I won't recommend Questrade to any of my friends and I will ask my friends to transfer out their questrade account. Their webtrader sucks. It shows inaccurate transaction history. When I called in, they send me to the www.penson.com website to check the history. I understand that they may have some connections, but it sucks that you got inaccurate information from questrade website and you have to check another website for the history information.
Also, the webtrader interface is so ugly. The claimed 4.99 trading fee is not true. If you trade more than 400 shares, the price goes up to 10+ dollars. I used to use CIBC, and I found CIBC is much much better than Questrade, even though I think CIBC is not a very good brokerage as well. I really regret that I transferred out my CIBC account. I have to transfer back to my CIBC account even though I have to pay $120 for the transfer.
Questrade Sucks!!!
15 comments:
Agreed. You have to log in to different sites depending on what you need to do, which is really annoying, and each site is as bas as another. Customer support is non-existent. They really need to get their act together.
I have to agree. It took me two months to set up an account with them. They asked me to send in documents over and over again - even though I had already sent them, and they had already acknowledged receipt of them. WTF, if you can't keep track of basic documents to open the account, how the hell are you going to keep track of my money?
Bob B. 02.23.09 at 8:51 pm
I’m of a different mind about Questrade. I’ve had tens of $Ks in cash laying in my Questrade margin account for months, as I’ve been prudently staying away from holding much in the way of stock shares lately. Finally, I got around this week to checking on my cash and how much interest Questrade is paying me on all that idle cash. Their page says I’m getting paid “CAD rate - 2.5%” on balances up to $49,999, as long as I have a $10K minimum. But they don’t define “CAD rate”. Instead they offer a link to the Bank of Canada site’s home page, and you’re left to go searching… I never did find the “CAD rate” there. I found the Prime business rate, 3%, and thought maybe that was it. But a Questrade LivePerson chat rep. later told me no, CAD rate referred to the overnight bank rate. She said she believed it was currently 2%, which means I’m getting paid 0% interest on my cash! She confirmed that yes, I’m getting paid 0% “currently”. Outrageous enough, but what’s worse is they don’t come out and straighforwardly tell you this on their site.
In fact, someone glancing at the page might easily mistake the minus sign for a hyphen and conclude Questrade is actually paying them a generous 2.5% interest , much more than their bank savings account does - encouraging themn to keep as much cash with Questrade as possible! In reality, Questrade’s happy to hold large amounts of your cash, but refuses to pay a cent in interest on it!
I suspect Questrade is deliberately misleading people, trying to keep as many clients as possible ignorant of the fact they are getting ripped off, and receiving an unjustifiable 0% interest paid on their hard earned cash.
The rep I spoke with claimed rates change all the time, so they can’t post the specific rate! Yeah, right. They can update the value of my account balances daily, but not their interest rates? Sure.
By contrast, my other broker, Interactive Brokers, not only pays me interest on my cash ( 0.5%), but posts the figure plainly as 0.5% , as well as showing how they derive it: It’s the current LIBOR bank rate minus 0.5%. IB says the LIBOR is currently 1%. I suspect the “overnight bank rate” the Questrade rep. mentioned and LIBOR are one and the same. I also think she was guessingb (incorrectly) that that bank rate was 2%.
I’ve also come to despise Questrade and all other Canadian brokers and the TSX for the comparatively sky high commission fees charged on Canadian listed stocks, and usually on US listeds too.
When I buy US listeds via Interactive Brokers (a US Broker with a Canadian branch) , I typically pay a mere $1 US per trade! IB’s fees are higher on low priced stocks, as it’s based on the number of shares, but I can buy $10,000 US worth of a $35/share stock for $1!
I now like to daytrade, which entails multiple round-trip trades per day, and at $1 a pop commissions, daytrading US stocks via IB is very feasible. It is NOT feasible to daytrade TSX stocks though , because at $5, $10, $20 per buy or sell trade, the commissions mount up fast, and will soon wipe out any profits!
The TSX and Canadian brokers continue to gouge and insult customers by continuing charging high fees, and by paying 0% interest on your cash while obscuring this ugly fact.
Questrade is also less than candid about the extra “exchange fees” that apply above their advertised $4.95 or $9.95. You only get the base rate if you “add liquidity”. Whenever you place a market order, or place a limit order but hit the current bid or ask price, you are removing liquidity, and you get penalized for doing so by being charged “exchange fees”.
Only if you place a bid lower than the current “best bid” or place an ask price higher than the current “best offer” price do you avoid these extra fees.
Again, sneaky Questrade is not very up front in their ads or on their site about this stuff. I had to go to another broker’s site to find an explanation of removing and adding liquidity. But check your trading slips, and you’ll see lots of those extra fees, unless you know about them and place your orders in such a way as to avoid them.
Online stock transactions are not much more complicated technologically than are ABM bank machine transactions. There’s no reason why commission fees need to be more than $1 per trade. Anything more is indefensible gouging of customers by greedy exchanges and brokers.
i currently with questrade and i am going to transfer all my stock to othere place
sence i open acocunt i have nothing good to say about this company.
Questrade is still sucking, maybe harder than before. I have a case open with the federal Ombudsman since they are such incompetents and crooks and never want to send your money to you.
Add me to the list of unhappy customers. I can say with certainty that Questrade sucks to the core. I can't say anything about trading with them because I never made it that far, but here is an itemized list of suckness:
1. Byzantine, bloated website. The worst I have ever seen.
2. Terrible customer service.
3. Lack of information about policies. Procedures, etc.
4. Terrible sign up process.
I tried hard to make it work but the more I dix the more they wanted. Signed application form, must match ur ID; copy of ID; Void check; deposit; all in addition to signing up online. Wait, there's more... You need to sign up with their clearing house to view account balances, etc. That's right, that money you transferred to Questrade... you won't find a balance anywhere on myquestrade.
On and on. Questrade is just one big, bleeding open wound. Have I mentioned hidden trader fees?...
Do yourself a favor, don't bother.
Want to see more comments like these? Want to see some results from your complaints or suggestions? Let your voice be heard - www.questradesucks.com
I wish I had found this post sooner. Questrade's ECN charges are HIGHWAY ROBBERY for trading TSXV. I suspect they get a comission from their ECN.
I have just transferred out of Questrade to credential direct.
QUESTRADE SUCKS - they have messed up so badly it is costing me literally a few thousand dollars.
What Happened
They said they could trade my stock certificate. I sent it to them and then they say they can not trade it. It has been 2 weeks that I have been waiting for it and it is not back yet. All the while the stock price is dropping.
I am going to file an official complaint with the OSC against them.
the OSC can only get involved when there is a written complaint. You should all file official complaints and get them to fix their crap service.
questrade is ranked#1 by the Globe & Mail for fees,commissions and customer satisfaction. What can I believe?
Agreed. They were not letting me buy penny stocks, even though I had sufficent funds on my account. And I noticed that there are hidden charges. When I first bought some shares of a company and the price when up by 50 cents in the next couple of days. I sold them immediately. My account was missing almost a hundred dollars. What the SHIET??!!?!
Disagree they were very good in moving my LIRA over.
DO NOT SIGN UP WITH QUESTRADE. Here's why: I currently have a tax free savings account with Questrade and am trying to create an RRSP account by transferring my balance from another broker to Questrade. Well, that was a few months ago and they still haven't been able to make the switch. I contacted the other broker (TD) and they haven't even received the required forms yet, after SEVERAL MONTHS. Not only that, they LOST MY ACCOUNT INFORMATION several times in the past 8 weeks. Do yourself a favor, AVOID QUESTRADE
Be extra carefull or just stay away from Questrade!
If you are trading US stocks, make sure you converted them before satlement day if not day charge you interest forever or until you buy $US to close your "borrowed" balance. Does not matter if you have or hold 10 times more $CAN. They consider you borrowed their money if you do not convert from CAN to US if you buy US stocks.
Beware of Questrade!
Beware of their efforts to hide fees and interest!
Warn your fellow investors about their business practices!
Worst Brokerage Ever!
They do not care for customers, be wary they will try and steal money from clients ever which way they can!
Be Careful!
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