Interactive Brokers Reviews 7

I converted Euro to USD to buy US-stocks. 1 entire day after I converted it Interactive Brokers claimed that the conversion was not finished and there it was handled as I would have buy a stock without having enough funds. That means that Euro was automatically converted to USD but to a REALLY bad conversion rate. To avoid those auto-conversion rates which are basically a scam i was told that I have to manually convert the money which is exactly what I did. It also displayed that I had no more EUR but USD instead lol. The system still handled the situation as I would have no EUR and screwed me over.

Avoid these amaterus at all cost. This is the worst online broker I have ever worked with. As a fund manager I have worked with 40 brokers and nobody has such bad systems. It takes 5 months to onboard, a task that takes max 7 days with any other broker. IBK systems are contradictory, they delete documents, their compliance staff is untrained and outsourced to some island in Indonesia, so no-one speaks proper english. I do not know how they can get a License in the US. AVOID THEM AT ALL cost. Its a disaster all around!!!

Their processes for moving money in and out are incredibly frustrating. It feels like they hold onto your funds for far too long while dragging you through unnecessary steps. The platform is also hard to navigate—it’s not easy to track your funds or get clear answers to basic questions like what your dividend was or what rate was applied. After attempting to fund my account, the money disappeared into limbo, with no sign of it being credited or refunded. Luckily, I came across the image in my profile and got the help I needed to sort it out.

Cheap platform, and loads of trading options, but customer service really needs to improve: been sitting on the phone and in live chatroom for 20 minutes and still have not reached an operator. There should be quicker responses for higher tier clients.

Extremely bureaucratic processes for transferring money both in and out of their account during which time your money is held by them. Their user interface is also confusing and it is often very difficult to see exactly where your money has gone. Basic questions like "how much was my dividend?" "what FX rate/commission did I get?" "how much WHT was withheld?" or "what were my capital gains/losses?" are all extremely difficult to answer.

EDIT: Interactive Brokers have been sitting on a substantial amount of my money for over a week now after I tried to transfer it into my account and was met with a mountain of bureaucracy that has essentially stopped me from both having the money appear in my IBKR account and also getting it refunded!