Marc B.
Easily by far the worst brokerage I…
Easily by far the worst brokerage I have ever used. Hidden fees can easily amount to $35-$50/mo. Customer Non-Service is extraordinarily poor, so much so that I renamed them PoorChoice Trade in my 5+ years with them. Regardless of how much you trade or don't trade per month/quarter you will still be charged a minimum, i.e. either collected as trading fees or as a charge per month as well as another possible hidden charge per quarter. (And monthly statements are nearly impossible to attain online). I've used nearly a dozen brokers throughout these last 20 years - usually 3 at a time for availability and/or as a backup if one or the other hadn't been available. (My favorites tend to be InteractiveBrokers & ETrade [I do miss OptionsHouse]).
Response from ChoiceTradeJun 16, 2020
Dear Mr. Belisle, We truly regret your frustration and disappointment. For over 20 years, ChoiceTrade has strived to provide trading solutions that meet the needs of our customers and we have always been at the forefront of the industry – eliminating trade fees on listed stocks a full year before the competition. Additionally, our options commissions have consistently remained among the lowest in the industry. Currently, at $0.40 per contract with no trade fee, our options commission is approximately 33% lower than most of our larger competitors and, with a monthly commission cap of $50.00, options trades are commission free after the first 125 contracts in the month. This represents a tremendous savings for our frequent options traders who regularly surpass this amount within the first few days of the month. That is a significant savings over Interactive Brokers and ETrade (and most other online brokers in the industry). Regarding other fees, for individual and joint accounts, inactivity fees are waived if you perform 5 trades or more in a calendar quarter. As an entity account, your account had a higher threshold trading requirement to be waived, however, it is waived when achieved. As a long-time customer, we would certainly have worked with you to meet your trading needs if you had reached out about this by speaking to our representatives and/or supervisors. Our goal is always to make our services work for our customers. Regarding, monthly account statements, such documents are available through online access. Admittedly, our change of clearing firms dictated a change in the way such information is retrieved, however, it is always available to you 24 hours a day. Additionally, our online portal access with our clearing firm allows all underlying data to be downloaded in CSV format for all transactions. If you would be willing to speak to one of our supervisors directly, we are sure we can work with you to resolve all your concerns.