politics of trading--how to lodge complaint vis broker?

[Tasuki]

Hello,
From time to time, all brokers screw up. I've been told that there are official channels through which individual traders can lodge complaints about brokers' malfeasance, but I'm not sure what those channels are. I am starting this thread in order to ask our Traders Lab community if they know what to do when a broker messes up. If you know for sure what to do, please reply here.

I decided to start this thread because Tradestation has been charging customers inappropriately for data services which the customers don't actually recieve, in direct contradiction to their own rules. This is not as seroius as complaints about trading violations, so I'm not sure if:
a) this is the sort of problem one should complain about, or,
b) to whom does one complain about such a violation?

In a sense, charging customers for data they don't receive is just as much a monetary issue as not filling a buy stop order, but I think that these two issues are percieved differently. So, my questions to anyone who knows would be:
1) to whom would one complain for direct trading errors (e.g. stop orders not being hit)?
2) would the appropriate authority be different for stocks vs. futures vs. options vs. Forex?
3) are complaints about data feed errors directed to the same authorities or should one complain to some other authority (and whom would that be?).

If there are other issues I've left out here, please address them here. Knowing where and when and to whom one should complain is a serious issue, and Traders Lab should (IMHO) have this information available for its members.

Good (and error-free) Trading to you all,
Taz

[brownsfan019]

Taz,
I've been lucky and not had many issues in my time trading.

In terms of broker error on the trade side, the steps I would suggest are:
1) Informal inquiry to the broker (expect fluff)
2) Formal complaint to the broker's compliance department
3) Formal complaint to the proper authorities (depends on what instrument being traded. For example, the NFA governs futures. The SEC for stocks/options. The NFA can help as well in some forex cases.)

Keep records of all correspondence and only communicate in written fashion. Tell the broker to put all answers in writing.

From there it's a matter of how far you want to push it. In a serious matter, contacting a securities lawyer is next.


And as for data errors, I would simply suggest getting a new data provider. There are so many outs for the vendor with the agreement that you agree to that it's really much easier to get new data. And if need be, a new broker in the process. I was having a major issue with DTN data at one point that after spending MONTHS going round and round with them it was just easier to find something new. The one thing I learned about data issues is that every party can point to another party as the one at fault that you will never really know what the issue is - broker points to data feed company who points to the exchange who points to YOUR ISP who says their stuff is fine so it must be someone else's fault.... You'll end up doing this -

[thrunner]

	Quote:	Tasuki
	Knowing where and when and to whom one should complain is a serious issue Taz

This is the guy you want

Salomon Sredni
Chief Executive Officer, President and Director, TradeStation Group

Chief bean counter; seriously, they are mostly accountants.

[Tasuki]

	Quote:	thrunner
	This is the guy you want Salomon Sredni Chief Executive Officer, President and Director, TradeStation Group Chief bean counter; seriously, they are mostly accountants.

Thanks, thrunner. You know, the funny thing is, they were giving me the runaround, telling me first that they didn't have a problem, then they switched to saying that they couldn't fix the problem...then I threatened to take the issue to the NFA, and all of a sudden, their demeanor changed. It was as if I'd just brought into the conversation a very hungry Bengal tiger. Their very next words were, "Excuse me, let me see what we can do to fix this." I waited for five minutes on the phone, and someone in authority came on the phone, apologized, promised to have the problem fixed as soon as possible, and indeed, I found that this morning when I fired up my Tradestation, all the issues with data feed that I'd been complaining about had been magically resolved. I should add that I had caught them dead to rights, and I had previously emailed them the proof they needed, so it was not like they could squirm out of it. They just didn't want to bother fixing their computer glitch, but the mere mention of "NFA" changed their minds, and in a hurry.