- Comments (57)
- Text Size: Down Up
moneysense.ca, 29/07/09
Scotia iTrade Review
![[Scotia iTrade Logo]](http://www.canadiancapitalist.com/images/2009/scotia_itrade_logo.jpg){kind=logo}
When Scotiabank acquired the Canadian brokerage arm of E*Trade, the account I had opened with E*Trade to my participate in my employer’s Stock Purchase Plan was automatically converted into a Scotia iTrade account. The website remains much the same as it did under E*Trade except for some branding in the Scotia red colour and addition of research reports from Scotia Capital. As Scotia iTrade is severing links with E*Trade, I thought I’d write a review while I still have an account with them.
Administration Fees and Commissions
Scotia iTrade’s biggest attraction is the low fees, which are lower than that of the big bank brokers but higher than deep-discount brokers such as Questrade (See: Questrade Review) for accounts of modest size. There is no administration fee on registered accounts such as RRSP, RESP or TFSA but watch out for the rather steep low-activity fee of $50 per quarter charged to taxable accounts.
Investors looking for a competent discount broker would find iTrade’s commission structure to be middle of the pack. iTrade charges a commission of $19.99 for most trades but household accounts that total more than $50,000 qualify for trades costing $9.99.
Ease of Funding
Clients can take advantage of the free Electronic Fund Transfer (EFT) facility to move funds between their Canadian or US Dollar bank account and Scotia iTrade account. Note that there is no integration or direct link between Scotia iTrade and Scotia Bank accounts just yet.
Parking Cash
While the Cash Optimizer account pays a competitive rate and can be used to park cash temporarily from taxable accounts, there is no place to park the cash in registered accounts. Scotia iTrade does offer mutual funds but all funds held for less than 90 days are charged a 1% penalty.
Currency Conversion Fees
The currency fees at Scotia iTrade are rather steep. In a phone call today, I was quoted a US dollar buying rate of 1.0665 and a selling rate of 1.1055 for a spread of 3.6%, which is almost double the typical fees. Fortunately, iTrade has kept the wash trading capability introduced by E*Trade (See: E*Trade Quietly Offers Limited Wash Trades).
Guaranteed Income Certificates
While GICs are available, clients have to phone in to purchase or request quotes. The rates on GICs appear to be competitive.
Bonds
A cursory check shows that iTrade has a decent inventory of bonds. The pricing seems to be slightly better than RBC Direct Investing, our main brokerage. For instance, a 5% Government of Canada bond maturing on 01-June-2014, yields 2.606% on iTrade and 2.512% on RBC Direct.
Mutual Funds
iTrade offers more than 3,200 mutual funds from all major vendors. There are no commissions to buy or sell.
Scotia iTrade is not my primary broker but I have used E*Trade for many years and found them to be a competent broker. Bank of Nova Scotia has so far kept E*Trade as is with only minor changes — a splash of red on the webpage and the addition of analyst reports from Scotia Capital come to mind. Investors who do not yet qualify for low commissions at the big bank brokerages will probably find iTrade at or near the top of their list. If you are an iTrade client, I would love to hear from you in the comments section.
moneysense.ca, 29/07/09
I am an ITrade user. I am new to DIY and I have not used other such sites so I have no comparison. I have transfered all registered accounts including a LIRA and I appreciate having all the registered accounts in one place and having no fees. My trades are $9.99. I have found Cust Service willing but not well trained. Would be interested in your comments on bond inventory and pricing? Money transfer is easy and site overall helpful.
I use TradeFreedom, which is also being re-branded as Scotia iTrade. So far the only differences I’ve noticed (compared to the old TradeFreedom) are: 1) Letter mail now bears the name Scotia iTrade, and 2) I was asked to change the payee for electronic transfers and was assigned a new client number.
Otherwise I haven’t noticed any changes to the service, the website or commisions charged. I still pay $9.95 a trade with no minimum account balance, and I haven’t received any information from them regarding a “low activity fee”. Hope I didn’t miss it in the mail!
Scotia are now taking away the etrade.ca RSA keys…….this blows
I’d like to echo Dale McSween’s question regarding their bonds. What does their inventory look like and (dare I dream?) do they make their commissions on bond sales more transparent? I rather dislike the practice of “baking in” the commissions into the price, but I also realize that practice is prevalent in the industry. It just makes me feel ill after I buy a bond and then I see the face value of it – if I were to sell it back. It makes me feel like I really got soaked BAD on the commissions.
It sounds like such a massive pain to buy GICs in iTrade with the telephone method. Ugh…
Three things I don’t like about Scotia Itrade (I have most of my net worth in Scotia Itrade accounts):
1. They won’t let me fax things in to their office when I want to change or upgrade things on my accounts. They still insist on letter mail for most things.
2. Their staff are poorly trained and very bad at explaining how things work (ie. I applied for put option selling 4 times and called 8 times before they told me why I was getting refused).
3. They have dramatically increased their margin lending rates, leading me to review my risk management strategy and my arbitrage spreads and radically de-leverage my positions, triggering capital gains that I don’t necessarily want.
I’ve been with eTrade/ScotiaTrade for about 5 years. So far I’ve found them to be great for my needs. Their over-the-phone help is definitely lacking but I haven’t needed it too much. When the market was on fire 2002-2007 I was trading heavily and so my commission fees were set at $6.99. Since the market blew up I’ve been trading lightly (and I’ve switched to a passive investment strategy), but they’ve either not noticed or don’t care and my fees have stayed the same. This makes rebalancing every quarter extremely cheap! No other major complaints or compliments for them.
I too have an account because it was opened on my behalf by my employer. My primary trading account is TD Waterhouse. I find ITrade a little confusing to get around in comparison but I do like the electronic fund transfer option. I only keep my company stock with Itrade and will stick to TD.
for the mutual funds, are there fees to buy into them and are they only limited to Scotia funds or can i get funds from anywhere.
I used Tradefreedom for a while, but they had a $35 fee each time you bought into a mutual fund. Is that still there?
I closed down my Itrade account earlier this month precisely because of the high currency conversion fees. They won’t give you an actual quote on how much the fees are and can charge you whatever they want since it’s settled at the end of the day. I’m not saying it’s fraudulent, but the conversion fees are very high and it felt like I was being scammed.
Everything else was fine from my perspective, although I wasn’t doing anything very complicated.
@Dale: Scotia iTrade seems to have a pretty good inventory on bonds. Looking at yields, a 5% Canada maturing on 01-June-2014, yields 2.606% on iTrade. RBC quotes the same bond at 2.512%. Seems to me that iTrade has better pricing but I could be wrong.
@Phil: No bond pricing is as obscure as ever.
@Jonathan: My experience with iTrade customer service is limited but the two CSRs I spoke to yesterday were helpful and knowledgeable. Shows how you can’t draw conclusions from a small sample set.
@sid: I checked iTrade and they offer over 3200 mutual funds. Most of the big names are represented on the list. The website says there are no commissions to buy / sell mutual funds but broker-assisted trades are charged $45 and note the 1% fee mentioned in the post.
@mj: Yes, the foreign exchange conversion fees are very high. Depending on your investing profile, a 1% extra fee can easily wipe out savings from commissions for certain investors.
I wonder if I can interest some readers in helping me research bond pricing. I have access to iTrade and RBC Direct. Would readers with access to BMO, TDW, CIBC, Scotia, QTrade etc. be willing to help me look up prices on a list of bonds and publish it here?
I am an I-Trade user. I switch from TD Waterhouse to I-Trade 2 years ago. I am using a Technical Analysis platform (Decision Plus). I was paying over $50/months for the service. E-Trade offers a special promotion for investor that agreed to transfer at least $50,000 to I-Trade, the Decision Plus service is free. A savings of over $600/yr. Decision Plus provides me with neat Technical Analysis feature. I used them to assist me in doing investment (not trading) decision. I also appreciate the following features from I-Trade:
a. margin rates are presently one of the best (prime + 1.25%). Better than RBC, BMO, Disnat and TD Waterhouse at 3.5%;
b. E-transfer is easy to use and quick for transfer of fund from and to my BMO banking account
However: There is some drawback investing with I-Trade:
a. spread taken by I-Trade on USD transaction compare to RBC, BMO and National Bank discount broker are much higher. I do not recommend using them for US transaction in Cdn currency. Expensive if you own US stock in your self direct RRSP account.
b. Any changes to an RESP or RRSP account is tedious and difficult to implement. Many paper forms must be filled and mailed to the main office in Toronto. I do not recommend them for RRSP and RESP account
As long they provide me with the free services I will keep my account with them. However I am tracking the spread on US transaction.
I have just switched my accounts from iTrade to TD for a couple reasons.
1) While they do wash rates on trades of US securities in an RRSP, it is not automatic. I have to call in the next day to tell them to do it manually, and I always have a nagging doubt that it will be done wrong. One time they accidently removed money from the account instead of adding it, which was fixed after I called.
2) Some US stock orders cannot be implemented online. I am instructed to call a trader to do it. That is inconvenient if I want to do a limit trade on a thinly traded stock, as I can’t tell if the order has been filled. I ended up just avoiding purchasing such stocks. Annoying.
These two points highlight my preference of doing my investing online, not on the phone. Some of the customer service reps are excellent, some are not.
[...] Canadian Capitalist did a review of Scotia iTrade discount brokerage. [...]
I have an account with iTrade for the same reason you mentioned: my employer’s stock purchase plan. It has been moved to the US eTrade.com which presents a major disadvantage – there’s no option for electronic transfer to a Canadian bank!
Dan: Can you tell me more about technical analysis that you are using?
I am using SMA200 and SMA50. So far it has been working well, since I am more confident about the overall trend. Any points or guidance is great.
I was a client of E*Trade for ten years prior to Scotia taking it over. A few months after that they locked me out of my account and refused me access to it even after I provided them with all the security information they requested. It took a couple of months to sort out the admistration mistake that they made. They refused to admit they had made a mistake and could not guarantee that it wouldn’t happen again. Needless to say, I no longer am a client and am happy with my switch to Investorline.
I’ve been with (E*)iTrade for about a year now. The account setup took a bit longer that I expected but nothing out of the ordinary. I had to call the customer service twice at some point back then, though, and one of the customer service reps was a bit condescending to me on the phone, when, as I realize now, I asked him a few very basic questions. But whatever..
The web interface is really basic, and don’t even get me started on the charts. They are so lame and primitive. But all in all, I’m happy with the service and at $6.99 per trade, there isn’t much to complain about.
The Scotia Capital analyst reports and daily market comments are appreciated as well.
Also, as I trade rather heavily they provided me with a free real-time quotes software. Again, the software is extremely basic, but it does the job, so no complaints here..
I noticed a sharp degradation of service of scotia trade comparing to itrade. First, you don’t collect any interest from the cash accounts for cash under 1 million. Second, the currency spread is not transparent and I just found out the spread is 2% 1 way. I really don’t like this high charge but I don’t know what the alternative is. I was extremely happen with iTrade but is disappointed to the new hidden fees and the less than enthusiastic customer rep. who seem to be supported the call offshore.
Once the bank is landing their hands to discounted brokerage, it reduces efficiency and competitions, and increase fee. I wish there is more competition in Canada
[...] Canadian Capitalist did a review of Scotia iTrade discount brokerage. [...]
I am a Scotia iTrade(and previously eTrade) customer for the last 6 years. I see that Scotia iTrade’s customer have gone from worst to bad.
Here is the scenario:
I sent in an application form for opening a TFSA a month ago. The instructions clearly say that you have send only the TFSA application if you are an existing Scotia iTrade client. If you are new to Scotia iTrade then you have to fill in the new account application form.
So I just sent in my TFSA application and received a mail back from them saying that my TFSA account cannot be opened stating that it is incomplete.
I called the customer service and they told that I have to fill in a new Account application even if I am an existing client of Scotia iTrade.
I told them that the instruction is not currently saying that. They didn’t care and kept on repeating the same reading from a script.
They failed to respond and is absolutely their operations are not optimal. There goes another business opportunity out of the Window for them.
Scotia iTrade Execs …please note and get your act together to keep your clients with you or loose your business and your job later.
Scotia iHate! should be their new marketing campaign.
I’ve been an Etrade customer for the last 10 yrs and I agree that customer service and policies have gone down since Scotia took over.
For TFSA, you have tons of paperwork to fill up and have to send it by mail, no fax.
For RRSP, if you get a severance package that you want to convert to RRSP ScotiaItrade, good luck, they have more requirements than the banks.
To top it all, they got my TFSA and RRSP cheques after 10 days in the mail (lost $ income), look at it, rejected for incomplete docs and return by mail again- another 10 days,(lost $ income) all without any call, email or follow up. Clearly very poor customer regard, inconvenient procedures and no care for business.
I agree… Scotia iHate is more like it.
I have been with Scotia iTrade since Aug. 2009. Their prices have come down, since reading some older reviews.
I am not happy with them at all. They’re not set up for THE ACTIVE trader no matter what has been said. The platforms they provide do not hold a candle to Royal Bank or Trade Freedom. They do not provide a stock ticker platform with live feeds for the TSX like their counterparts. They say one can access live quotes, but you literally have to jump through hoops to access them by researching each stock with a detailed quote from their “Quotes & Research” area of their webiste. Also ticker symbols disappear regularly from their web-based Scotia iTrade Market Trader ticker window. I was told this only support Java 6 and not higher. We are at Java 8 now. Their prices are competitive now compared to before, but that is about all they have to offer. They are definitely not for “The Active Trader.”
Correction on previous post, TSX was incorrect, I meant to say TSV-venture exchange. For those who trade with any level of activity on the Toronto venture exchange, iTrade does not hold a candle to Royal Bank or Trade Freedom. For the investor that intends to buy and hold, their prices are very competitive now, but for the active trader or day-trader they missed the bus big time.
I am a Trade Freedom customer using the trading platform the “Edge”, from the time on when Scotia bought Trade Freedom, the service has significantly deteriorated while in the same time Scotia has increased the fees across the board; the latest new fee they implemented is a $30.00 charge for the platform which used to be free with Trade freedom. At this time I am looking for another broker. Any suggestions?
I have been with E*trade for about 6 years but the mistakes have become so rediculus that I am moving to Questrade. Each year I deregister part of my rsp in kind to continue collecting dividends outside of rsp. The stocks tend to disappear into fictitious accounts, they get turned to cash etc. Being on the pro platform I couldn’t transfer my own money and the over the phone transfers were screwed up 92% of the time(I kept a log). The pro platform was linked to my margin Canadian account but they took the fee out of my daughter’s cash account and then sent an email to say they were going to sell her stocks because the account was margined. I tried to get her money out, they said it was in her name so it couldn’t be touched. I went off the pro platform to move my own money to be safe. A month later they took another $100 from my daughter’s account.
I could write pages and pages but needless to say I do not recomend them
Ok iTrade has really made me angry now. A few reasons
1. My personal and corporate trading accounts were separate logins and functioning fine with Etrade. Recently with the transition to iTrade, they merged my accounts under one login without any warning or my permission. I called them to explain themselves. There was no apology, and they stated this was routine procedure to prepare for switching from Penson server to the Scotiabank one. I didn’t know it was so obvious…
2. iTrade server seems to go down every once in a while. Doesn’t let you log on. It is currently down again, Monday, as of 2PM, likely won’t be fixed until 4PM. lol. So you try to call iTrade to get your trades done over the phone, but they didn’t install enough phone lines, so all you get is the busy signal.
3. Customer service reps are not very knowledgeable. If you are interested in doing even basic options, I would hesitate using iTrade as your broker. You could be disappointed when it comes time to get something corrected over the phone.
Anyway, I made the mistake of only having one discount broker. I think I’m gonna look into RBC. And too bad Scotiabank messed up iTrade. Because not only do I intend to slowly pull myself away from iTrade, I don’t think I’ll ever do business with Scotiabank.
I too have been having problems login into iTrade since the change last week-end.
So far, I went through 3 reps that couldn’t get the problem fixed until I stumbled on the “reset password” link where I had to input a phone number I had disconnected nearly five years ago when I had an eTrade account in order to be able to reset my password, among with other information.
Is that link new ? It wasn’t there on 4 days ago… they must have had so many problems they finally put it in instead of clogging their lines with callers that had the same problem.
When I logged back in, everything seemed to be in order, but this morning the system lets me log in, but account holdings have now disappeared, and the site tells me I need to have a brokerage account open with them to access this feature… wow.
I can’t imagine how it is for people who do this on a daily basis.
I’m not even going to comment on the busy lines.
I’ve been with Etrade/Itrade for over 10 years. Occassionally they would forget to credit my dividends or I would have login problems because their server was down or they would forget to remove the “hold” after 10 “business days”. (Calculate the interest you are missing on 30K over 2 weeks – then tell me you are paying “$9.99″ a trade). Anyway, I tolerated all that.
However, since last week. Service has dramatically deteriorated. First, their new system wouldn’t accept my login password which I’ve used for a decade. I had to change it. Now they’ve messed up my transfer links so I can’t transfer funds between my bank account and iTrade. Of course they won’t pay you any interest on positive cash balances.
Today I tried calling them 3 times to resolve the transfer link issue but I still couldn’t get through. If I e-mail them they say I should call!
This is a terrible brokerage. Don’t ever open an account here. Scotiabank took it over just to reduce competition. I’m sure people will be moving out in droves. Unfortunately there is not much choice in non-bank brokerages.
I’ve been using Itrade for 4 years, and service was OK. Now since last chance, I found that I have been charged the 0.02c/shares for all my transactions, a total amount of 12,000$ has been charged to my account and after 3 calls, only answer I could get is ‘We’re going to look into it’ !!!!!!!!! Can’t beleive it, anyone with the same issue ??
I’m hearing a lot of reports on iTrade’s conversion over to Scotia is not going smoothly. If you are an iTrade customer, I’d love to hear from you on (1) What problems are you encountering and (2) What’s iTrade doing to fix it ASAP. Thanks.
I HAVE TRIED FOR WEEKS TO GET INFO ON MY ITRADE ACCOUNT WITH NO SUCCESS!
IWAS A FORMER MEMBER OF ETRADE.
VERY FRUSTRATED!
RALPH
I have been awaiting an answer to email queries for over 4 days now. Nothing (despite the 24 hour response time avowed on the website and then the lesser 48 hour promise made in the automated response). I had stock certificates couriered to them 10 days ago now that have not shown up in my accounts. I am worried. I am unhappy. I feel underappreciated and underserved – this is big bank treatment all over again which is what i switched to etrade to get away from. I was a satisfied etrade customer for 5 years but I am switching as soon as this is resolved. I have heard Questrade and Investoronline mention in this thread. Any other suggestions or advices for an alternative out there…
A quick addition to the above: I made the above comments shortly after initiating a call to itrade and being put on hold. In total, i was on hold for 32 minutes. The rep was humble and apologetice and had obviously been beaten up in the last week by repeated angry calls during the transition. He initiated a case file, but was not able to resolve the issue.
Poking around online while waiting, i think Qtrade is the likely destination for my business. I’m also condsidering putting everything into giant wheels of parmesan cheese and keeping them in my basement – it maintains value in the face of inflation and, if things get really rough, can be eaten.
JKM,
Glad to see you’ve kept your sense of humour throughout your ideal. I got a kick out the image of huge wheels of parmesan in your basement.
I was lucky enough to leave ITrade before anything bad really happened. The names QTrade and Questrade confuse me, but after looking around google for a minute here, I see Qtrade is one of the best and Questrade is widely hated.
I recently switched to RBC Direct Investing, and I qualify for the Royal Circle, which offers a number of waived fees and access to their best customer service reps. I’ve dealt with them on the phone a few times, and so far they’ve been very capable, quite unlike my experience with other broker’s CSRs.
Here’s some details:
http://www.rbcdirectinvesting.com/joinroyalcircle/index.html
ATTENTION Scotia iTrade customers
Scotia iTrade, is totally FUBAR! I recently went through my transaction records and it appears Scotia iTrade has not been refunding my $9.99 commission on my transactions. It appears as if they refunded them on my first 10 trades after I opened with them in August of 2009. All the trades since them they have charged me $9.99 commission. I would not have even thought to look over this until I noticed a stock I purchased early in September for $1.00 a share and still hold, has the $9.99 commission still attached to it. I was told my first 100 trades would be free of ALL commission charges. As I am a daytrader I figured I would use that up fast. I did no notice the fine print on this offer, which is not evident on this promotional advertizement (upto 60 days). Nor did their representative upon opening this account make this stipulation clear.
I recommend anyone with an iTrade account review their records and transactions, as I have done recently to see if they were ever reimbursed for the $9.99 commission charges on their first 100 trades. For daytraders like me this can add upto $999.00. I would recommend like me, you phone them up and get them to review your first 100 trades or first 60 days of transactions.
On a scale of 1-10, I grade Scotia iTrade at 2. Not only do they use misleading advertizing, but their bean-counters can’t count worth a tinkers damn.
Remember to read the fine print, when you open an account, and keep an exacting record of all your transactions, because they sure as shooting can’t.
i have called several times and had to wait 30 minutes or more. i don’t have time so sit on a phone. i want my money out. I have not paid into this for 2 1/2 years, i don’t work for Trade Secret anyone and i wish to cash this in and be all done with iTrade. Please contact me soon. 1-204-571-1769
I am looking at opening a TFSA account for both myself and my wife with Scotia iTrade. I will be tranferring the money from ING where I currently have a TFSA saving account (just cash savings).
My intention is to buy stocks for a major canadian business and hold on to it, so light trading, maybe 3-4 times a year.
If anyone else is using iTrade in a similar way I would like to hear your experience, how long it took to get setup to the point where you have the stocks purchased, what minimum cash balance I have to keep in the account (if any), what fees are involved, what plan (software platform, etc) should I use with iTrade.
From my research done on Scotia iTrade website I understand I would not be subject to low activity fees and would pay CAD 9.99/transaction.
Thanks for your help.
does anyone know when scotia direct investing will switch to itrade? i have been holding off on trades b/c i have to pay 29$ i think…whereas with itrade i should be trading at 10$. its says “end of year” but i haven’t seen or heard anything and i don’t want to wait on hold for half an hour.
anyone know?
Whatever you do, don’t sign up for a TFSA with this lot. They’ve just lost mine, along with the 5000 dollar deposit. They make mistakes all the time. You can’t get through on the phone and it’s weeks before they get back to you by email. I’m out of the country and have spent more than an hour in total trying to get through to them, at my toll expense, to no avail. So who knows where my account, its money and outstanding orders may be lurking. Run fast, run far, to any other brokerage.
Time for a little accountability from Scotia ITRADE…Perhaps a group effort to report them to appropriate agencies?
Toby: Open a skype account and you can access north american toll-free numbers from overseas.
I too am overseas and have spent about 7 hours on hold in the last month (tracking down lost securities that were couriered to iTrade in early december). The problem is finally solved but only after losing patience with the customer service and demanding a supervisor on two occasions. In the first four calls i was given a rote assurance, then a case file, then my file was upgraded to some kind of urgent status and then more assurances. The first time i spoke with a supervisor he started with `lets do this quick, i was just about to leave for the day`. To my relief and frustration, he was able to find most of my lost securities immediately. Clearly there is some shortcoming with the c.s. personnel. Either they have no real access to solve the problems or they have no time to do it and are simply answering the phones to hand out platitudes and case file numbers.
The second tranche of missing stock were a similar story. After one month and finally blasting a c.s. rep until i got through to a supervisor, i finally have them. And now i merely need to make a decision between RBC (thanks Gene) and Q-trade.
My 2010 resolution is to get my money out of iTrade. They have totally used destroyed the experience with ridiculous processes and a poorly planned And atrociously executed conversion. Can’t go back to RBC because their interface is the worst I have seen plus commission structure does not appear to be automated. Thinking of QTrade or BMO. Does anyone have any advice?
Scotia Itrade formerly Etrade is a mess, and their customers are paying for it, literally with time and money. Hours! spent on the phone, myself included, back office blunders in handling of money and confidential client information. I pulled my account with them a month ago after they deposited my funds into ANOTHER clients account by mistake (I had to call to get them to reverse this). I know a client service rep who told me about their “clean desk policy” where they leave client bank account numbers, social insurance numbers everywhere and on occasion sending the wrong customer personal information about another client in e-mail. Also Scotia decided I wasn’t giving them enough commission at 28 trades per quarter at 20$/trade to qualify for their “reduced commission structure” of 9.95 per trade (excluding ecn fees- read the fine print). I looked around and ended up with Questrade (4.95/trade for 495 shares and 1 cent a share where the maximum 9.95/trade (greater then 1000 shares/trade).
Scotia Itrade is a compliance nightmare! IIROC should investigate this mess.
I was a 10 year happy customer with Etrade. I noticed service sliding downhill very soon after Scotia took over, but I tolerated it based on 10 years of reliable service. With their taking over backend brokering and subsequent system migration Dec. 5, Scotia has made a resonant statement. They have signalled openly and clearly that they are well beyond their competency now and have no idea how to handle the sputtering volcano that the backend system has become, nor the angry pitchfork and torch carrying mob waiting for up to 2 hours on the phone.
Problems too many to mention followed by an imploding customer service disaster, waxing to lots of online noise about class-action suits. Scotia iTrade is on tilt folks. Cool heads say get out while you can.
I’m out. My move to Qtrade is complete and I am so far, despite increased costs due to an expensive ECN policy, a happy camper. Customer support is AWESOME! Easy to contact, actually knowledgeable!, and very motivated to help. I keep pinching myself! They even paid my transfer fees. Their website is superior in some ways, maybe not as sophisticated in others, but remember that the best of the iTrade website was inherited from Etrade, and Scotia was already showing signs that they where unable to maintain it properly.
Anyone considering iTrade as their online discount broker should seriously consider alternatives. Existing iTrade sufferers would be wise to do the same. There are so many excellent options!
Currently on hold waiting for iTrade Customer Service again. So lots of time to stew and vent…
I am calling back to resolve an issue that was supposed to be resolved last week. I have options in one account that are expiring the system says I do not have trading priviledges. Option trading works in my other margin account so it mystified me when the CSR told me I would have to wait 3 days for a confirmation that I can trade. Its been 5 days and no call. Today they appear not to have any knowledge that I have a pending issue AND its not resolved.
I wanted to open a supplemental cash optimizer account and they told me I have to mail in another app!!! This is pretty backward!! Also unable to see these same accounts in my easy transfer list so I can transfer my money OUT of iTrade…..
I cannot imagine how anyone could screw up a conversion so badly especially one that involves peoples money. It appears that there was no quality control or testing done. Every issue appears to be a surprise. Will need to look into IIROC body mentioned by Dave. Think its time to complain.
As I’m typing this, the iTrade website is down, impossible to access. An idea with a class-action suit is starting to look more and more appealing with each passing day..
Yes… as i am writing this I can’t login. Phone line has had busy signal all morning. Earlier I was able to login, however, I got the msg “This feature is not available at the moment” when I tried to access my account. Terrible.
Yes, the itrade site has been down all morning.
I clued into it when I didn’t see the email confirmation of a Stop Loss which should have kicked in this morning. Couldn’t log into the itrade site. Phone lines are clogged. I still have no idea of whether the stop loss order when through or not.
I was one of the lucky ones in the conversion last month, down to the penny. However, this is testing my patience. I need a reliable broker, at all times.
I initiated a transfer out from i*trade on Nov. 14 2009 because of all the mistakes, losing money, accounts disappearing, too long of a list to name them all. I was afraid the changeover would even make it worse. I was able to get some of the stocks out but they kept the rest saying it was too close to the changeover. So I reinitiated the transfer but since then a dividend for $100 has come to the new broker and been taken away 9 times. As of today i*trade says I owe them $200 but they have taken $300 from my new broker and $200 from my bank account. I guess that is i*trade math. I only dream that I will be rid of them some day but it is a pipe dream. I like the idea of class-action suit if for nothing else other then just get my frigging money out of there and put it somewhere safe. By law funds have to be transferred in 2 weeks. I am now over 2 months.
Update:
iTrade site is back up. My stop loss order, which should have excuted around 10am, didn’t. That leads me to believe it wasn’t just their website, but the underlying trading platform that was down. Not good.
Lines are still clogged… what else is new.
Feeling a bit better. Talked to a CSR called Omar who was calm knowledgeable and understanding. Next day my issues were all fixed as promised. And yes I have moved any cash I could OUT.
Something new I noticed is the options values do not appear to update through the day (think the day before value is kept). Hoping this is not a permanent feature caused by the conversion.
Overall, Scotiabank made a very good move in purchasing ETrade but has really screwed it up by applying its archaic processes and back-end processing. So the challenge is to find an alternative broker with reasonable processes and a good interface which does not charge $30 a trade. Canada really needs more alternatives for DIY investors.
I was a satisfied eTrade/iTrade customer since 2006 until the weekend of Dec. 5-6, 2010. They lost/misplaced my money, years of savings, in their disasterous conversion that weekend!
I’m at my wits end with these guys, I can’t afford a lawyer because they lost my money! My net value shows $900.00 or so yet I can clearly see in the transaction history that my last deposit was $2000.00 in November.
I used to own 8 mutual funds, but now my account is only showing 4 and all on margin!
I’ve written over 15 e-mails to these guys and after several days I get a reply that everything seems to be in order. When I call their customer service department I get stuck stuck on hold for 30 minutes to speak to some poor lady in India, who’s making peanuts to let furious customers vent on her while she gives them false hope that her bosses are resolving this gigantic f*ck-up!
If anyone from iTrade reads this posting, please forward it to the most senior person in your company that you can; your customer service dept. is worthless.
I don’t know what to do. Can anyone give me some advice?
Watch for me on the news in about a weeks time, I’ll be the old, fat, balding guy wearing nothing but a sandwich board that says “I was raped by iTrade!” blocking traffic in the busiest intersection in Toronto during rush-hour traffic!
AVOID THESE INCOMPETENT @SSHOLES LIKE THE PLAGUE!
and, do your fellow man a good turn by spreading the word . . .
BK – Id still missing 40k if i hadn’t gone crazy on the phone and demanded to talk to the girl’s supervisor in what must have been a scarier than normal phone call for her. Scream, yell, swear and threaten until you get through to someone above. The CSR’s who are answering the phones do not have the proper access to the system that they need to fix any real problems – they are answering what questions they can and simply giving out case file numbers for the real problems. I feel bad for them, it must be hell walking into an 8-hour shift of the abuse they are surely suffering everyday. But it’s your life savings – do it. I think the people who can really fix the problems are few and are swamped by a tidal wave of serious screw-ups.
On the upside, the wait times were down to a mere 30 minutes the last time i called (yesterday). On the downside, they don’t seem to be able to help me with a proxy vote which should be a simple phone call.
In the process of moving everything to RBC. In case anyone out there is wondering, RBC will cover your transfer fees (up to $500), but you need to ask them about it specifically.
If you trade option with Itrade, check your trades. They now charge $55.00 (rounded) for an Assignment. This is a $9.99 increase and now makes them the highest of the discount brokers
BNS has really screwed up Etrade. I don’t know if they’re not funding it or what but customer service is in the toilet. The interface is terrible so we are forced to call in anything other than the simplest option orders. The guys answering the phones are either incompetent or pretend to be – very frustrating, when trying to place a simple option spread order. The web site goes down for hours at a time and entire option chains quotes mysteriously disappear permanently (anyone look up RUT lately?). Not to mention that fun weekend in December during which they changed a LONG call position to a SHORT position out of nowhere forcing me to deposit 20K to cover a margin call which should never have been issued in the first place.
Going forward my “core” holdings will be at RBC and I’m going to optionsxpress for option trades, at least you can enter orders directly without being forced to talk to rude, slow and sometimes stupid customer service reps. A sad end to a 10 year old Etrade account, oh well.
Like a typical Canadian bank, they’ve laid-off a lot of their experienced employees (the highly paid ones) to cut costs. That was obviously the reason for the merger of Scotia McLeod, Etrade and Trade Freedom. Now they are advertising heavily for new customers to make up for the ones they lost. As they say, there is a sucker born every minute!
I was a e*trade customer since 1999. It was fabulous when I used it, I stopped trading since 2002. I plan on getting back into using itrade. Just transferred 70K into the account. Reading all these posts is making me nervous. I am going to keep my fingers crossed for a few months, but If I see any of the issues mentioned i’ll be closing the accounts for sure
CC: Did you actually get to complete the research on Bond prices? I can help looking up prices through TD.