E-TRADE Financial
Erroneous Fill Merrifield

Catch me if you can!
That just about describes My online broker's position on a mistake with my account.
After several emails were exchanged in my efforts to have them correct their mistake, and return my account to the exact position prior to their mistake, their responce was, " Due to the fact that you did not contact us for over two days, there is little we can do at this time. A credit will not be granted.".
In other words, I had to conduct them! That they made a mistake, except I didn't know that they had made a mistake, BUT THEY KNEW!
This is what happened:

I bought 5 "XYZ" Dec. 07 options, strike price $12.50 call options.
As soon as acquisition was confirmed, I listed them for sale (GTC 60 for a price of $5.90 each).
They were sold very quickly for $11.48 ea., and my account was credited with $ 5,134.63 gain.
Based on that gain I proceeded to make some additional trades, risky ones, that I would not normally make.
Two days later, I see my balance reduced from $ 8,343.98 to $ 2,476.12, and House Call of $ -219.28.
I had not engage in any activity that would have resulted in such tremendous drawdown.

So I emailed my online broker requesting clarification, and was told that the initial fill was an "erroneous fill", and the market simply corrected the problem.
When I asked them to return my account to the condition prior to their mistake, (since I would not have made the additional trades except for the gain that was posted in my account, evident by looking in my account activity prior to this incident), they refused.

They told me that the fill was bad and that the market corrected the bad fill within minutes of the incident.
I pointed out to them that they failed to notify me about that, and that the gain they posted in my account remained as it was for two whole days, and if they had notified me promptly, I would have not made all the other acquisitions, and would have adjusted my exit price for the 5 "XYZ" options accordingly. (the "XYZ" options had lost only a little of their value when THEY DISCOVERED their mistake).

I believe that their failure to notify me constitutes negligence on their part, and they should return my account to the EXACT position prior to their mistake.
Obviously they will not do it.

The last straw was that they kept charging commissions for their mistake and charged again in their attepmts to correct it!

Atreus
Korinthos
Greece

Company: E-TRADE Financial
Country: USA
State: Virginia
City: Arlington
Address: 671 Glebe Road N., 10th Floor
Phone: 8003872331

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