Interactive Brokers Reviews

Slow, sometimes inept or non-existent customer service. Some bugs in the software.

I used to trade with OANDA, which has "friendlier" software, but was drawn to IB for a variety of reasons. It is probably worth adding, if it isn't already noted in another review, that their minimum account is $10,000 and FX leverage is 50:1. Also, the trade size minimums are substantial and will exclude small, recreational traders. The spreads are as small as I've seen anywhere; they state that they don't pad the spreads, but instead charge a flat, per-transaction fee. I haven't seen any reason to doubt this.

They had been a huge waste of my time and money.

Very bad experience.

Update (13/3/08): I just had the worst experience with any broker I worked with. I'm copying the same e-mail I sent to cftc.gov. They try to explain why it happened that way however their excuse was totally BS. The same trades at market order earlier in the day were executed properly however when I closed those position they screwed me big time. Stay away from companies like this. Here is my email to cftc.

To Whom It May Concern,

I have an account with Interactive Brokers. I only had the account open for less than a month. Today, I received two executions from this broker that I believe they stole my money. The two trades were as,

Bought 25000 AUD.USD at 0.9340 when the ASK Price was 0.9287.5 at the time of the execution (15:42:35 EST on Tue, 11 Mar 2008) . This is 52.5 pips above the asking price and it's absolutely insane. Only thieves could do something like this. I lost $131.25 from this execution. The currency pair never ever traded at that level at that time.

Also Bought 9985 EUR.USD at 1.5349 when the ASK price was 1.5321 at the time of the execution (15:18:08 EST on Tue, 11 Mar 2008). This is 28 pips above the asking price. Again my loss was about $28 from this bad fill.

I respectfully ask you to guide and help me to correct this matter and put this company in your watch list for future victims. They have been extremely rude, unprofessional, and made me stay on hold total of more than an hour in 3 different phone calls. They have no respect for their customers and that can be read throughout the Internet sites. Their phone number is (877) 442-2757 option 2 (execution desk) and the person whom I talked to was Zack (rude and unprofessional).