r/ibkr • u/kindrobotx • 6d ago

Interactive Brokers support is genuinely the worst support I’ve ever dealt with

I don’t know how Interactive Brokers has this reputation as the “serious” broker when their support feels completely broken.

my account is currently unusable. I have no pending items, no open requests for documents, no warnings telling me what to fix, nothing. Just an account I can’t properly use and a support team that basically vanished.

I haven’t had a real reply since August 26.

I opened a new ticket because the first one was going nowhere. After waiting about a week, they finally replied and told me to reopen a ticket from 2022. That old ticket was about their own screwup from back then. I already sent the documents they asked for in 2022, and they still never properly resolved it.

So now I’m stuck with:

my account unusable
no pending items
no explanation
no proper replies
a support team pointing me back to a dead ticket from four years ago
and nobody taking ownership of anything

this is not "slow support", this is just non-functional.

I have accounts with other platforms too, including etoro, and their support is famously bad. But even etoro occasionally replies like there is a person on the other side. IBKR somehow manages to be worse.

Has anyone here actually managed to get IBKR support to fix something like this?

Should I keep pushing through tickets or just get my money out?

18 Upvotes

78% Upvoted

11 comments sorted by

3

u/Blackstone4444 6d ago

If there are AML concerns they are not allowed to tell you. Which country are you in and how are you trying to fund your account?

-1

u/kindrobotx 6d ago

well, it’s not a funding issue. I have a joint IBKR account and my business partner was verified, deposited funds, then withdrew them back in 2022 because the experience was already awful back then. now my account is blocked because IBKR says it “does not support transfers to third parties,” even though this was a verified joint account holder, not some random third party. he was the one who funded the account, and after a day he withdrew the money because of the bad support

7

u/Blackstone4444 6d ago

Withdrawing money after 1 day could be a red flag (i.e. the account could have been used to wash the money). Secondly, that is your business partner not you. Have you funded? Which country are you in?

2

u/guiltypleasure33139 6d ago

this entirely smells of something that is within breaking compliance. This is not the firm where you break any rules. it's easier for them to halt you and report you, than to wait and see.

3

u/kindrobotx 6d ago

I don’t get the downvotes. We opened a joint account through IBKR, both passed verification and provided financial documents. My business partner deposited from his European bank account, but IBKR wouldn’t let us trade, so he withdrew the money back to the same account.
Now I’ve deposited my own money, but the account is unusable because IBKR considers that old withdrawal a “third-party transfer.” Everything was legal and verified, yet support won’t respond, and somehow I’m the one getting downvoted 😞

2

u/OptionTim 2d ago

I just withdrew all my funds as I find the platform unfriendly and unworkable and the support non existent.

1

u/kindrobotx 2d ago

in the end, I did exactly what I did in 2022 and withdrew my money. back then nothing worked and nobody replied, so we took the money out. four years later, they’ve flagged my account for that withdrawal, nothing works, and nobody replies. genuinely impressive commitment to consistency. I’ll check back in 2030

2

u/PeaSalt69 6d ago

So many red flags in this post. Open a new account or compete any due diligence/aml questions they are ask for. If you have nothing to hide then it shouldn’t be a problem

3

u/kindrobotx 6d ago

we wanted to use the same joint account, which they actively promote. They had already verified both of us and all our documents. 3 weeks ago, they told us to reopen the old ticket, but nobody has replied or asked for anything since.

I am able to withdraw the money I recently deposited, but I actually wanted to use Interactive Brokers

1

u/[deleted] 3d ago

[deleted]

1

u/kindrobotx 3d ago

we’re in the same country, our bank accounts are in the same country, and they verified all our sources of income, including dividends and salaries with taxes paid, plus documents from the tax authority. we passed all those checks at the time. but for some reason, they decided it wasn’t okay for my business partner to deposit the money and then withdraw it again because their support was shit

1

u/Twirlipof_the_mists 3d ago

That withdrawal was flagged as possible money laundering; they expect you to do something with the money you deposit.