring from an e*trade account (~$175 including closure and transfer fees)? Despite all the negative reviews I would still consider switching to Questrade if the incentives were right.

I really dont like the inactivity fees charged by E*Trade since I am not a power trader.

For those interested here are my comments on Questrede.
I have been a client for about 8 months now and so far executed some 200-250 trades. I use the QustraderWEB Beta Platform with streaming quotes from Quotemedia. I don’t use the WebTrader platform much because it’s very basic but it may be sufficient for people who don’t trade much. I only used Webtrader on some occasions in order to place or modify some orders via my Iphone and I mention this as according to Questrade it’s not possible to operate with mobile devices. The other available platform is based on Axis software but I have tested the demo and I don’t like it much.
Initially, the reasons I choose Questrade were basically that: 1) it takes accounts from non US/Canadian citizens or residents and; 2) flat and also cheap commissions.
Overall I’m a satisfied customer to some extent, although I must admit Questrade is by far not the best online brokerage firm available. I may switch into another brokerage house in the future but problem is most of them do not take intl. clients.
IMO, a lot of improvement needs to be done on the platform side and my basic concerns are with QuestraderWEB are:
1) Platform appears to be slow and unstable and it sometimes crashes. I think this is due to Java problems. Also, it always logs off automatically after some period of inactivity (about 20 minutes).
2) At the end of a trading session it’s sometimes difficult to log-in or if successful it would unexpectedly take too much time to log into the system and for example it may load the wrong portfolio.
3) Streaming quotes and market screeners will not work under Mozilla Firefox 3.0. It may work under Firefox 2.0 but it appears Firefox 3.0. doesn’t like it. Also, it works with Safari although you will not be able to see the banners located at the top of the screen.
4) One of my biggest concerns is that after you place an order, you can’t change it as you must first cancel it and then place a new order. This is very frustrating.
5) Another problem is when you place or modify an order after trading hours, the order will be queued and you will not see it on the screen until next day.
6) When you have a lot of canecelled orders, it’s a little difficult to visualize open orders as the cancelled ones still appear on the main screen and are mixed with the cancelled ones. I think in this case it would be valuable to have displayed only open orders.
7) After an order has been filled you won’t get any warning (sound or message) on the main screen. Unless you specifically go to the executions or order status section or if you close the session and re-log again you will not get any notice for executions.
8) Another thing I would like to see is an estimation of the total amount of an order prior placing and confirming it as this sometimes helps you check in case you are doing a mistake.
9) You won’t be able to see your total account balance in real-time. This means you won’t see your net balance until next day as your cash is not automatically updated between trades during the trading day .
10) Finally, regarding this platform I think it should be redesigned to be more intuitive, practical and functional as you get the idea that this is product gathers information from different sources that are not a 100% integrated as a final product.

In general other aspects that I don’t like are:

1) You will need at least 3 passwords: one to access the trading platform, another for myQuestrade and one for Penson (the clearing firm). This is not very practical as each of them has their own web site address and password.
2) If you trade US and Canadian securities my recommendation would be to buy Canadian securities with CAD dollars and US securities with US dollars to avoid any conversion of currencies.
3) As for the account transfer, it took me about four weeks to completion in order to be ready for trading but it appears that in my case the problem was that my ex-broker was putting some stones in the road and it may have not been Questrade’s fault.
4) The account transfer reimbursement didn’t came up automatically and I have to claim it over the phone and then got it during fourth month.
5) As per customer service, on the chat side first line support is not very good as they do not appear to be very well informed and are not very helpful with the exception of Dov. On the other side if you have the chance to reach a manager the feedback would be excellent.

Other than one of the lowest comissions available with Canadian discount brokers, I don’t personally have a very positive feedback about Questrade and I’m basically staying with them just for the reasons explained.
Said that, I’m looking forward to many improvements in the near future specially on the platform side.

Reply to humpelpumpel,

In your case I think I everything would be in favor of TD. As you, I have also been reviewing TD Waterhouse, Canada (counterpart of TD Ameritrade, US) for some time and looking forward to opening an account with them in the future if Questrade fails to improve significantly.
I may do that on my next trip to Canada as I must first show up in person in order to apply for an account.
As per your trading frequency, TD would charge you $ 7.00 per trade (minimum 150+ trades/qt. to apply for this rate). They would give you better access to research. Also, TD has a much higher reputation than Questrade and you can easily access banking services with TD.
Another good alternative in Canada could be Credential Direct.
As per your question on Axis, I have tested it in the past, and it’s a good product but I dislike the appearence. It seems Axis has been tuned better for TD than for Questrede as it has a nicer look on the first one. On the pro’s side it has many good features, is user configurable, more powerful, stable and professional. Anyway, I think Cybertrader is still better than Axis but it’s not available to Questrade clients.
In general I prefer to use a Web platform as I can load into the system in any computer, anywhere and anytime. With Axis you need to have the software installed on any computer you use but it’s also true you may still use QuestraderWEB beta elsewhere at no additional cost. TD web platform is considerable better than Questrade’s but it lacks the Quotestreem data. On the other side everything would be far better organized and presented, it gives you real time net portfolio balance and you won’t need all that BS from Penson site as with Questrade.
It would be nice to see if Questrade puts available the new Quetestreem II that is coming soon and also the Quotestreem Wireless.

Here you have a link for Canadian discount broker reviews and rankings from Surviscor:
http://www.surviscor.com/scorview/2008Winter/

Good-Day QuesTrade,

The below queries are directed at a QuesTrade senior customer service manager in order to restore your faultering reputation.

I have been searching for an RRSP account without all the CAD-USD foreign exchange costs for some time. Seems there are few DA brokers willing to give up the profit. So, Questrade has come up as an option.

However, based on your customer service feedback, I am very, very leary to open an account. A proposition, if I may. So, “QuesTrade has improved their customer service”…”issues are resolved”… … Companies always impose penalties on their customers when a customer generated issue costs them profit. The reverse is seemingly never true.

I do not wish to argue any of the above subjective, qualitative issues. Rather, Quantitive performance measures are required, much as Professional Business has been using for years… in the form of KPIs.)
I will consider opening an admittedly large RRSP account if you back up your promises of improved customer service on a monetary level.

-> Every day beyond your Quoted Timeline to open an account, not withstanding days due to client related delays including bank issues, will trigger a credit for Three free trades. (What is you quoted timeline?)

-> Every day in excess of two days for account transfer outs will trigger a credit for Five Free trades, and re-imbursement of any client interest losses.

-> Every day of unreturned calls or emails will trigger a credit for Two Free Trades. (Activate your email out-of-office assistant.)

-> Every full day of system downtime (with no recorded client losses) will trigger a credit for Two free trades, and a re-imbursement of data fees et al.

-> Every recorded client loss due to a QuesTrade computer glitch, or downtime will be re-imbursed. (Yes, I do expect redundant servers & connections, and professional IT services to prevent crashes during serious, high volume market downturns.)

-> (Margin call issues seem to be client knowledge related.)

Having worked with a few different brokerages in my time, I know that these types of issues are common where fundamental mis-management is in place. As such, I would expect that you will raise this offer to a significant enough level to warrant serious consideration.

Looking forward to a formal Questrade response to my proposal via this pubic forum. Many thanks.

Cheers,
Norm D.
Albertan

Reasons I am dissatisfied with Questrade:

1)multiple sign ins for different areas of site

2)non intuitive processes such as conversion of money

3)customer support that when it comes down to it doesn’t do anything for you

My main problem:

When I set up my account I initially deposited X amount of CAD. I then contacted a representative to ensure I would do the conversion correctly. Their response was read the website FAQ which I had and it didn’t help.

So I went through and purchased USD while the CAD was doing well. Initially everything seemed peachy as I had made $400 USD on the exchange and it showed up under the accounts sign in and questraderweb. A few days later when I checked the questraderweb page I was -X USD and 2X CAD. I emailed and tried live help to get this resolved. The live help person said she would fix the mistake right away. Several days passed so I asked for live help again and this time the help said go ahead and buy equities she will fix it right away. Several days later I now had XUSD -200 so I had lost $600 on exchange. This was the first thing that upset me and the live help person doesn’t understand why this is upsetting.

Finally, a month later I noticed a charge of $12 stemming from some unknown margin I had been using. I again emailed to which I got a response this was do to trading From May 16-26th. Well that is pretty amazing since I didn’t purchase my first equity until May 28th and have always had a positive balance. My guess is that this is again due to the initial problem which wasn’t fixed.

Are Questrade’s commission prices fantastically low? Yes. Is the headache worth it? I’m beginning to think not.

Jim

Hi Jim – This is what I’ve posted before about multiple sign-on – it may help:

We recognize the inconvenience of three separate logins to our clients and are developing single sign-on functionality. However, please understand there are security issues involved. Questrade prides itself on comprehensive security procedures to protect our clients against increasingly sophisticated online criminal activities. At the moment, separate sign-on is one of those procedures.

Currency conversion processes: I’d like to get your feedback on this – why it is non-intuitive. Anything you can tell us to improve the service would be appreciated.

Your account issues: can you please contact me at the email below with your name, account number and phone number. I’ll ask a client services supervisor to follow up.

Lynn Suderman
Communications Manager
lsuderman@questrade.com

Not cool… Questrade spams Wikipedia. Their Wikipedia entry was recently deleted due the fact that it was “blatant advertising”.

I was thinking about signing up to Questrade using MDJ as a referrer (so he can get his $70, and I can get my $50!) and as I was looking into it I read the fine print on Questrades site which made me pause and reconsider:

From Questrade re: sharing info with affiliates
“We may disclose or report personal and trading information of any Account holder who has been referred to Questrade as part of Questrade’s Affiliate Program. Information that may be disclosed includes (1) when you opened an account with Questrade and (2) the number of trades or transactions made in your account while you are a client of Questrade”*

Although I am more than happy to see a referral fee paid, I am uncomfortable knowing that Affiliates (i.e. MDJ) are privy to the number of transactions made in my account.

Note that even if the “Affiliate” chooses the flat fee ($70/signup) “Plans can be changed at any time, allowing you[the affiliate] to explore both programs and choose the one that is most beneficial to you and your business. “** meaning that the affiliates will then start seeing the number of transactions if they switch to the other option.

Granted, not much information can be gained from knowing the number of transactions being performed but this is still information that some people (like me) feel is private.

So to those signing up via referral links – make sure you are comfortable selling your account activity (number of transactions) to the affiliate for $50.

Sources:
* http://www.questrade.com/why_questrade/security_privacy_policy.aspx

** http://www.questradeaffiliates.com/scripts/signup.php

How is QT’s synthetic DRIP plan different from other online brokers? Does anyone have experience to compare QT with others so that we can make an informed decision? I am an existing QT customer and having trouble understanding it, and haven’t used any other broker. QT’s customer service is very poor as they haven’t been able to respond to my simple questions for last 10 days now. Hence, I was hoping that someone could explain how the synthetic plan works compared to other brokers. Thanks.

humpelpumpel – I’m a bit confused reading about your complaint to Questrade. I see you’re a more sophisticated investor than most of us, but I don’t understand something: Your main complaint is that the system didn’t allow you to select which of your multiple same-symbol positions to act against. But according to Revenue Canada, it doesn’t matter how you do this in your account, because every time you buy an additional position of the same symbol you are changing your ACB (adjusted cost base), which then applies to all same-symbol holdings. Say you buy:

100 shares XXX for $40
then
100 shares XXX for $50

Your ACB is now $45, which is what is used for calculating your capital gains. It doesn’t matter when you sold 100 shares if the broker sold the first 100 or the second 100 -> your taxes (and therefore, your gain/loss) should be the same.

Personally, I wouldn’t trust any online broker to keep track of my transactions.. The best idea IMHO is to keep track of this separately – Excel is a marvelous tool :) But then you trade an awful lot – is it that you don’t have time to keep track separately as doing so might cause you to miss out on some market moves? And therefore, you expect the tool you’re using to allow you the flexibility to track the unadjusted-for-taxes gains/losses as applied to specific positions?

Same with me. The customer service has been useless so far. Calling / chatting with different people including supervisors is just pointless. They just keep promising but never deliver.

Interestingly, one of the supervisors remarked that the reason for bad customer service is that they are a “low-cost” broker :))

When you’re paying $5/trade wouldn’t you expect to see lower caliber customer service? Its probably a great place to learn the business then move on to more $$ at another place.

When you’re operating on low margins pushing for high volume, you’re likely going to have to offer lower wages to staff. Try being a customer service manager when you have a revolving door of staff leaving.

I’m also a Questrade customer, who’s been happy in my limited interaction with customer service.

Amit, do they have the paperwork for the DRIP plan somewhere on the myquestrade platform?

Another unhappy Questrade customer. I have placed a GTC buy LIMIT order with the price higher than the last close ask price on 4th of August in the afternoon. The order has been queued. Next morning at ~11 am I have logged in and discovered that it has been rejected on 5th at ~8:10. Apparently they had a technical issue and, I suppose, they have just flushed all queued GTC orders.

There was a good chance that this order would go through in the morning, the price was right and the security went up ~3% between 10 and 11 am. However, I have lost the opportunity.

I have spent 30 minutes in the chat with Questrade support guy. First I had to tech him what is the LIMIT order and how does it work. He was trying all imaginable excuses, starting from claiming that with the LIMIT orders you cannot set the price above the last close price (hehe ;) ), etc, etc. Finally, after 30 minutes and multiple “please hold for a second” he has admitted that it was their fault but refused to do anything about it. I have sent email to his supervisor which has not been answered.

Actually, I was not so pissed off before the chat like after it…I will start considering other brokers, there are just too many problems with QT.

Asked for 2 consecutive EFT transfers, one day followed by another. The first one arrived to the wrong bank account (an account that I use sometimes to send money through web bill payment). The second arrived to the right place (the account which is on file).

Another job well done from Questrade. Congrats Questrade, continue like this!

Ah, so you had the occasion to know Mr. Robert. Yes, it’s the same guy having the same impertinence when he told me qt will not compensate me from any technical error their system had experienced at 00:00 AM when it issued the same order to buy 100 shares 3 times.
What an impertinence, yes, I hope he’ll experience lots of glitches on his payroll, very well said.

Well said Drew. A lot of exciting changes at Trade Freedom now that it’s taken over by Scotia. Like Questrade, they will allow you to keep USD in Retirement accounts. They will also lower their commissions to match Questrade at $4.95/trade with no restrictions. It’s true that Questrade is the price leader, but who cares as long as everyone else follows.

I am currently traveling in Mexico and rely on an efficient resolve of issues though Questrade’s life help system instead of the help offered by phone; such help was effectively given by a competent life-help agent early AM today when the Questrader Pro platform failed to perform. Fortunately, no loss incurred.
Later in the day however, about 1/2 hours prior to the market closing the platform failed to function again and a loss of $1200.00 incurred ; the marked had closed when trading was restored ; the short position was not covered and shows now a MINUS $300.00 versus a significant Plus if excecuted when placed.
Questrade acknowledges their disfunctional platform but, of course, fails to assume any responsibility.
see below
Welcome to Questrade! You are now chatting with ‘Robert’
Your reference number for this chat is LTK143010328454X
Robert: Hello, thank you for contacting Questrade. How can I help you?
Robert: We have not heard from you. Do you wish to continue the chat?
GAB: pro is not working
GAB: can’t trade
GAB: yellow
GAB: light
GAB: loss so far $1200.00 since 15.29 hours, order to cover was received and is pending, but failed to execute
GAB: fix now
GAB: please

GAB: second complained during last 10 minutes

GAB: questrade failed to rectify
Robert: yes, there is a platform outage
Robert: if you would like to trade please contact our trade desk
GAB: how long when will it be fixed
GAB: how does questrade assume responsibility for investor losses? I pay for functional platform??
GAB: can’t contact other than by life help means as i am currently in mexico without phone
Robert: would you like to trade?
GAB: pls look at my account and excecute the order as placed when placed
GAB: according to the ticker at that time – should give me $573.87 on covering the short
GAB: PLUS $573.87
Robert: that order is currently being statused, I can not confirm if it was filled right now
GAB: don’t understand what you are saying
GAB: please phrase again
Robert: I do not know if the order was executed, if I place it again you may be long
GAB: order still shows as pending
Robert: yes\
Please wait while I transfer the chat to ‘Dov’.
You are now chatting with ‘Dov’
Your reference number for this chat is LTK143010328454X
Dov: hi
GAB: what do we do?
Dov: have you tried to call our trade desk
Dov: ?
Dov: 1 888 783 7866 # 3
GAB: order still is pending
GAB: i am in mexico without phone: reiterate for the 3rd time
Dov: yes
Dov: i do appologiEW
Dov: appologize
ogiEW
Dov: appologize

screen shots available on request

One more feather in Questrade’s hat.

Initiated an bank transfer more than 9 business days ago. Did not see any credits into my account after 5 business days. Called Questrade and spoke to 2 guys. They asked me to wait for 2 more days and confirmed that QT had not received the money. Called again after 2 days and was told that the same. In fact the rep mentioned that the account number may be wrong which was completely incorrect. Finally got hold of a responsible rep who traced the problem in 2 days and confirmed that they had received the money but it was held up because it was from a different account (my spouse’s account) and was treated as a third party deposit. My account is a spousal RRSP and the money would always be deposited from my spouse’s account. Also, this wasn’t the 1st time we deposited money from this account.

As always, no apologies from QT. No credit for lost time or opportunities due to QT’s. fault. Typical QT response !!!

New guys, please stay away from this broker. $4.95 or opening credits (you have to fight for them) is not worth the trouble of dealing with them.

Look at TradeFreedom Securities – you don’t see post like the ones above about their service – they are rated as having the second best commision in Canada behind Questrade. They were number one for all of 2007 before Quest $4.95 pricing came into affect.

$1,000 initial funding
No trade minimums to get $9.95 rates
No inactivity fees
No RRSP fees
Owned by Scotia Bank (Scotia also owns Etrade Canada now)
CIPF member
Also offer spot Forex trading with SDaxo Bank platofmr (saxo wins every major award for their fx trading platform)
Offer Free trading platform with direct access and free reral-time streaming quotes
Pay transfer in fees if a certain amount
Pay clients $125 for new client referals
I heard they are rolling out new $6.99 commissions for active traders like Etrade clients are benefiting from presently (Scotia owns TradeFreedom and Etrade Canada)

Look around at others if TradeFreedom doesn’t fit your needs but at least do yourself a favor and make a change instead of complaining about it all the time.

They just got fined $30,000 for violating a bylaw:

08-0087 IN THE MATTER OF Questrade Inc. – Settlement
Link: http://docs.iiroc.ca/DisplayDocument.aspx?DocumentID=236230A84C644114889730AF161C8B36&Language=en

Of course they’re going to make their clients help pay for it thru “mysterious charges” like the above. Also, they didn’t pay me interest on my account balance since the day they got disciplined. (I had always maintained an account in excess of $10K).

@ricky
If I go onto the IIROC site and search “questrade fine” and “rbc fine” you’ll see that this year Questrade’s only been fined $30k whereas RBC has been fined in excess of $500k., so maybe a cheap investor is still better off with the small guy. So please if you’re going to say someone is bad because they got fined pull out some comparatives.

I’ve received interest deposited to my Questrade Account on the 15th of every month, including after they were fined. I’ve never had any issues with a trade, but I only do “simple” buy and sell orders

My only real complaint about Questrade is that when I send money to my Questrade account it takes 4-5 buiness days to get from my bank into my trading account. Even Bell Canada, the slowest and sloppiest company in the country, can credit my account a day after I send the electronic payment.

JYD – my main point I was trying to raise was someone said “they’ve been fined, woe are their customers who will bear the cost of the fine” and I just wanted to point out that their competitors have been fined too. I can conceed the want to do a full analysis on each companies book of business.

To dhadley:
I see your point here. I can accept a simpler platform, less functionalities and even some less-helpful Reps, and I understand there will be some trade-offs for a smaller commission. However my money (and your money) must be safe. It is very likely Questrade never made any mistakes of your trades, however most complaints on this blog are inexcusable mistakes about people’s money made by Questrade.

jeff – seems to me that the US trade got done with your CAD funds….I will certainly admit I always found that part confusing (the E canadian F american, but they seemed to be interchangeable) – I just resolved it by transferring all my CAD to US and only trade US stocks – I have no problem, but I’m sure I’d find it a headache if I traded canadian market too.

As for RRSP, well, I kept mine at TD – it sucks over there too, but its what I knew and I wasn’t into the hastle of a transfer, so I just leave it over there. As I said, I wouldn’t use this place if I had large funds – there is a point that you should run through a full service brokerage, and on say 50k or more, I would do that.

It’s always a problem with ‘review’ sites like this – you only ever see the negative because people that are content, don’t feel the need to search out places to tell the world…what you may find here is 0.01% of all customers.
If my money suddenly disappeared, sure, I’d be concerned, but if I’m going to be paranoid about that, I may as well be paranoid every time I swipe my visa or every time I cross the street!

I found one problem of Questrade is that they don’t have their own back office, Penson Financial Services Canada Inc is their back office. Therefore they have no control of the money movement. So if there any problems with any transactions, you call Questrade (and that’s the only way), then Questrade contact Penson. This can go back and forth multiple times, and that is one reason that dealing your requests take so long.

Those online brokers who have their own back office (e.g. TradeFreedom) should not have this kind of problem.

To continue #comment-54695, #comment-54830 and #comment-55231

Checked my account again in the morning of Oct 6, the numbers are still wrong. Called the Questrade three times at 10:40AM, 4:15PM and 8PM and wanted to talk to their manager, all three Reps promised would let the manager call me back. Nobody called me until now (and now they are closed at 8:30PM). It seems to me they really drive me to IIROC.

Total numbers called Questrade for this matter: 12, and counting.

I’ll post any new development.

“336. Jeff
Avoid QT at all COST!!!! customer service is a joke, and their platform is broken unreliable and full of bugs, i have signed up to test it out, i made a small profit and it did not show up in my account or in penson i have contacted their reps and after a week the $ i have gained is still not in my account.. on top of that their platform did have outages. all for a low cost of 4.95″.

Just to clarify, this ‘Jeff’ is not me.
Comment 336 Jeff, I respect your freedom of publish any comment, butI would appreciate if you choose another name to avoid confusion.

Today’s tribulations with Questrade

and a suggestion for 332 john-

you have some valid, important and complex questions that would take me too long to answer in detail for you to do your trades.

You should post your specific questions in writing at Questrade’s help desk and then proceed from there. You may want to ask several times, different agents and compare their written replies and ask a supervisor for written clarification in case of contradictory answers from various agents.

Welcome to Questrade! An Questrade Client Service Specialist will be with you shortly. You are number 1 in the queue. Your wait time will be approximately 0 minute(s) and 23 seconds. Thank you for waiting. In the meantime, why not check our FAQs.
You are now chatting with ‘x’
Your reference number for this chat is
x: Hello, thank you for contacting Questrade. How can I help you?
GA: margin call – I closed major positions giving me some $30000+ this morning after the margin call
x: Can you please verify your name, account number, address and date of birth, for security reasons
GA: please check account now as a pop up appeared asking for margin of $6000+
GA: [account verification]
GA: [account verification]
x: what was the amount of your margin call?
GA: 6000
GA: in the pop up some minutes ago
GA: more than $9000 in this morning’s email
x: one second
GA: my display showing (18742.52) at present is incorrect
GA: i purchased with +$30000.00 available 8000 x jblu @ $3.80
GA: if i am forced through your error to prematurely close positions, i will AGAIN loose significant amounts of money as i did several times in the past due to Questrade error / dysfunctional platform / confused account managers
x: ok, sir sorry about the delay
x: i had to find out from our credit group what happened
GA: ?
x: because you were in a margin call today, you are currently undermargined on your jetblue position
x: the reason why you have to cover this margin call now is because you were in a margin call earlier
x: So to be clear you are still undermargin from the jetblue position you took on today
x: and that is approx. $3248 CAD
GA: i had closed the positions that caused the margin call earlier today, and opened then, out of a non margined position, the jetblue positions
x: correct
x: you had settled you margin call earlier but no you have open this position a jetblue it is requiring you to fund the account in order to hold this position
GA: therefore, i was not in a margin call position when opening jblu
x: you had cover your call today but the Jetblue position is requiring to fund the account by approx. $-3248
GA: there is an error in your calculations
GA: i only opened the jetblue position a few hours ago
x: I just talked to our credit group there is no errors
x: We know
x: You need to fund the account in order to hold on to the position
GABRIELE THEYER: that position is only by $1500.00 in the negative at present
GA: out of a $30000.00 + opening with buying 8000@$3.80
x: You cannot be in the negative after settling a margin call period.
GA: i used the funds displayed as available for trading on my account platform
GA: my account did not show any negative after i closed the previous positions, but it showed a positive of $30000.00
x: one second
x: on this short you are required to put up 130% so total would be approx. $39,520
x: that is the required maintenance in order to hold this position
GA: so why did they let me short instead of rejecting the order as insufficient funds????
x: Because the account was not accurately update at that time and they saw you place several sell orders.
GA: any order i would try to place without adequate funding available would be rejected by the platform and not executed…………………..
GA: did your system/platform/manager make a mistake???
x: Are trying to enter a order right now after I told you that your account is under margin?
GA: no, I have not entered any orders or closed any positions since we are in communication – my most recent entry is from 13:38 hours when i cancelled an order to cover
x: Oh ok.
x: So if you can fund this account and send a screen shot to our credit group showing proof of payment will avoid and sellouts
x: Is there anything else I can help you with today?
GA: if i close some positions, will this correct your error in failing to accurately update my account?
x: this will lower your requirement margin Yes.
GA: how much do i have to close out to be again out of the margin as per your error questrade caused when failing to update my account accurately?
x: I told you what your margin call is for
x: $-3248
GA: you also are aware that this margin call was triggered by your account department failing to accurately adjust my account, thus they would have to be able to see how many positions or $ have to be closed out, for my account to become again outside of the margin requirement
GA: meanwhile, i sold 1000 shares
GA: more accurately, i covered 1000 shares
x: on second
x: do you mind if i show you how we calculate your required margin
x: you are still undermargin
GA: by how much
x: approx $-2325 CAD
x: you margin required is 130% of the value of the trade
GA: covered another 2000 shares
x: undermargin by approx $-254.88
GA: if i cover another 250 shares – will i be done?
x: let me calculate
x: that should be enough
GA: good, cost to cover this error is $780.00
GA: thank you nigel for your help
x: No problem
x: I am sorry about your loss
GA: the error was not yours but questrade’s accountung / credit department’s fault
x: Is there anything else I can help you with today?
GAB: no, thanks and again thanks for your help
x: anytime. Have a good day
GA: bye
x: bye
Chat session has been ended by the Questrade representative. If you have any additional questions, please click the live help icon to start a new chat or call a Client Service Specialist at 1.888.783.7866.

Just a quick warning to anyone thinking about signing up with Questrade. I have had a trading account with them for the better part of a year now, and have had MULTIPLE issues with their trading platform (QuestraderWEB). The platform seems to work fine when things are quiet in the markets but if you have, for example, a morning like we did today where the market opens up huge and then starts selling off very quickly their platfrom will crash and you won’t be able to buy or sell out of any of your positions. This is usually resolved 10-15 minutes later after its too late. This has happened to me AT LEAST 10 times in the last two months. I have attempted more than once to talk to someone there to find out whether there is a platform that doesn’t crash (I’ll pay for it as long as i can get out of a position if i need to), but no one there seems to be able to give me a straight answer.

My favorite conversation involved talking to a CSR via their web chat tool who told me that “these things just happen sometimes” When i pressed her and suggested they were happening more than “sometimes” i received no further responses. BRUTAL

Conclusion: Truly inept customer service people. You really do get what you pay for. If you don’t trade daily then the platform is probably ok, but if your in a position where you need something that will work consistently do yourself a favour and look elsewhere

Re: dividends

I had the same question at some point and I have found the answer – you have to log in to your account through myQUESTRADE and then go to your account history (my accounts -> account history). You will be redirected to another website – Penson Financial Services. You will need to create an account there (that’s easy and fast). There you will see all the money transfers, dividends etc.

By the way, I was very surprised to see that they charged me for sending the paper statements. I remember reading about it but I was under impression that it is something you have to activate (and agree to pay the fees). So I was receiving the paper statements, that, I believe, are mandatory in Quebec without knowing that they charge for them.

What account number do I use to sign up for the pension services. It does not seem to be working with my regular account number.

Welcome to Questrade! An Questrade Client Service Specialist will be with you shortly. You are now chatting with ‘Nxxxx’
Your reference number for this chat is LTK14xxxxxxx
Nxxxxx: Hello, thank you for contacting Questrade. How can I help you?
GA: received pop up message “we are covering your margin calls NOW ” at 10:30 AM oct.17.2088.
GA: DO NOT DARE TO DO SO !!!!!
Nixxx: May you confirm your address, date of birth, and account number please?
GA: I have another 3 1/2 hours to take care of it myself and I will do so by around 11:00 AM, in about 20 minutes . My margin call cover time is for 14:00 hours on oct.17.
GA: yyyyyyy bc yyyyyy
GA: if you interfere with the management of my account by covering NOW you will cause MAXIMUM damage by wiping the entire account empty. AND I WILL SUE YOU.
GA: DO NOT DARE BEFORE the 14:00 hours are there.
Nixxxx: Unfortunately your account was under-margined and Questrade does reserve the right to liquidate your positions without notifications in such circumstances, as disclosed in the margin trading agreement. Please be advised that you do have a self-directed margin account and it is your responsibility to make sure it is properly leveraged at all times.
GA: your message to me was, to cover by 14:00 hours
Nxxxxxx: These are the risks associated with margin accounts.
Your positions have been sold to cover your margin call
GA: you sold at highest possible price BEFORE 14:00 hours, namely at 10:36 am; the price will go down significantly by 11:00 AM
GA: mark my words
Nixxxx: You are still in a margin call for $196.00 CAD. Please take the necessary action to cover your margin call.
GA: YOU ELIMINATED $45.000,00
GA: please sell my RUDN position manually, the system / platform does not allow me do so, but rejects
Ni: We did not eliminate $45,000. We sold enough shares in order to cover your margin call.
GA: Yes, it was actually closer to $47.000,00
Nixxxx: Your order is being rejected as you are placing a cover order.
Nxxxxx: Please re-submit a ‘SELL’ order for the trade to be accepted.
GA: order shows now being received at MARKET sell 3 minutes ago
GA: i did not place a cover order
GA: you covered the margin on the day’s HIGHEST rate
Nixxxxxxx: Your sell order is accepted and is in the market. The original order you made WAS a COVER order.
GA: my screen print confirms that I NEVER placed a cover order for RUDN
Nixxxxx: We do not control what price you will receive when covering mrgin calls.
Nixxxxx: Is there anything else I can assist you with?
GA: the price now, 24 minutes later at 11:00 AM, is $8.58 versus $8.80 when you ELECTED covering PREMATURELY to 14:00 hours as called. I told you the price will go down at ~11:00 AM and i will cover then.
Nixxxxx: Unfortunately your account was under-margined and Questrade does reserve the right to liquidate your positions without notifications in such circumstances, as disclosed in the margin trading agreement. Please be advised that you do have a self-directed margin account and it is your responsibility to make sure it is properly leveraged at all times.
GA: actually DAL is down to 8.55 at exactly 11:00 AM thus, a difference of 25 cents or $0.25 on 3000 shares.
GA: YOU DO THE MATH
GA: my market sell rudn is still sitting in Questrader Pro 20 minutes later without being executed
Nixxxx: You may buy the shares back in the market if you would like.
GA: for the record: it is now 11:04 hours on October 17.2008. you eliminated DAL 3000 shares at 10:36:32 hours at $8.809.
Nixxxxx: Is there anything else I can assist you with?
GA: the shares are continuing to drop, as I predicted and anticipated, thus my time management to cover around 11:00 hours – present price = $8.47
GA: and monitoring……………. yes, you can assist by restoring the account to its previous status, prior to you premature eliminating the positions and let me handle it as i told you. DAL at 11:04 hours is now @ $8.33; a difference of about 50 cents X 3000

Nixxxxs: Thank you for visiting Questrade. Please contact us at anytime.
Chat session has been ended by the Questrade representative. If you have any additional questions, please click the live help icon to start a new chat or call a Client Service Specialist at 1.888.783.7866.

Subject: Questrade – Margin calls
Date: 10/17/2008 7:52:32 A.M. Pacific Daylight Time
From: creditdept@questrade.com

$xxxx is due by 2 p.m. on 10/17/2008.

This Questrade MARGIN call email request for Oct. 17.08 was sent to me 15 minutes later than, respectively AFTER, they eliminated the positions, namely at 10:52:32 hours Eastern Time, or 7:52:32 hours Pacific Time.

QUESTRADE’s conduct is synonymous with STEALING money from its clients by calling their margin PREMATURELY at the highest point of the day (when short) – which is apparent and obvious to any savvy account manager monitoring client/margin accounts and its stocks when researching and observing the stocks’ trading pattern -.

THUS, Questrade DOES have total control of the price received when calling a margin.

Questrade presumably uses the anticipated pattern drop occuring about 20 minutes later, to buy and go up with the stock immediately again by about 15 cents per share (much more +/- throughout the remaing day) – thus making quick and significant money by calling, at the for Questrade most opportune time, but most inopportune time for the client, and negating the clients request to not cover at this time.

My response time window to the pop up request was less than ONE minute in which I asked NOT to close positions at this moment as I will be doing it at 11:00 AM; about 20 minutes later.

This complaint will go to the Better Business Bureau and should be investigated for unethical, fraudulent criminal activity.

Daily grievances –
Platform Questrader Pro
marketed and priced as THE TOOL for the Active Trader

Questrade received from me for this account about $13, 000.00 in commissions on about 315 trades over 3 ½ months.

Welcome to Questrade! An Questrade Client Service Specialist will be with you shortly.
All Questrade Client Service Specialists are currently assisting others. Thanks for your patience. An agent will be with you shortly. You are now chatting with ‘Yxxxx’
Your reference number for this chat is LTK143xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Yxxxxxxxxxxx: Hello, thank you for contacting Questrade. How can I help you?
GA: ap_pp123456 june808 – this file in my file folder LIVE is empty with 0 KB upon opening it / logging in this morning; instead a new file shows up as created this morning 10/16/2008 with 34 KB. This file contains different data than that which was set up by me in the file above. Please retrieve this file and reinstall it completely in my folder ‘LIVE’ as it was before. thank you
Yxxxxx: sorry. did not get it. more info pls
GA: i also notice that a file, set up my me on oct 10. called ‘desperatesss’, now has 70 KB, double the amount of my other files -the file ‘desperatesss’ was set up in desperation when your platform system was again not working properly
YXXXXX: still did not get your point. could i know what are you trying to do and how may i help?
GA: my Questrade Pro has several folders with files (created by me) that come up for selection when i go into the platform’s FILE to OPEN SETTINGS FILE, upon doing so, the above scenario presented itself, namely the file I selected is now EMPTY with 0 KB
YiXXXXX: why do you want to open the settings file? the purpose is?
GA: in order to start monitoring / trading in the markets with my set up symbols, i am trying to open my trading file established and used since july 1 2008 –. the file opens but is empty meaning the content (previously in this file) does not present itself with its 34 KB, BUT is now empty at 0 KB
YiXXXXXXXXXXXXXX: so the default settings were gone
Yi: sorry. we cannot retrieve the file
GA: now your platform is not responding anymore at all
YXXXXX: could you reset your settings in the platform
YiXXXXXXXX: and will be saved this time
GA: the file shows as being modified at 3:13AM today
GA: i was sleeping at 3:13 am and have not touched the file/platform until 9:18 am this morning upon logging in
YiXXXXXXXX: sorry. we cannot retrieve the files
YiXXXXXXXXX: could you reset it again
GA: i can certainly put in a 1/2 day work to set up the file again with all its tabs and symbols in each like ETF’s, TO, OTC’s, NEX, TSX , NMS, NYS, etc probably about a 1000 symbols in total
GA: the point is that I pay for a fully functioning, reliable platform that does not cost me additional time / money due to its poor performance and destructive set up or management
Yxxxxxx: OK. i will doulbe check with developer
Yixxxxxxx: could i get back to you later?
GA: preferably, I keep this life line open for final reply
Yixxxx: sorry. i do not think i will get response that fast. could i get back to you? i will try my best and asap
GA: how do you intend to contact me then?
Yixxx: how about by email.
Yxxxxxxxxxx: could i confirm your account
Yxxxxxxxxxx: number
GA: your developer should use the above given info to retrieve and restore the specific file data
Yixxxx: yes. i will forward it
GA: acc#xxxxxx
Yxxxxxxxx: thanks
Yxx: request sent
GA: yes, you may advise me by email, when the file has been restored; i will also check the “open file settings” throughout the day
Yxxxxxxxx: yes. will get back to you asap
GA: unfortunately, platform problems with questrader pro are very frequent and COSTLY for the subscriber in addition to the time and frustration
Yxxxxxx: i do apologize for that. will try my best
GA: it is not your fault, but someone in management at questrade must take action to eliminate repetition of continued problems with the platform they market and sell to their active traders
Yxxxxxx: yes. i will report to developer.
GA: it is now oct.16.2008 10:50 eastern time
GA: thank you
Yixxxxx: my pleasure.
Yxxxxxxx: Anything else I can help with today?
GA: hopefully not
Yxx: Thank you for chatting. Good-bye.
GA: bye and thanks
Yxxxxxxx: my pleasure. byr
Yxxxxxxxx: bye
Chat session has been ended by the Questrade representative. If you have any additional questions, please click the live help icon to start a new chat or call a Client Service Specialist at 1.888.783.7866.

2dekapp:

I would get the final and definitive answer from Questrade first and if they deny all the responsibility for the accident – I would contact Investment Dealers Association of Canada (IDA) and ask for their advice. You can probably find something on their Web site. It may also make sense to report the issue to the police, although I would do a quick research first.

Good luck!!!

2Johnny:

…Unless this extra PIN is generated by a crypto device (like the one E*Trade offers).

Actually, there is a number of simple security measures that may reduce the chances of someone successfully logging in from another computer even if he/she knows your credentials. However, QT does not implement any of them :(

George – yes, $4.95 is no matter the trade (anything under 500 shares of course – above that, use 0.01/share up to $9.95)…short, stop, limit whatever

Questrade is a non-starter for me. The website is totally non-functional using Firefox on a Mac. It seems they’re a Microsoft shop, as their web site pages carry the “aspx” extension. That in itself is a poor technology choice and a pretty good indication that there would be other technical issues using the system. The comments here reinforce that view. Thanks for sharing all your experiences.

All of the complaints I’m reading so far on this page are no different than the complaints about E-Trade Canada (circa 2000-2001 -> I could not find any other signifcant sources of complaints on E-Trade Canada). Especially, if you look here [ http://www.epinions.com/finc-review-2A8B-E695D0D-39AB24CA-prod6 ], you will see a similar pattern of “taking forever/losing paper-work to open a new account/transfer an account” with E-Trade Canada. So, it seems that QuesTrade’s problems are not unique.

Hence, the only real concern I have with QuesTrade is whether anyone has been a victim of “illegal trading”, or not. I’m not trying to bash QuesTrade, but if you have been a victim of such “fraud”, please enlighten us with your story. (No “illegal trading” related to currency conversion, or margin calls, please!)

hey guys, i’ve mailed my paperwork like 2weeks ago and still no news at Questrade, how long does this process usually take? im starting to worry about this…is 2weeks normal?

STAY AWAY from Questrade!! Look at other reviews also before signing up–don’t just believe me. Ok, so all I want to do is buy and hold a few shares of a couple of stocks. I am not an active trader, just someone who wanted to put some money away for a long-term investment. I liked the low commission rate…oh boy, do I regret it now. I have payed dearly for it. The story: My first investment, to test the whole thing, was a $2000 purchase. All went, after some annoying but ultimately successful back and forth, fine. I transferred the funds from my bank online into my account. The deal went through. All seemed fine. Half a year later, I get a strange email that I have a margin call. I did not even know what that means. So, I read up on it and realize this must be a mistake. I do not have a margin account and do not have a loan. I payed my stocks from my funds. OHHHH NO! I called and here is the shocker. I was told that ‘because you transferred your funds in Canadian dollars, but you bought stocks in US currency (at that point btw on par), you never used your money. We have been loaning it to you!! To add insult to injury, I have been paying interest on this stupid loan that I never wanted!! Now, I have to pay margin balance in canadian dollars at 80 cents while 6 months ago I THOUGH had bought US stocks with a dollar on par!! This brokerage is a total scam, crooks that are trying to save themselves by screwing their customers, now that things are getting really tough for them. I have lost sooo much more just because of their business practices than on my stocks. Never again.

George/Detlev,

You’ve sparked my interest. Where in the agreement can I find that verbage?

To George and Mark,
FYI I initiated a partial transfer of an account from another broker to QT. It’s now 4 months and I’m still waiting for them to complete it!!!……….. I don’t want to be negative but my best advice is to stay away from QT.
Client support is useless. They would not reply to your claims and you will be on your own. Go with a better discount broker instead. Platform is also unstable and has lot of glitches. Looking forward to close the account.

Response to #350.

I have a similar situation going on right now. I was closing my account and I had sent in a request for it while chatting with their rep. and he helped me send in the request and stated that it will take 2-3 business days and my account will locked from all trading. I would have to get all the funds transfered. I got back to it last week due to the fact that if my account is closed, I don’t need to be worried about anything. So I logged back into my account and I saw that pretty much all my money was spent on some shitty stocks that were worth less than half a dollar and this trade was made on Thanksgiving!!!

I started talking to one of their reps. and he stated that this was a breach in my account and I would have to talk to someone about it. However, they will not return my money! How absurd is that?? A frikkin online trading company has such a shitty security system in place and on top of that, while realizing its not the customer’s fault, they intend on giving the customer a hard time!! Anyway, I contacted an individual (whose number I can’t seem to find at the moment but I will post it) and he pretty much said that I won’t get my money back. I asked him to transfer it to someone who has more authority than he does. So i get this one guy on the phone and he was nothing but rude!! An absolute dick head!! He was blaming the entire situation on me. Claimed it was my fault because I must’ve left my machine idle and someone came and traded on my account. Yeahh, somehow questrade manages to have the user sign in after a few minutes of an idle account and he’s trying to negate the one thing that questrade has it going for themselves. Anyways, this pinhead was absolutely rude in everyway so i just allowed him to bark and hung up on him. After further investigation, I found out that there is a way to deal with this and this is going to hurt this company. Also, knowing that I’m not the only one who has gone through this, I would like people to comment/advise on solutions or ways to get our money back. What I did was contact OSBI. These people will guide you on what needs to be done. I am going to follow the first step tomorrow and write this certain individual a letter. Based on the response, I will proceed further.
I would like to know who else went through this situation (or is going through it) and lets do something about it!

Cheerz!

Have to admit – hearing all these wonderful stories about Questrade has got me thinking about switching…

How easy is it to close Questrade and move to another company? How much does Questrade charge to close an account?

Arrive to your own conclusions.

link: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20081025.RREPORTCARD25/TPStory/TPBusiness/?pageRequested=1

Just released couple of days ago (Oct. 25, 2008) from the Globe and Mail. Questrade is ranked on 13 of 13 brokers surveyed.

BREAKING DOWN THE BROKERS

The Globe and Mail’s 10th annual online brokerage ranking evaluated 13 different firms in six different categories. Here are the results:

Rank Broker Costs (/25) Trading (/25) Tools (/20) Customer satisfaction (/15) Account info. (/10) Website (/5) Total
1 Qtrade Investor 21 22 16 12.1 10 3 84.1
2 BMO InvestorLine 15.5 17 18 11.5 9.5 5 76.5
3 E*Trade Canada 23 18 14 11.5 4.5 3 74
4 TD Waterhouse 16.5 15 19 11.8 7.5 4 73.8
5 Credential Direct 17 18 11 12.1 9.5 3 70.6
6 RBC Direct Investing 17.5 14 19 11.3 5.5 3 70.3
7 CIBC Investor’s Edge 17.5 15 17 11.2 4.5 3 68.2
8 Disnat 16.5 17 11.5 11.9 6 0 62.9
9 ScotiaMcLeaod Direct Investing 10 17 16 11.1 3 3 60.1
10 National Bank Direct Brokerage 10.5 15 15.5 10.9 4.5 3 59.4
11 HSBC InvestDirect 17.5 13 10.5 10.9 2.5 3 57.4
12 TradeFreedom 18 14 7 11.2 4 3 57.2
13 Questrade 21 15 4 11.8 5 0 56.8

KATHRYN TAM/THE GLOBE AND MAIL

responsse to #376

“questrade is ideal for a smaller investor that isn’t hung up on so much bells & whistles” could be. I for one think Questrade could be an alternative for the ocasional trader with a small account but not for an advanced or serious trader.

“If you have 100’s of thousands, well, stop being so cheap and go with a full” service brokerage already!” Agree. At the end it’s not all about low commisions. IMO Questrade has poor security, misfunctional platforms and awful customer support. So many complaints and issues with so many people in this board and elsewhere tels me my money should be parked elsewhere.

—————————————————————————————————
Following is an article is from The Globe and Mail.

SECURITY SHOULD BE AN ISSUE WHEN CHOOSING AN ONLINE BROKER
By Rob Carrick
August 14, 2007

It’s time to start thinking about security, and not just commission fees and service, when you decide which online broker to use.

The Investment Dealers Association of Canada says its members are reporting about two to three instances of hackers gaining access to client accounts each month, and the results can be costly both in dollars lost and aggravation. That’s the message from a woman who contacted this column last week about an incident on July 30 in which a hacker gained access to her account, sold her holdings and began buying shares of a Nasdaq-listed company.

“I was just shocked when I heard this happened,” said the woman, who asked that her name not be used. “I’m not very computer savvy and I didn’t know that this was a risk that I was taking when I traded with a discount broker online.”

The woman’s broker, Montreal-based TradeFreedom Securities, had as of yesterday promised to restore her account to the state it was in before the intrusion. But her experience has led her to wonder if she’d be better off with a broker that offers a security guarantee against losses from fraud.

Her brush with a hacker began two weeks ago when she was unable to log into her account online. She said she was told by her broker after calling in that someone had gained access to her account, sold her holdings and purchased 11,400 shares of SourceForge Inc., an Internet company. She recalls being told that her account had been frozen when TradeFreedom’s internal systems noticed some trading anomalies.

Presumably, the fraudster was trying a version of the pump-and-dump scam, where big purchases are used to bid up the price of a stock. The fraudster then sells his own personal position in the stock, taking advantage of the upward price move.

SourceForge’s share price didn’t tank after the unauthorized purchases in the woman’s account, as sometimes happens. However, she said she missed out on a rise in a core stock in her portfolio that was sold by the hacker. “What gets me is that it was my intention not to sell the stock,” she said.

The key question here, of course, is how a hacker got access to the woman’s username and password, which are needed to access an account online. Experts say your personal data can be stolen if you click on strange e-mails that introduce spyware or viruses to your computer, but the woman said she has anti-virus software on her computer, and that she hasn’t opened any suspect e-mails. TradeFreedom is still investigating.

So it goes with security problems such as these. It’s difficult to know exactly how they happened and who’s at fault. If you’re victimized, all you want is for the problem to go away.

This brings us to security guarantees, which are now fairly standard in the credit card world through zero-liability policies that eliminate the risk of having to pay for fraudulent transactions. In the online brokerage world, security guarantees are slowly starting to catch on.

Among the firms that offer them are TD Waterhouse, the country’s largest online broker, RBC Direct Investing, E-Trade Canada and Qtrade Investor. Note: these guarantees are not bulletproof. They may require you to notify your broker within a few days of an account intrusion and to co-operate fully in providing information to your broker. Also, they may not cover you if you failed to take reasonable precautions to keep your account safe.

Still, having a security guarantee at least suggests a level of commitment to protecting clients against fraud. Without one, customers can’t be sure of where they stand if they’ve been victimized.

Consider the case of the woman whose account was hacked – she said she was told initially that TradeFreedom would not restore her account to the way it was before the intrusion. Then, the firm decided to step up.

“Generally, our policy is if a customer has unknowingly or unwittingly been victimized, we help the customer out,” said Bruce Seago, TradeFreedom’s president.

People in the investment industry say online fraud isn’t a major problem in Canada, but the situation in the United States suggests it could easily get worse. E-Trade Financial’s annual report says the company’s fraud losses tripled to $31.2-million (U.S.) last year.

Your first line of defence as an investor is to take all possible precautions. Then, on the off chance a hacker nails you, consider using a broker with a security guarantee.

Take it from a woman who has lived through the experience of being a victimized investor: “There’s enough risk out there without this sort of thing happening.”

PROTECT YOURSELF

Here are some suggestions for protecting the username and password required to log into your online brokerage account. This personal data can be captured by hackers who use it for frauds that involve unauthorized trading in your account.

Don’t share your username or password with anyone.

Avoid accessing your account using wireless Internet access in a public place.

Use anti-virus and anti-spyware programs on your computer, and keep it updated.

Steer clear of “phishing” e-mails, which direct you to phony websites where you’re asked to provide your username and password.

Be cautious in clicking on attachments in e-mails.

Clear the cache on your Web browser after logging out.

Review your account statements to ensure all transactions were authorized by you.

Source: TradeFreedom Securities

Was considering a switch from Tradefreedom to Questrade, as I have had many platform glitches ( freezing etc.) with Tradefreedom. Looks like that is just the case with this system. Tradefreedom, Questrade, Disnat, and I think Etrade.ca, all use the same platform software, so they’re bound to have the same issues. I played with the Questrade Pro platform and yes, it’s pretty much the same as Tradefreedom’s Edge. As for customer service, I find Tradefreedom to be very lacking. I’ve become an “elite” member, giving me a special email addy and phone # for service issues. They usually take 2-3 days to respond to an “elite” email concern, although the phone line is answered on the 2nd ring. Also they are constantly upgrading their network, which has caused me to change network cards on my PC 3 times this year, due to certain cards not functioning with the new updates.
Anyway, I only want to transfer to Questrade because of the cheap commissions, and…..they allow pattern day trading with under $25,000. It says right on their website ( in the section on margin) “Questrade does not enforce US style pattern day trading regulations”. Yes, I sent an email to Questrade to see if this was true and they responded (the next day) that it is! That alone is enough for me to put up with the odd platform quirk, or slow customer service.I am concerned about the security issues though. Although Tradefreedom got hacked into recently as well.
I understand that people are complaining about the time it takes for funds to show up in your account ( trading/bank), but I have to say that even with online bill payment, it takes 3-4 days with Tradefreedom as well. I withdraw a certain % of my profits as income every week, because I do this full time ( yes on only three trades a week!) and I know if my bills need to be paid on FRI, I have to withdraw my $$ on MON, TUE at the latest. So, Questrade is no slower or faster than anyone else. Plus I’m pretty sure I saw EFT set up on their site. That’s basically just point and click…your money is where you want it. Used to have that on my Etrade account, and it was only mildly faster than an online bill payment.
So I guess, I can say that I’m still considering switching to Questrade just because of the pattern day trading thing. If I can make unlimited trades, and not have to keep a minimum of $25,000 in there to do it. That’s great for me. I don’t know any other brokerages that let you get away with that. If anyone knows of any , I’d love to hear about them

It seems the Questrade reps are no longer responding to these discussions.

I notice with irony that in June 2008 someone here suggested that questrade should show the total cost of either a buy or sell in the preview order page, as to prevent mistakes by the user. That generated good feedback from the questrade rep, but it’s now November and this is still not done. I asked them to do this in october, and was told this was a good idea. As if they havent heard about this idea months ago.

Questrade went down or was slow twice in October, during big selloffs. These 2 incidents costed me real money. TD Waterhouse was up during that period. They still havent fixed the problems with their servers. One rep actually tried hard to convince me that being unable to log onto their platform was due to slowness in communication between them and the TSX. Right, and this was a NASDAQ stock. They would have better luck tryint to convince me that the whole internet was down during those 2 periods.

Reliability is not a big concern with questrade. I suggest people look elsewhere to get a good balance of price and reliability.

How difficult is to transfer money in and out with ThinkOrSwim?

Im thinking of signing up top Quest, I have read the reviews and it seems everyone has some issues, however what has anyone heard good or bad about Think or Swim Canada

I have been with Questrade for the past 2 years. The past few months I started to trade a lot more, so wanted to have a more sophisticated platform and more data. I switched to their Pro platform, and found it to be terrible. I cannot believe a software with so many bugs is made available to the public!!! Then switched to the Elite, which was the same. Then switched to their Webstream data, which is slightly better, but it still crashes my browser frequently, or forces me to log out and log back in. To make a long story short, after many trials, I am giving up on the add-ons because it is just a lot of frustration. I was also not so happy with how slow the connection is between 9.20 am and 10.00 am which is a critical time for trading. I find missing out on a trade because of access times totally unacceptable. So I started hunting for other online brokers, and to my surprise, most everyone (Disnat, TF, Etrade, ?…) is using the same sh*tty software!!! What is going on with that?

A few years ago, I was using Ameritrade Canada, and I was a very happy camper. Then TD bought them and got rid of the great platform. I recently tried ThinkorSwim. It is a little better, but not offered in Quebec yet. I don’t mind forking out $100 a month for something decent, but the stuff they have at Questrade is just terrible (I cannot even bloody close the application without going to my task manager).

Brief, I wish we had at least ONE broker in Canada that offered something decent in terms of both platform, and access times. Security is an issue for me as well. Since I have seen these buggy software, my confidence is way down….

Jeff, after reading message number 350, I am doubly concerned about getting hacked, as I know it is relatively easy to get into someone’s computer. I would be very curious to know how this story ended.

Questrade seems to be the only brokerage that allows both USD and CND in registered accounts. I don’t keep my RRSP in Questrade. Question of not keeping all eggs in one basket, especially if the basket might have a few holes….

@Jamie (#392)
I know all that. The key word you used is “insurance”. That is something that is not clear with Questrade right now. I know for a fact that my bank (BNS) offers 100% insurance against any losses as a result of unauthorized intrusion into my account. Similarly, I would not use my credit card online unless it was fully insured. But I don’t know what is the status with Questrade in this regard, and where there is uncertainty, there is FEAR!

Hello,

Regarding the security, yes, any system can be hacked if someone really wants it. I happens also that the systems get “hacked” by an insider (selling the personal information, for example). This is an extreme case and there is virtually nothing you can do about it.

I would like to say again that there is a number of easy methods that _increase_ the online security to the level when it becomes _more_ difficult to hack someone’s account. You want examples? That’s easy. Some banks now force you to set up a couple of personal questions and once you log in from a computer that never used their system before (again, there is a number of ways to detect it) – they ask one of these questions. So, it is not enough to just know your login/password, the fraudster also has to know your first pet’s name :) Or look at E*Trade. For something like $30 you get RSA key generating device. This is _very_ secure. And it does not cost $x/month. Some online brokers (Credeintial Direct, for example) use two passwords: one for the account access and one for manipulating the orders. A bit less convenient for you, much more inconvenient form someone else ;)

I have found Questrade’s customer support to be fairly good. I have often used their live chat, and the most I have waited is around 5 minutes. The only thing that has been a big issue for me is slow response times of their servers during rush hour (9:30 to 10:00 on big red days when everyone wants to log in at the same time). I sent them a message yesterday about this, and today someone called me to see what’s going on. The guy was very helpful, and although he suspected the problem was on my side, he suggested alternatives, and asked me to call them the next time it happens. So I think that is good customer support.

I was also very surprised to see the ratings in message 375. I have accounts with both TD and SMD, and overall I prefer Questrade.

I spent time calling and online after they messed up my account settings. Looks like they can never get thier act together.

Some have good experiences, some have bad. It’s like that with all brokers. I’m still giving them a try. I’m splitting an account between them and Tradefreedom. I’ve had the same issues of USD interest with Tradefreedom, my deficit was -$1400. I just called and converted my entire account to USD. It was easier than having to cover interest on margin all the time. If Questrade is bad, I’ll send my money elsewhere. So far, aside from communication issues, they don’t seem too bad. My new account was funded by online bill payment in three days. That’s the norm everywhere. My account isn’t open yet, but I missed a signature on my app, so my bad. It’s still only been 8 business days since I filled out and sent in the app. It took 14 days to open my Tradefreedom acct., and even longer for Etrade. We’ll see what happens.

The fact that I’m becoming a very active trader is the main reason I’m giving them a chance. I’m trading right now in three accounts, and none of them have the required $25,000 in it for day trading. I could combine them, but I use one for swings, one for longs, and one to day trade. If I can open an account at Questrade, and actively trade ( 10-30 times a day) with only say, $12-15,000, then that is great. It allows me to build up that account and my other accounts, especially considering the market is too volatile to be very successful right now with swings, and I don’t feel stocks have bottomed enough to snap up any longs.

More fun with Questrade. I tried to move some US dollars for the first time from a Canadian USD cheqing account to QT USD account. And, as it was recommended by their support, I opted for the one-time PAD. So far it has been almost 3 weeks, 4 support calls/chats with no luck. I think now every employee of Questrade has a copy of my void cheque but it still does not help. I could have sent a certified cheque 3 times during this period.

Every time I call them I am promised that “it will be processed today” but it still goes nowhere.

Anybody know or has the experience of market fee or ECN fee charge?
I bought 3000 unit of HOU.TO on Nov. 20 in one limit order. The order was executed in 3 parts within one minute. Besides the $9.95 commission, I was charged another $9.2 for market fee. I contact the customer service by live chat, in the beginning, this rep told me there was no any fee for this transaction, then he told me it’s a ECN fee to remove liquidility, it’s charged by TSX. I don’t understand why did I need to pay this sinec the order was executed in one minute, what’s wrong with the liquidility? BTW according to Questrade’s web the ECN fee is charged for open and after market order.

I use questrade and haven’t had any problems.

Only thing I wish is that they’d create a better way to track portfolio performance.

I think Questrade will improve over time if their customers provide objective feedback and take some responsibility to self-educate before actually opening a discount trading account. It is almost like buying/driving a car before learning how to operate it safely. If an accident happens, you can rarely put the entire blame on the carmaker or the seller.

I primary trade US options and Canadian ETFs. My main issues with them are their platforms being slow and non-intuitive and lack of coordination between various internal departments. Platform related issue could be generating a large volume of their support traffic – making it difficult to maintain the service level and internal communications. I hope they have realized that trying to design/develop custom software is the most complex project a brokerage can take on. It can sidetrack any growing company – affecting core business. Ask Microsoft who with all their might still can’t come up with an OS/Browser that is known to be stable and safe.

By the way, let’s try to be nice to each other – at least on Christmas day.

Happy Holidays all.

I think options trading is OK if one is looking for simple puts and calls strategies.

Is anyone thinking about trading Options using TSFA?

Hey “All”, My concern with CIBC is that it’s platforms are not direct access. I would never trade with a non direct access platform no matter what the commissions are. The real costs are much higher.

Am I the only one who is having issues with Questrade/Penson over the past few days with them charging double for everything. Every dividend that I received on 29th and 31st of December was credited to my account twice and then the mistake corrected next day. The numbers still don’t add up correctly but there definitely was some problem with their systems with so many dividends coming up at the end of the year.

Today due to my automatic DRIP plan, due to the dividends received on 31st december, I noticed that they were supposed to buy some shares but every share has been bought twice and money has been taken out of my account twice for every share that was supposed to be bought. What’s wrong with their system, and can someone please tell me whether I am the only one facing these issues?

Haha…questrade’s 1st level of support is totally useless. I get $60 worth of dividends. QT credits $60 twice. And, then after a few days realizes the mistakes and debits the account with the extra $60. I raise the question about what went wrong, and why were dividends being credited twice as this happened to all 3 of my accounts that receive dividends. After 2 days of waiting I get a one-line reply from QT’s 1st level of support that 15% of all dividends are taken back if they are from US securities. First of all, how is crediting account with $60 and then taking back the whole $60 taking 15% of the dividends back. That’s taking 100% of the dividends back. So, they don’t admit there mistake that they are doing everyhing twice and then they give me this stupid answer. From what I have seen in the past year using QT, the dividends credited to the accounts already have the 15% amount deducted before we getting it. It’s never happened that they give all the dividends and then credit the 15% amount later on, and everything HAS BEEN happening twice to my account, and it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure that out.

My automatic DRIP account was supposed to buy 4 shares of XRE for example, QT bought 4 shares twice in 2 separate transactions and cut the amount twice from my account, and then the next day realized their mistake and removed the extra 4 shares bought and returned back the money. But, till now I still haven’t heard from them about why this happened, and received a standard reply that 15% of the dividends are credited back.

Is anyone from QT listening to these mails? Can you please talk to Delia from 1st level of support to actually look at the accounts to check what’s wrong before replying to the customers. And, could someone from QT explain what’s wrong with their software and why are these discrepancies taking place? Has the problem been corrected? Will I face these issues again? Are others facing the same issues, or are just my accounts affected?

Questrade is generally a good discount broker. They have a TON of software issues which makes their support look bad as well. Can you imagine this duplication of transaction getting resolved by support? They will need as many staff as customers for something like that!!!

I never understood why Questrade doesn’t invest a bit more to resolve these many software issues. They should wipe off the whole platform and start fresh or partner with another company like ThinkorSwim. Another solution is to go with a very basic platform that doesn’t cause so many problems for them.

If you want to trade stocks (not options) from time to time and you have a small portfolio, then QT is ok. If you want to trade more often (more than a few per week) or do complex transactions like option spreads, etc. then go somewhere else. ThinkorSwim is a truly excellent broker at all levels.

QT is a sort of mom&pop discount broker. You take you RRSP in there and trade in different currencies without paying obscene charges that some banks make. Or open the Tax free savings account with them and trade in there tax free. These offers you won’t find anywhere else, so I give the business arm of QT 5 stars for coming up with them.

As far as I know there are no charges for opening or closing a TFSA account (says so on their FAQ). There might be some charges for transfers to another institution though.

For RRSP, the 125 transfer fee is standard. If you got over 25k in your RRSP then most banks will cover it.

A full/partial deregisteration is when you take out all/some of your money out of your RRSP account. It is different from transferring to another institution and they will deduct the applicable income taxes as required by law. It is standard….

I am going by what they say on their site. I haven’t actually done any of these operations to know if there are hidden charges or no. If there are, personally I would sue them as I have been very careful in my research.

TradeFreedom launched their RSP campaign this weekend. Up to $1000 in free trades for new accounts and free TSXV Level 1 streaming quotes and Nasdaq L2 quotes if you open an account wit more than $25k in assets and the transfer-in fee isx covered.

Existing clients open a new account with net new equity or transfer-over new accounts with a minimum of $15k then they also receive up to $400 in free commissions and the transfer-in fee is covered.

I also saw that Disnat charges for a TSFA account – https://www.disnat.com/news/tfsa.asp

TD has no real RSP campaign – BMO came out with a contest but you need to have $50k or more. They are looking to gather assets not attract traders with that campaign.

Questrade doesn’t have a campaign for the RSP season.

Happy hunting for the best campaign that meets your needs…there is not much out their for traders except TradeFreedom. BMO has a big asset gathering contest – but in big assets I mean $50k plus. At TF you can open a TSFA and still qualify for their promotion.

Good question Stefan…last year they allowed me to transfer-in a non RSP account and I still took advantage of the promo. Ask a sales rep when you call.

1.866.837.3336 choose option #4

http://www.gjpspark.com/projects/2009/TradeFreedom/TrainingCampWeb/

The trading platform doesn’t work with firefox 3.0. So you have to downgrade or use IE which i hate to use.

The trading price seems cheap but I’m worried about the performance. I just tried to open an account today and found couple of glitches in the registration form =(

Any recommendations for other cheap discount brokerage?

I opened my account back in mid Dec. 2008 at Questrade after reading on few of the canadian blogs and entered the four pillar discount coupon but I have not seen the deposit of $50 into my account, so I contacted the customer service 3 times in regards to this and now they are saying that they do not see that I entered coupon when I filled out the application, I know I did because that was one of the reason I got interested to open Questrdae account. So it is now my word againt their word…

They are not honouring the promise, this is false advertisement.

Has anybody else who opened an account with Questrade last month (Dec. 2008) got $50 discount on their trade fees?

Bob,
QT-pro is not a system developed by QT itself. They just have their wrapper on it allowing their users to connect to their servers. The market data comes from a central source. It is the same system used by many other Brokers, including TDWaterhouse and Desjardins (TDW charges significantly more for the same thing). This platform is fairly stable and works well. It is nothing to write home about, but gives you that extra edge by bringing all your data in the same place and providing a few analytical tools.

What you want to avoid is QT’s streaming web which is TERRIBLE in terms of stability and speed. You will spend all your time rebooting your computer if you go with that one. I have tried all of them, including Elite. The pro is the best value for the money. It is free after 20 trades, so if you trade that many times, certainly worth while.

Drew,

If you read this, I would like to know if you’ve tried the Quotetracker trading interface with Tradefreedom & if it works well.

The Quotetracker website claims that it can link to a Tradefreedom account to provide trading ability, see the following page:

http://www.quotetracker.com/help/tradefreedom.shtml

Like all Canadian brokerages, the Tradefreedom web order entry screens are tedious & cumbersome, yet Quotetracker appears to offer a way around this. I would like to know if it works before I choose a TFSA broker.

Thanks, Jack

Is anyone trading forex in their TFSA? Is it even possible? If it is possible, who are you trading through. Questrade seems like they allow it but I haven’t found conclusive evidence.