Interactive Brokers
Reviews and Complaints

As someone deeply invested in the world of finance, I understand the importance of choosing the right platform for your investment journey. Interactive Brokers LLC has garnered a solid reputation among users, offering a comprehensive range of investment products and services. With a strong capital position and automated risk controls, Interactive Brokers prioritizes the security of both the platform and its clients. While some users have highlighted minor issues with customer service and technology, the overall consensus points towards a reliable and efficient trading experience. Whether you're a seasoned investor or just starting out, Interactive Brokers provides a global platform with competitive pricing and a wide array of trading options. Dive into the world of finance with Interactive Brokers and take the next step towards achieving your investment goals.

Interactive Brokers has subsequently withdrawn a total of $47,984, which represents my initial deposit and the return on investment of over $100,000 that was generated over an extended period of trading. Despite my requests, they refused to provide any explanation or issue a refund, even a partial one. This has been an exceedingly unpleasant experience, and I consider it to be the worst encounter of my life. In order to express my dissatisfaction with this company.

Horrible Customer Service I have ever seen anywhere in the World of any type of business not only Brokers..

It took literally hours to get to a representative to speak to. I am not sure if the issue has been resolved yet. False emails were sent stating that I had been contacted multiple times regarding the issue to be resolved. Despite providing papers asked for and proof of foreign residence, I was taxed at US rates and monies deducted from my account without my permission. And I was threatened with a 28% penalty rate. It seemed like. the people running this site are interested in making money out of the investors. But not running a quality investing site (like *** but covering their own [censored] while making money for themselves.

Over a month to crate an account. Held my funds. Still no account access. Customer support blatantly ignored me on the live chat. On phone for over an hour and still haven't talked to anyone. I feel sorry for the people who have lots of money tied up in this scam of a company. Absolutely unacceptable for a financial institution. I know if I had much more in this account, I'd be driving to the head office to TAKE my money back. OVER A MONTH TO OPEN AN ACCOUNT! Don't fund your account before approval. They say it makes approval faster, but it just holds your funds for a month. You could have 2x the funds by the time your account gets opened. And hope you have no issues in the future, because there's is NOBODY at IB to help you.

Shortly after joining Interactive brokers and transferring in $1500 to get started, I lost online access to my account. There is NO support by email or chat if you don't have access to your account. Calling them on the phone is beyond frustrating at the wait time for a human is 20+ minutes. And getting a human a few times after extended wait was only rewarded by being hung up on. They started charging my never used account $20 a month and after 2 years of disuse and no statements or contact I found this out by spending 47 minutes on the phone and recovering my account. Somehow my $1500 is now only $640 after doing no trades and never agreeing to or being told about a $20 monthly fee for an account I was locked out of. I DON NOT RECOMMEND THEM!

I am a previous *** Investing account holder and was forced to move over to Interactive Brokers. I have been on the phone and online for hours trying to get either an account open or my money and have gotten no where. The people on the phone are very knowledgeable but the fact that I have to apply to a company that took over another companies accounts is ridiculous. This is the biggest waste of time. If this company required an application for the *** Investing customers, they should have a much easier application process for customers. The whole application process took me over an hour and when applying as an LLC, requires SO MUCH personal information for each person in the LLC. As soon as my application is approved, I will be liquidating and moving else where if I cant find a better brokerage before then.

This brokerage firm will fail you technically and within a customer service context. The latter is the most egregious problem is the latter. Considering that this company is holding so much of your money it is unconscionable that their customer service is so poor. Their phone wait times are unbelievable. 30 minutes would be good. One hour is more normal. Today I waited two hours and 5 minutest to receive a non-answer. I have been waiting to chat for an hour; not working. I have attempted to submit a web-ticket; also not working. This is not an isolated incident. I believe the other posts corroborate this. Similar feedback is present on Trust Pilot. In addition to customer service failures, this company's charts regularly do not load quickly, sometimes at all. It is common to be logged off for no reason. This is all extremely frustrating, but the real problem is the lack of customer service. With this company the customers have NO voice whatsoever. That in itself would be bad enough, but there is an apparent total apathy about all this by the company. Do yourself a favor and stay away from Interactive Brokers. Complaintsboard.com, do your job and highlight this misfit broker. Thank you

In mid January , I moved my brokerage account to Interactive Brokers LLC. I then tried to set up a new account with Interactive Brokers, as instructed by their team. During the account setup (joint account with my wife) stage, it rejected my wife's social security number as INVALID. It is not invalid, and I cannot complete account setup or access my transferred holdings/funds. I have tried numerous times to contact Interactive Brokers and no one ever answers the customer service phone line. I have sent messages to them and on one occasion someone from Interactive brokers called me. She tried to help me then said it was beyond her capabilities and transferred me to a line that after approximately one hour hold cut me off before answering. My many attempts since to get any help from Interactive Brokers have been unsuccessful. I am at a loss and wonder if this is all a scam as I cannot access my account funds at all and the amount is not insignificant.

I opened up a brokerage account with interactive brokers. I transferred some funds into their account to do trades. I linked my *** bank account to interactive brokers to deposit additional funds. I initiated a request to deposit funds into my Interactive Brokers account from *** bank. *** rejected the transaction and restricted my *** bank account. After a few other issues with the company closing out my positions, software bugs when trying to contact the company by web or mobile app and long wait times on the phone, i allowed all of my open options position to expire and I wanted to withdraw my funds. Initially I transferred funds from my *** brokerage to Interactive Brokers, and according to Interactive Brokers, I could withdraw funds back to the originating bank; which is *** in this case. I initiated a request to have all my funds transferred back to my *** account on 04/06 My fund request has been on hold pending verification and I cannot get my funds.

Refer to Inquiry #123 - ABC and Inquiry #321 - U8024479 It is not acceptable that Interactive Brokers does not respond to clients in a timely manner, even when verbally told a supervisor would be following up (as he was busy at the moment), as was said to me on 1/18/22 regarding no ability to transfer out funds in my brokerage account that were fully cleared. The reason I was given was there was a 44 day ACH hold put on the funds, and as I explained, the existing bank account no longer existed. There is no legal basis for this rule, or regulatory requirement tied to financial regulations or other regulatory requirements under US law and is arbitrary at its core. I have demanded immediate removal of this hold from my account, and plan to withdraw all funds from Interactive Brokers due to the complete lack of appropriate service from a broker/dealer that is expected and required. Interactive Brokers is intentionally taking advantage of clients, and providing no support to them to resolve issues which is unfortunate.

For pension plan 1 Interactive brokers have refused to give me back my pension money. This has been going on over 1 year, previously they refused to give me back my money, now they are still refusing to give me back my money. They keep creating impediments so they are holding my funds hostage, over $9,000. When told I will complain, they don't care, like they would rather you go and complain just so they don't have to deal with you. This is my second time complaining about them. They verify me at every stage which I pass, then prior to giving me back my money, they want me to provide other verification. I asked them to to a broker to broker transfer, they still refuse. They are holding my funds hostage. When I filed my original complaints, they knew that I would never give them my business due to the way they were treating me, is this their payback? Also going to go to FINRA and the SEC, but that's an old boys club, they look after each other, so they will probably rule in IB favor. Do yourself a favor, stay away from these *** keep your sanity.

I deposited 135,882.50 and immediately withdrew 120,000. Unaware, this withdrawal created a loan rather than a currency conversion. No clear message about the loan or interest was provided. As my account with IBKR remained open, I unknowingly accrued interest on an unrecognized loan. When withdrawing the remaining funds, I found only 2,000 left from over 14,000. Unbeknownst to me, some funds were converted to cover interest. Upon inquiry, IBKR directed me to their documentation without disputing the lack of clear communication or misleading website.

Interactive Brokers provides absolutely ZERO Customer Service for very important issues. This is people's hard earned money that they are dealing with. I placed repeated phone calls and was on hold for OVER TWO HOURS several times with no answer at all. I placed an opening deposit of $700 into the account on 1/6, and after not having my very important calls answered, I decided it would be better to stay with ***. Further information quickly led me to hear of MANY experiences of IB PURPOSEFULLY giving customers an extremely difficult time when they decided to withdraw their money. This made me quicly decide against opening the account with them. On 1/7 I requested an immediate return of my opening $700 deposit - back to the bank where it originated from. I have many screenshots of my account showing that the $700 was SETTLED AND AVAILABLE. But their website convenitenly would not allow me to withdraw it back to my bank - so i created a manual support ticket. AFTER LOGGING BACK IN THE NEXT DAY TO CHECK THE STATUS (today 1/8) THEY BLOCKED ME COMPLETELY from viewing my account, and gave me absolutely no indication as to the RETURN of my money. NOW IT SEEMS LIKE THEY ARE TRYING TO CLOSE MY ACCOUNT WITHOUT RETURNING MY MONEY

I have tried for several weeks to wire money out of Interactive Brokers (IB). $2.7M. Responses to requests are inconsistent and sparse at best. One one phone call with support, I'm told I can't wire my money to my account because the IB account is in a business name. They say a bank account for the same business name must exist. On a separate call, I'm told I just need to do a 3rd party wire transfer. I initiate the 3rd party wire transfer, provide all of the supporting documentation and never got a response after several weeks of waiting and following up. The bank account I'm trying to wire money to is the same account money was initially wired to IB from. Additionally, I've wired money to this account from IB one year ago. This was also a 3rd party wire transfer. Now, I just learned that the current wire transfer attempt was rejected weeks ago without my knowledge. I have no idea why and support has no idea why. In the meantime, I'm incurring charges of $100/day. As a result, I've lost nearly $2k due to IB being slow to respond and behave in a manner that is only beneficial to them. I *** All I want, is to get my money back in my bank account that it originated from. I'll provide necessary documentation but I can't even get IB to communicate with me.

Our brokerage account was previously with *** investing which was acquired late last year by Interactive Brokers. As of January this year we have been working with them to move our trading account over to the new platform providing several different pieces of documentation which has been complete for over a month now, however we do not have access to our funds, around $75,000, nor any of the account features that were articulated in any of the merger communication. Additoinally, I have reached out via chat several weeks ago to get this resolved as our account seemed to be stationary with no progress from Interactive Brokers, the agent was kind and was able to move things forward and informed us that there would be 1-2 business days before we would have access to our account, funds and investments. Those two days have come and gone, with no additonal communication and we still do not have access to our account, funds or investments. Overall we have been waiting nearly 30-45 days with no resolution and having attempted to use their chat function, phoning them many times (with no answer and nearly 40 minutes of wait each time before giving up) and most recently through their messaging system. As of today, we are also unable access the messaging system to follow up on our requests. As a result, we have had investments and trades that have not been completed and have resulted in a loss of income to our business due to Interactive Brokers, which continues with every day.

Hello, On 1/26/22, I placed an order for 8 options on 305 calls expiring on 1/28/22 with an average fill price of 5.47. This order was filled around 6:33 am PST. I then proceeded with an adaptive market order when the bid was around 5.60ish and it was not getting filled even though the bid continued to go up in value. I then canceled the order and set a limit order for 5.85. The bid was 5.85 and it should have been filled but it continued to not fill my orders. I continued to try market orders and limit orders, all of which the bid was above my fill price(5.47). I then tried calling the trading desk to close out my position and by the time I was done being on hold for nearly an hour, the trading desk sold my position for an $865 loss. I was then on hold for nearly another hour waiting to speak to someone about a compensation request. The lady who I spoke with was telling me how the exchanges were down and that many other people were having the same issue as I was. I am hoping I can receive compensation for the $865 loss back into my account. This was the exact message I sent to Interactive Brokers on January 26th, 2022 in order for them to compensate me for the money they basically took from me. They responded the next day asking for a copy of an audit trail, in which I provided. It is now March 4th, 2022, and I haven't received a response from them after I provided a copy of my audit trail, which clearly shows the orders failing to fill. If you guys want to stop acting like criminals, you guys can search up my ticket and take a look at all the proof that I provided and give me back the money you guys stole from me.

after closing all my positions on this brokerage account , I put in an on line requested to receive my funds via a check . everything seemed to go well and got the message at the end of my request with a big green check mark saying " request has been received and is being processed" . for next 2 wks I waited very patiently for a check that never arrived. I then called them , after a long hold for the live person told me that my check was on hold because of additional documents required for my identification, I was so upset because nothing on my initial on line request alerted me to any such requirement, while i waited for wks no one called me or sent an email. had I not called they would have very conveniently held my 40K + without interest while I would have simply kept waiting. The person told me to send -a copy of drivers license and - mail article showing my address I promptly sent the 2 shortly after that I received a call back saying, I needed to submit even more additional documents, this time _ a copy of my marriage certificate _ utility bill that was no more than 3 months old to me this was most bizarre , when taking my money very conveniently there were no such requirements. so it was clearly a stalling technique to keep my money for as long as possible. Also my address was already on my license copy so where was the question of further verification. But I still promptly sent them _marriage certificate copy _ utility bill copy _DMV renewal ( for address confirmation) _ copy of recent credit card statement ( also for address confirmation) Now it is 3 wks + from the time I first requested my money and till today I haven't heard back about the status, No email or phone call saying when I can have my money back. They are most unprofessional and I think they are running a scam

On Jan 14 my brokerage account was transferred to interactive brokers, from another broker that had been acquired. Since then we've run into nothing but trouble: - Can't get anyone the phone. - Useless chat help, can't handle complex question. - Questions sent to via their messenger system remain ignored. Based on my experience, and all the negative reports about them on this site, I now I fear I'm being scammed. I attempted to transfer money from an external bank to my new interactive brokers account, via bill pay 2 weeks ago. (I've used the external account, with the previous broker for years without problem.) - My external bank says interactive brokers has the money I transferred. - The status in my interactive brokers says interactive brokers has received it. - My money still isn't in my interactive brokers account. - I've emailed them multiple times, over multiple days, to understand the delay but they've ignored me. Two other family members also had their accounts transferred to interactive at the same time. They've experienced... - Unacceptable wait times of over an hour to get someone on the phone. - Operations don't know their own application or policies, they give different answers to the same questions. - The information given proves to be false. - They transferred our stocks over, then you are required to "apply for an account" to get access to your money. - To finish the application, you are forced to answer an unreasonable number of personal questions. - Since submitting their application, we've been inundated with phone solicitations. I've had investment accounts for over a decade, and 'I've never experienced anything like this before. Had I known, what I know now, I never would have let my previous broker transfer my account to interactive brokers. Based on my experience, since the transfer, I simply don't trust them. Dealing with interactive brokers creates too much stress. That's not something I want feel when dealing with a my money.

I have been attempting to open a hedge fund account with IB since October. I have promptly supplied all requested information to them. Over this time, I have gotten limited information from them. They have a website where you upload documents. After having all documents uploaded, I would check on the status after a few days and see that one or more documents are now missing. I would resubmit them. After having this occur multiple times, I finally began emailing them to them and uploading them. It still proceeded to happen. Some documents I have uploaded 6 or 7 times. I have asked for escalation multiple times and I have been told 3 times that the priority of my application is being bumped up. On one occasion I was told the reason for the delay is because my application got lost in February because there were a lot of applications that month. I work during the day but have spend hours on the phone trying to determine what is going on. The last call had a feedback form with it where I indicated my frustration and that this has been the since worst customer experience of my life. So far it has taken 7 months to get my account open. An email was sent saying they are investigating and again the priority has been bumped up. They indicated I would have information within a few days by a certain date. When that date passed, I again reached out and was told that they have no information because the area never got back to them and I need to wait another 2 weeks. When I asked how long this process should take, the response I got was "I cannot advise how long this will take. I can confirm our compliance team is aware of the situation and is currently reviewing the application." The worst part about this is that I have already deposited funds for other people because their web site indicated the process would go faster if money is deposited. That money could be making money all this time in the market, but is stagnant because my account is in a continuous state of review. I am not being told what is happening or why. I have requested escalation multiple times to no avail.

The first contact I made to Interactive Brokers was by post in December with a notification and the original copies. I sent this form and some additional information (proof of ID etc.) in January by post from abroad. Following some post delays, they confirmed (by email) reception of the form and required information in February. I received another email from the team on 16 March saying that they could not proceed but would be willing to do a transfer if I provided the form with the transfer details for this transaction on 18 March by scan of a form, sent by email as per the instructions from the team. Since that time, I have had no written news about the transaction. After a number of attempts, I was finally able to speak by phone to a person from the department on 24 April and was told that the transaction was in the administrative process of approval, and that it should be finished within the next 7 to 10 days. In this conversation, they did not confirm the high value. I did at least receive an email the same day with an extract of the account balance on the last business day before my mother died. Since April 24, I am unable to reach the team by phone (either no answer when transferred to this service or voice mail). I have written 6 emails to them since March on this topic with no answer. I have left messages on 2 occasions by phone to voice mail with the team to no avail. I have also spoken to service representatives from some other services at Interactive Brokers (such as the general services team or the client services team). These agents have also opened tickets with the team but this seems to have no impact. I see no way for me to get in touch by email or phone with the team and I have no news or evidence that my legitimate request has even been acknowledged. As the request has not progressed, I also re-checked the bank details for the expected transfer and noticed that I had given the incorrect ABA number. I sent a new form by email with the correct details on 21 May . Again, I did not receive any confirmation of this. I am now opening this complaint with the Complaintsboard.com because I see no evolution of this request. I'm also sending a registered letter today asking for a resolution. I think Interactive Brokers should have the appropriate staff and resources to deal with estate requests in an efficient and timely manner. They should have an appropriate service to respond to questions and requests by phone as well as by email and regular post.