Zecco.com GOOD or BAD HELP ME!!!!

Zako51 said: "[B]Can someone tell me if this is a good site to use[/B] THANKS"

LongArm said: "NewInvestor123 will tell you that they basically suck, not surprisingly. I say not surprisingly because they're relatively new and they're the first commission-free brokerage, so they're breaking new ground and there are kinks to work out. Will they work out the kinks? Will they survive at all? Who knows?"

newinvestor123 said: "If you are going to be buying a few stocks and holding, they... May... be tolerable. If you plan on day trading, look elsewhere. Actually, I suggest IB (Interactive Brokers) regardless of what your trading style is, because $1 commissions for the services you get can't be beat. When I was using Zecco a few months back, customer service was horrible. It took forever to navigate through their phone menus to talk to someone, and the two times that I did, the people I talked to did not instill confidence in me. Second, you have to send in all of your paperwork. Why they have not graduated to online forms and faxes I do not know, but they require your signature on a form sent to them via snail mail to open an account, apply for margin, and just about everything else that you could ever want to do. They were also sending me a daily list of trades I made via snail mail, which got annoying. Every day I traded something, they would send me a statement. All those letters soon become annoyances that you have to shred, not to mention being a general waste of resources. I believe they finally got the history portion of the website up and running not too long before I canceled my account, but they were still sending me daily trade histories. My profit/loss columns were always skewed, and my balance would sometimes fluctuate up and down for no apparent reason. I never did figure out whether they stole any money from me or not... Then there's something called TEFRA withholding which, apparently, only Zecco does (even though they claim it's an IRS requirement). Basically, if you do not send them your initial paperwork within 30 days, they will begin withholding 27% of whatever you sell, regardless of whether it's a gain or a loss. Yes, that's right - I'm talking about 27% of your principal, NOT earnings. I verified this with one of their customer service reps. I opened the account from Kuwait, and my paperwork apparently got lost in the military mail system, and was late, and they withheld 27% of one of my sales. They release it into my account when they received my paperwork, but the fact remains that Zecco is the only brokerage I have heard of that subscribes to this policy, which strikes me as odd. All in all, my experience was pretty terrible, and I would only recommend them to someone who has a very small account and could not afford the $1 commissions which IB charges, and doesn't mind dealing with the various problems that a new brokerage run on a shoestring budget is inevitably going to have. Maybe one day, they'll get the kinks worked out, but as of three months ago, they still had kinks-a-plenty. On the other hand, I have had nothing but great experiences with [URL="www.interactivebrokers.com"]these guys[/URL], and I would not hesitate to recommend either them or their stock to anyone. (No, I don't own any right now... I missed the bottom.)"

Paq13 said: "i will say zecco had issues before, but if you applied after may 10th or so, then yo udont' have to mail in anything. I don't know what they did, but it is basically all electronic like it should have been. They've improved a LOT and i use them sometimes for penny trades, etc, bc they can generally get me better fills/prices than scottrade. I really have to check out IB as that sounds interesting."

thezster said: "I've said it once - and I'll say it again... you get what you pay for...."

OptionNewbie said: "What about trade king?"

Harry said: "[QUOTE=OptionNewbie]What about trade king?[/QUOTE] Trade King looks sound. Their advertizd fees are competitive but how sound it their server on a turbulent day. Guys like Scottrade and ETrade are tweeked."

scottlarock said: "[QUOTE=thezster]I've said it once - and I'll say it again... you get what you pay for....[/QUOTE] That's not completely true. It is typically only true when it comes to expected customer service, which may or may not be a problem. For instance, "you get what you pay for." Gmail is probably the best mail provider you can use. In fact it is better than 99% of the ones that are not free. Gmail is free. So, this doesn't hold true in every situation and it may not hold true with these deep discount/free brokers in the long run. Zecco has only been around a year? They could certainly improve in the next few years where they are better than many of the pay-for-trades. Obviously it is usually true in day to day life and it isn't completely free. They do only pay 1% when you are sitting in cash and a place like Fidelity pays 5%. So obviously they are making a bundle on your cash. So in reality you ARE paying for their service. Just like you ARE supporting google's service when you use their email. Because they do advertise to you on their gmail site AND they do advertise to you when you use them to search. Google.com is free, should I go find another search engine that requires me to pay so that I "get what I pay for"? (playing devil's advocate mostly) ;)"

AlfredSokol said: "Gmail is only "free" if you consider giving them permission to store your private email for infinity and the right to scan it to display ads "free". Everything that Google offers costs in the way of privacy."

scottlarock said: "[QUOTE=AlfredSokol]Gmail is only "free" if you consider giving them permission to store your private email for infinity and the right to scan it to display ads "free". Everything that Google offers costs in the way of privacy.[/QUOTE] Everything Zecco offers costs in the way of horrible interest returns on your cash. Same story ;) Same story with your free checking account at whatever bank you have."

Pb3190 said: "On this forum and a few others, I have heard bad things about Zecco. I have no first hand use with it, but I hear more bad than good about their service."

geomatster said: "Bad service?? Dunno...I was looking at their home page and other features, but not really tried their services. Will definetly take NewInvestors word though!"

newinvestor123 said: "Tradeking was my first brokerage - They're okay... It's a no frills brokerage with $5 commissions. The reason I left them was because I thought I should be getting real time quotes for free if I'm paying commissions... And Zecco's free trades were very tempting. I also have an IRA with Fidelity, which is good for research, but their $20 commissions are way too expensive. I highly recommend IB. THey are using their MM business to subsidize the brokerage side of the house, which means I get lots of features at a small price."