Forum Archive Index - March 2000

[Mike Hudson <MHudson@placemakers.co.nz>]

I know this has been discussed before but perhaps somebody could give me
some advice.

I recently opened an account with E*Trade UK.  The procedure was a saga
which I would be pleased to elaborate upon if anybody is interested. The
process took about two weeks longer than it should have done and was very
stressful as I had a large sum (for me) in shares which was being
transferred to their nominee and disappeared in cyberspace for a while. To
be fair to E*Trade I believe that the problem was caused more by my UK bank
than by them although they do admit that their system is under pressure due
to the huge number of new accounts they are opening every month.. It all
worked out well in the end as the shares that I wanted to sell went up in
value by $20k in the meantime but it could have easily gone the other way
and I would not have been a happy camper.

I now want to open on line accounts in both Oz and the US. I know that there
are a heap of choices out there and I wondered if anyone has had any
experiences, particularly bad ones, which may be of assistance. I was
looking at Datek in the US (courtesy of Ben) and perhaps NAB in OZ. Or maybe
there are some sites with comparisons of the various on line brokers.

Cheers
Mike H




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