Reviewed May 23, 2026
I cannot praise Interactive Brokers (IBKR) enough for their world-class security team, unmatched integrity, and rapid responsiveness. In April, I fell victim to a severe identity theft incident where hackers took over my laptop and initiated an unauthorized $35,000 transfer out of my primary bank account. The criminals used my stolen credentials to open a fraudulent account at Interactive Brokers to dump the stolen cash. My own bank completely abandoned me, refused to investigate, and denied my fraud claim.
Desperate, I tracked down the funds to Interactive Brokers and contacted them directly. Even though I was not a client of theirs, IBKR treated me with the utmost urgency, respect, and professionalism. Their security and compliance teams acted immediately. They froze the fraudulent account, blocked all unauthorized devices, and locked down my $35,000 safely before the hackers could withdraw a single cent.
They held the funds securely and kept me informed, explicitly stating they were ready to return the money the moment my uncooperative bank initiated a standard recall request. Thanks to IBKR's ethics and lightning-fast intervention, my life savings were saved from cybercriminals. If you want a financial institution that takes security seriously, has ironclad internal fraud controls, and acts with genuine ethical responsibility, Interactive Brokers is the absolute gold standard. I am profoundly grateful to their team.
Reviewed April 16, 2026
You have a better chance having an intellectual conversation with a brick. This company is complete garbage. Transferred funds via ACH to a custodial account. Money cleared my bank, but Interactive Brokers placed a 45-day hold with no clear upfront disclosure. Support would not escalate or offer partial availability. Holding a minor’s funds this long without transparency is unacceptable.
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Reviewed Jan. 16, 2026
Interactive brokers is by far the worst brokerage firm, especially when it comes to options strategies. On expiration day they will always find a way to screw you by automatically liquidating positions haphazardly based on a supposed algorithm that clearly financially harms the customer. When you call them they make up stories of why they did x and not y.. their execution is terrible.. several times I tested their execution vs. say Charles Schwab and Schwab always got better pricing. IBD is the most manipulative, dishonest, devious brokerage firm on the planet! They may claim to give higher rates on cash, but they take away through many times more with their underhanded activities. They do have quite a few lawyers though to protect them as they get sued quite a bit! Just google them and see how many lawsuits they have had against them (that they lost)! Terrible firm! They should lose their license!
Reviewed Dec. 20, 2025
The transfer of funds took several days to appear in my IBKR account. When it was finally deposited after four days, the money remained in my account for seven days. To my surprise, the funds were then returned to the originating bank. According to IBKR, this happened because I attempted to wire funds without first creating a deposit notification and taking the wire instructions to my bank. This situation is confusing since the money did appear in my IBKR account, indicating that the transfer was successful. This wasn't my first time sending money from the same bank, so I don't understand why it was sent back. Additionally, it has been four days since they said the money was returned to my bank, but I still don’t see it in my account. After this experience, I’m hesitant to add more money to my IBKR account and am considering closing it.
Reviewed Oct. 24, 2025
Literally the worst app ever. They have terrible customer service that is impossible to reach. Try to use AI for everything. PLUS, they withdrew from my retirement account, which I did NOT approve and will now have crazy tax implications. Own up to it IBKR.
Reviewed Aug. 20, 2025
Terrible in all possible ways. Starting from minor things like you need to enter text code each time you sing in or do it again after that buggy platform crashes, and to funny things like live data subscription for $125, impossible to place a multileg options order, wired deposit becomes available only in 5 days (!!!) and even after closing my account I will need to wait 5 days. Support service is a joke, never works normally and promised ticket response in 48 hours. Each time you do something, like trying to trade or add your bank account it is always a pain, something always goes in a weird way, and you can't do anything. Avoid! Never even think about it.
Reviewed Jan. 31, 2025
All users are forced to keep a smart phone app installed on a compatible device in order to access their accounts. I will be moving my money out after they promised to cut off my access after the next five logins.
Reviewed Jan. 13, 2025
Someone please get me to the upper management of this company with the most screwed up trading platform on the planet. I can't even log in anymore. Just wasted an hour on the phone with your incompetent outsourced customer service in India who refused to allow me to speak with a supervisor. Please reach out to me and fix my problem before I cause PR problems and crawl all the way to reaching your CEO Milan Galik or Founder & Chairman, Thomas Peterffy.
Reviewed Jan. 10, 2025
Have been trying to pull my final $8000 from the account of my deceased husband AND THEY ARE MAKING IT CLOSE TO IMPOSSIBLE. Sent all the required Doc they requested, first by email, but that was too blurry. THEN SENT DOCs "SIGNATURE REQUIRED" to home office and it was signed as received. They say they can't find them. They say they're investigating and calling back BUT NEVER DO AS WE ARE NOW CALLING EVERY DAY!! They are making money ON MY MONEY but they don't allow me to benefit if it's under $10,000. THEY ARE HOLDING ME HOSTAGE and I must find a way to take Legal Action even if they are in Chicago.
Reviewed Nov. 15, 2024
Signing up with Interactive Brokers Was a Big Mistake! Signing up with Interactive Brokers was the biggest mistake of my life. I sold stock and had cash in the account to invest. When I tried to transfer money out of the account the staff took days reviewing my transfer request, ask for information and even though I sent the information they did not bother reading it. They simply shockingly kept asking for the same document. This alone shows that the Interactive employees do not have the capacity to function at a financial institution of any kind.
I had bought a property in Portugal. Since I knew I had more than enough cash in my Interactive Brokers account, I had paid tens of thousands of dollars on the property and was required to pay the rest by a certain date or lose the tens of thousands I had invested. Interactive Brokerage staff thought it was hilarious that I could lose tens of thousands of dollars. They made sure I did not get my money out of my account And again Interactive Brokerage staff found this amusing. I am still writing to Interactive Brokers trying to get my money out. Someone called and kept getting disconnected then didn't bother to call back. The website apparently is only half working this week. It took hours to get into my account. The list goes on and on. This was a considerable loss of my retirement funds. This is the worst place to put any money. Try Vanguard or Fidelity.