I thought I would just share my own experiences with IB as a UK resident getting into day trading for the first time. Unfortunately, it's negative but I suppose things can only improve?
I initially used a variety of paper accounts as I was/am completey new to trading including TWS but stayed away until I was more familiar with the trading environment in general. After a month or so of using other paper accounts I moved to TWS and got used to it, setting it up how I wanted. I was waiting on some money to come through but as it was due in a weeks time I decided to register to open a full account after a month or so of paper trading with TWS, cash to begin with just to make sure it was opened and ok as I didn't have the money to fund it. It took a few days to be approved and then on the day it was all the delayed booktrader, TOS and other bits I had been enjoying in the paper account suddenly stopped working. After spending over an hour and a half on the phone to various IB members, some who were very helpful and then the final one who was anything but, simply informed me that I needed to subscribe to market data to receive those feeds, after trying to explain (on the 5th person so for the 5th time) that it doesn't make sense that completely free delayed data available in any paper account with them gets disabled when the normal account gets approved. He repeated the same sentence several times about needing to fund market data and that was the end of that. I was reluctant at this point to go with IB but due to their cheap commissions and the fact I only trade US stocks meant they were the most viable option. Plus I signed up to another paper trading account with them using a different email, hey ho free delayed booktrader and TOS data again.
Anyway, a week later and my money comes in so I fund the account with enough to cover the day trading rule with a small bit of wiggle room but for me a lot of money. Great, subscribe to market data for all NYSE/NASDAQ info etc and spend another couple of weeks paper trading to get used to the new speed of things but do well. I realise for my needs a Cash account wont cut it so put in the request to upgrade to Margin last Friday with the aim of starting to live trade once it was approved, surprisingly come Saturday night I check my account and its Margin. So today, first day ever of live trading, i'm researching for hours before hand, thinking of going small with the closest I can find to a 'sure' thing just to get the emotion as contained as possible.
Waiting for the bell and if this stock hits 9.50 buy, bell goes, stock shoots, hit the order key for 500 shares and................no settled cash balance message pops up. After trying again and again same thing, I check the account, Margin, plenty of cash in there in GBP but foreign conversion is set in permissions as well as US stocks. At a loss, I phone, after being on hold for 15 minutes I speak to an American gentleman who does sound like he may have just rolled out of bed. He doesn't understand whats going on as its behaving as a cash account, so puts me on hold for 10 minutes, then comes back and says hes going to put me on hold again to speak to the compliance team, he comes back, no one available but he can either message me via ticket or phone me once he has got through to them, I ask for a phone call and an ETA to which i'm advised that it would make his job much easier if he could give me one, it could just be a single approval issue which could mean it is approved by tomorrow or it could be a bug that could take a week he just couldn't tell me. So now I am waiting, the stock I was going to purchase is currenly at 10.01 so $50c gain on what would have been my first ever trade, had I been able to trade. Understand mistakes happen and of course there will be other trades but it does become very difficult to recommend IB, you would think after so many years of being told their customer service is terrible the ratio of good phone reps to bad would be better than approx 1 out of 4.
Just sharing my experience, can't even comment on their usefullness genuinely trading as they won't let me trade the money they have of mine with no ETA on when I can! 😛
