Comments on: Is Zecco A Scam or Legitimate?

By: Crookedneck

Crookedneck — Fri, 02 Dec 2011 16:28:40 +0000

I opened both a Zecco and a Scottrade account around the same time over 2 years ago. During this time I had one incident after another with Zecco where they messed up. They would give me free trades and reduced fees from what they were charging their regular subscribers to keep my mouth shut. Yes it seemed like a bribe to me, but it gave me cheap trades so I stopped tweeting about how much they raised fees on stocks trading less than $1.

Now I was recently informed that when I went to sell a security I had in my acct. that I would be subject to fees up to $700 because it was DTC ineligible and that it was Penson who was charging this and they were now passing this along to all their customers. I asked why were we not given any warning or advance notice and why was I not told this when I purchase this security. They would only state that it wasn’t them, but Penson and that there was nothing they could do.

Now tell me is this the kind of broker you want? A broker who makes deals to keep people quiet when they have been wronged by them. A broker who changes it’s policies in the blink of an eye without warning you and blaming it on it’s clearing house and that I should trade stocks over $1 on the big boards. What’s next Zecco? Let’s face it they are one of the worst brokers out there with a terrible customer service department.

Needless to say I am in the process of transferring my securities over to Scottrade, whom I never had a problem with.

BTW – When I told Zecco that I would be posting about this whole experience on the internet, they offered to pay my ACAT transfer fees, thinking that this would keep me quiet, while I am stuck with some of these new non DTC eligible stocks that would cost me up to $700 to sell and some of them had a restriction of how much I could sell at a time. I told them I would accept the free ACAT transfer offer, but that I would not keep quiet about all these past and present ordeals where they gave me deals to from posting how they operate.

Zecco is a real joke! I would suggest that if you have an account with them that you transfer to better broker before you get burnt. If you are thinking of opening a new account them, it would behoove you to investigate what I am saying before you find out the hard way that you made a giant mistake.

Now Zecco is offering a $500 contest thinking this will make up for everything and that they will lure in new business – Give me a break!

Just go and check out what they did on Aprils fool day 2009! Then you will know why I really say that Zecco is a joke!

Cheers and be careful out there!

By: Debbie

Debbie — Wed, 14 Sep 2011 19:05:01 +0000

Earlier in the thread another poster talked about the trade settlement at Zecco. I joined in August of this year and so far when I’ve bought a trade and sold it three days later or more my payment was in my account the next business day. I believe if you sell before the third day you wait for three days for money in your account.

So far Zecco has treated me right. I tried to join TradeKing earlier this year and even though I submitted the proper credentials online to prove who I say I am they said that wasn’t good enough and wanted more. Needless to say I dropped them and never funded the account.

Don’t trade with Sharebuilder, whose trades are only $4.00 on automatic investing plan, but to sell is $9.95. Real-time trades are $9.95 to buy and $9.95 to sell. They offer none of the investing features on their automatic investing plan Zecco does, and on real-time I think all they offer is limit.

By: John

John — Thu, 08 Sep 2011 14:12:43 +0000

I’ve been using zecco for 3 years now. This is the first year I’ve seem to have problems with them. They are constantly putting me on margin calls, which I would then have to call in to clear up their mishaps. Apparently they do this manually and isn’t automated. They’ve attempted to charge me all these new hidden fees. This will be the last time I use zecco. I’ve moved all my funding to scottrade, which I opened along side of opening zecco years back.

By: Garry J

Garry J — Thu, 21 Jul 2011 18:06:21 +0000

I have zecco for 4 months now and it was great when I first signed up. They’ve changed so many rules and add on fees that I question if they are even legal. My first few transfer of 5000$ went through within few days. Then I made a transfer of $20k+ and took them more than a week to put it in my account although my bank account was clear of that transfer. The first time I bought stock from zecco, I had under 100$ left so I bought some shares of penny, OTC stocks and now they changed the rule. I can’t even sell them. Selling $100 worth of penny stock, I have to shell out $700 transaction fee. Anything this company does is “BAIT AND SWITCH”. Most people that refer friends with their referral program don’t even get the $75 promised.

By: g sanon

g sanon — Fri, 18 Mar 2011 18:09:20 +0000

You should read all the rules.

By: Daryl

Daryl — Sun, 06 Mar 2011 03:45:23 +0000

I signed up for zecco for the free trades and a few days later they announced an end to their free trading program.

By: Jim

Jim — Fri, 04 Mar 2011 21:29:47 +0000

I just started with Zecco In a very small way but Im already unhappy with their service.
Lots of Email but no action. Ill see what happens in the next couple of days

By: pdwinter

pdwinter — Mon, 14 Feb 2011 22:05:20 +0000

I too am looking for a new broker. Yes, there indeed are questions about Zecco but I have also seen, this very day, complaints about poor customer service, lack of reply, and rudeness from TradeKing. Low fees, by their very nature, are likely to suggest limitations of one kind or another.

By: Andrew

Andrew — Tue, 14 Dec 2010 16:55:37 +0000

I have problems with withdrawing my funds from Zecco. I see on the Internet that I am not the only one.

By: Bill of Atl

Bill of Atl — Tue, 30 Nov 2010 02:41:47 +0000

Your facts about day trading are not exactly correct. You can day trade up to 3 times in a rolling week with less than $25k. If you post a 4th position within a 5 day period then your account will be frozen for thirty days or until you get your account value up to the $25k acount minimum. At the $25k amount level the SEC will allow you to take unlimited positions during the day. I know of many that will post up to and over a thousands trades per day…a bit psychotic for my taste but to each his own.

By: Alex

Alex — Tue, 23 Nov 2010 01:02:25 +0000

They don’t seem to be a scam, but you definitely get what you pay for. Here are a few things I’ve noticed so far: 1) Account setup takes a long time, for example 9 days for an ACH which only takes 2-3 days at most other brokers, 2) Their customer service folks are polite and quick to respond, but they seem very young and inexperienced, at least the ones I talked to, 3) The website is VERY bare-bones, absolute minimum functionality to enter orders and view positions, for instance it won’t track cost basis or allow tax lot selection, 4) Their actual trading platform is flaky, for instance ‘Foreign Ordinaries’ like VLCCF are not available for trading at all and some orders for regular NYSE/NASDAQ stocks get a mysterious ‘ECN Rejected’ error. I definitely recommend Zecco for experienced long-term investors. Stay away if you’re inexperienced – their reps will not be able to address your problem when you are confused yourself; you need to know exactly what you want when you call them. And stay away if you’re a short-term trader, as the trading platform flakiness will kill you (to avoid this, I enter all my orders before the market opens).

By: vish

vish — Fri, 12 Nov 2010 04:10:42 +0000

JJ2000,
There is this T+3 rule, it takes 3 days for trade to settle, even if you sell your stocks, money will not be in your account until 3 business days and if you buy (if they let you buy) before 3 business days, it could result in “good faith violation” or “free riding” I think you can only make 3 violation in a one year period after 3rd violation they will restrict your account, that is you can only buy with your settled funds. Selling – no problem, you can sell it next second after you buy.

By: Jim(not the author)

Jim(not the author) — Tue, 09 Nov 2010 01:31:05 +0000

If you are day trading, that means you have at least 25,000 to do it. It’s a federal regulation for you to do so and has nothing to do with brokerages. You honestly sounds like you have no idea what you’re doing. Of course day trading call is different from a standard margin call. At least learn about stocks before you start to trade. Also if selling your positions do not cover it, it means that you never had 25,000 to day trade to begin with, which has nothing to do with zecco and everything to do with Federal regulations. Don’t invest if you have no clue what you’re doing.

Anyway, Zecco is fine and they are definitely not a scam. They simply do very little advertising and charge extra on things that most investors wouldn’t be doing anyway(option calls etc.). I just had to post because it’s just ridiculous to complain about a free service.

Clearly this author has done very little research on Zecco if he has no clue on how they allow you to trade for free. It’s always good to write about something that you have very little understanding of. I was also very skeptical about Zecco but I actually did like 15 minutes worth of research about it and understood its business model.

By: jim

jim — Mon, 01 Nov 2010 23:55:07 +0000

bbb.org gives them an a-
theyre perfectly fine…

By: Avichi

Avichi — Mon, 18 Oct 2010 00:02:12 +0000

Darren

Your strategy is great one, the money you put on Stock at Zecco should not be more than “1000 lattes” you would other wise have drank.

The process of dealing with website is straight forward tell the system what stock you want to buy at what type of order and how many and how much you are willing to pay (to buy) and how much you are willing to sell.

My observation with the website is that sometime the order is rejected if there “Limit” or “Stop Limit” transanction on a buy/sell while the “market ” with GTC is open. I don’t know why, but the same order will go thru when the market is closed, other wise the execution on “market order are instantaneous”,check the quote before you execute.

As far as the “money” be secure well the actual Zecco accounts are help by a company in Texas called “Penson Financial” and they handle all the back-end transactions and account maintainanace.

I do not know where they keep the all the zecco account holder deposits.(Bank Name). I am sure you can find out more about the Penson FInancial from the SEC and FINRA.

Hope that helps. Good luck investing, do not invest based on emotions.