Tdameritrade does the wrong thing.

TDameritrade had a meltdown of their trading platform last Friday and it started doubling people's trades and they would then show up as a short stock. It happened to over 5000 people and I was one of them. The problem was that the computer cliche left me with 200 shares short of one of the fastest moving etf's on the market. The skf which is the double inverse for the financial stocks. The stock moved 65 pts in one session this week. I saw the stock on my screen and didn't know if I had made a mistake because I had no intention of shorting this stock in the last hour of the day on a Friday. I was down about 1700 when I figure out how to get it off my screen but Ameritrade says that I should have called first while I was watching the losses pile up. They toed the company line and had a variety of excuses that all seemed to say we are responsible for our mistakes even though they cost you a lot of money. The could have easily done the right thing and reimbursed me for the cost and for subsequent trades that all resulted from the their mistake but they choose to defend, deflect and bargain much like an insurance company. It is disgusting what these places get away and how much money they steal from clients. This was outright stealing because the trades cost me money and costs me time and concentration from trading. The should not be able to get away with this and a mistake of this magnitude should result in sanctions for this company. This companies are being allowed to toy with people lives with no accountability.

TDameritrade has a chance to do the right thing

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I refreshed the screen again and saw 2oo shares short of one of the triple short etf's. I had not intention of making a short trade at the time and for the past few weeks this stock had become increasingly difficult to borrow. Immediately, I began to recount all of my trades and knew I had not placed a short order. These etf's can move $10.00 or more in the matter of minutes and at times seconds and they do not afford anyone the luxury of calling customer service to check on the issue. -especially with about an hour left in the trading day- I had no choice but to cover the stock as it shot up over $9.0 costing me what appeared to be close to $2,000. However, when I covered the dollar amounts of gain and loss did not compute properly and I had no idea where I stood. The chaos that ensued on the screen was ridiculous and ended up costing me about $3500. This number could have been even higher because of what I missed while trying to figure out this mess. There is no way to know in situations like this but the numbers don't lie. They have record of where I stood before their screw up and also where I ended the day. They have a chance to do the right thing.

TDameritrade posts phatom trades near end of trading session

Friday afternoon was to be a relaxing end to a great week of trading for me. It has been a long couple of months and and even longer 2 years since we started seeing the effects of the current credit meltdown. I had one stock to sell and then finish the day early to avoid the end of day crazies that have tended to be the norm on Fridays. I had noticed the stock I was trading had swung back up into the green and sat down to sell. I looked at my balance and had seen that my it was not showing a gain of 500 but rather a loss of 1700 plus. I thought I was seeing things and frantically refreshed my screen. It was a nightmare because my balance kept shrinking for apparently no reason. (continued on next post)

TDAmeritrade has a Friday Meltdown that burns customers

TDAmeritrade is not known for its trading platform prowess. They seem to not be able to get there real time streaming down to a science. Usually about once a week the system has some minor cliche that would typically not be noticed if you were not trading actively. These are happening often enough that they have started the don't ask, don't tell policy for customer service. They aren't telling and they aren't asking if you were effected by their technical issues. Often trades will not cancel or they will freeze while they are pending. If you missed a trade and want to cancel often times you are unable to do so and instead have to wait for the stock to come back down have it be executed and then sell it again. This has happened many times the past month but they customer service department refused to acknowledge there was a problem. I would consider this a basic form stealing. Friday's was the far more egregious. More to follow in the next post.