And yes his obsequious fawning is annoying. Does he really think anyone’s going to buy that? Let alone anyone’s who’s actually had to deal with their ignorant and outride rude “customer service” team?! What a joke. Face it Scotia you blew it.

We’d like the opportunity to speak with you directly regarding these issues, but unfortunately have no way of contacting you. Please drop me an email with your contact information for us to discuss and regain your trust.

I look forward to hearing from you.

Thanks again,

- Nabil | nabil@scotiaitrade.com

Regarding Scotia’s recent website updates. Some of the changes were ok BUT some of the changes destroyed what was previously a useful web platform at Scotiabank. Clearly not well thought out. I’ve spoken to staff and the office of the president and they are getting alot of complaints. Change is one thing, but change making things worse!
Specific examples, not just involving scotiabank but also scotia mcleod direct investing select service.
1. Use to log in and have a ONE page summary of all accounts. Due to their formatting mine is now FOUR pages. I have to scroll to see all accounts. Part of the problem is they now report a line for CAD, US etc We have 2 moneymaster accounts, a visa, 8 brokerage accounts (2 tfsa, 2rrsp, resp, 2 cash accts).
2. SMDI will be transitioning accts to itrade ~ March 2012. I have been a select customer for years. Now when I call I rarely get the select desk and ROUTINELY calls take 5-10 minutes to be answered vs 1-2 minutes in years past. UNACCEPTABLE service level. JD Powers ranked SMDI & Itrade at 2 out of 5 stars in 2010. With the recent changes I’d have trouble giving them 1 star. BMO investorline ranked 5 stars, TD and Royal were above SMDI/Itrade.
3. On the brokerage side, use to be able to sweep dividends monthly into the BNS 357 money market since subsequent purchases only had to be 50.00. Nov 1st they increased the sub purchase amount to 1000.00!!! That meant leaving cash earning no interest until it built up to the 1000.00 amt now! No alternatives.
I just got a newsletter (most people don’t have time to read or will miss the info) but I noticed at least thru SMDI they have changed the sub purchase amt back down to 100.00. So in less than 3 months they went from 50 to 1000 and now 100. Maybe they listened to the po’d customers and reconsidered but most people who were resigned to the stupid increase effective Nov 2011 won’t likely notice the reduced limit.
4. I just went to do a trade at SMDI. I used to be able to put in the trade order, and have settlement instructions to sell BNS357 mm (where cash was parked) proceeds to cover the stock purchase. Not anymore! Now you have to GUESS how much the stock trade will cost, sell the mm, wait for it to settle in a day or so, then you ‘hopefully’ have sold enough to do the stock purchase. Trader I spoke to said the rationale was that they don’t have to take the time to sell the mm to cover your stock purchase and you benefit from a lowered commission. EARTH TO SMDI…it doesn’t matter how low the commission is when you put up barriers to customers submitting and executing trades! The bank has taken a narrow view and seems to miss that they were making money in other departments ie mutual fund
Scotia you dropped the ball when you integrated itrade and now you’ve dropped the ball with the website updates and other changes. Instead of making the online experience smoother you have complicated it for many of us!

I’d like to take this opportunity to share our account setup and some of the ways to avoid any potential foreign exchange conversion. You can have your cash/margin accounts denominated either in Canadian currency, U.S. currency, or both currencies. If the order instructions entered does not match the currency of your account, you’ll receive the following alert message: ‘This Trade will be Converted to the Currency of Your Account’. At this stage, you can click Change Order to review your initial instructions and to re-enter the order in your USD account to avoid any potential foreign currency conversions.

If you wish to proceed with your initial order instructions and acknowledge the alert message, a trade can be placed and the foreign currency conversion will be applied to the transaction. The actual conversion rate to be charged is not fixed until late in the trading day. For more detailed information on currency conversion, please visit, https://www.scotiaitrade.com/helpcentre/lcmmmbi3.shtml.

Please note that any loan in a CAD/USD margin account is collateralized by the stock, and if the value of the stock drops sufficiently, the account holder has the opportunity to either transfer more cash, or sell a portion of the stock to satisfy the account margin requirements.

If you have an account denominated in one currency and wish to add the other or would like us to investigate a trade, please contact our Customer Support team. We’re here to help and we’ll be happy to assist you. Feel free to contact me directly [nabil@scotiaitrade.com] with your questions or concerns.

We look forward to the opportunity to win back your business and to serve you again.

Thank you,

-Nabil

Thank you very much for the information you provided, it is very much appreciated. I’m sure things will start looking up for you now that you moved from Scotia i-trade…what a nightmare Scotia that was.. The day I moved my account out from Scotia, I felt like a huge weight was lifted from my shoulders..

Good luck with your trading m.n. and again, thank you very much for your input. Take care.

Sincerely,

Vince

I don’t know if you can open a U.S account or not but if you can and you trade options try option house. They have two types of charge program

which you can choose your self one for 5 dollars a trade and another for $8.50 a trade and the good thing about is they only charge 0.15 cents per contract.

Unfortunately we pay too much in canada since as soon as a competitor comes along with cheaper prices they immediately buy them out and raise the prices so lack of competition always means paying more and the government doesn’t care neither since they are partner to the thief’s. the more they charge the more taxes they pay or that is the idea.