Questrade Review - Be Aware of Interest!

I just closed my account with Questrade, and was shocked to discover that they had been "lending" me money and charging interest on that money lent (instead of using MY money to actually buy the stocks). Confusing for a guy like me - so I just wanted to say be careful!

Comments

1. Thanks for sharing !
2. Just open a USD account with questrade and fund your US stock trades with it. They are lending you the USD because you don't have any.
3. thanks bro..
4. Thanks, I was just about to join. Now it is Sure Trader for sure.
5. thanks dude this helped alot. don't worry that shit gets everyone lol.
6. Very helpful,thanks!
7. Has anyone ever found a good discount broker is Canada?
8. Reviewed a video again. Yes, they lend you USD against CAD under interest. Since it's unclear how much they will lend and how much in the end you will pay interest the best way is to convert your CAD first into USD. This way it will be clear how much USD you can trade. And you will have no interest on this.
9. Or trade with no margin. Unless you can find proper stocks.
10. They only charge something like 8% per year on their margin money on your open trades. Only if you've entered with margin. Why would you worry much about it?
11. Don't buy on margin and convert it first and problem solved. Really sucks you didn't educate yourself and jumped in too soon without a foundation. You ruined your own experience. Don't gamble people if you don't know how.
12. Wow... The comments here are uneducated! Simple if you have $CAD then trade CAD stocks that you can afford! If you want US stocks that you want to hold, you must convert your money first or of course you will get hit for interest. They are doing you the favour allowing you to borrow when you don't have the funds. If you want margin, then understand what the hell it is. You can trade on margin all day long, just don't hold anything over night, because that's when interest is charged. Not fair to QT for videos like this because you are not educated. I trade with them, and their service is great and they do their best to keep their customers happy. READ and ask questions!
13. Juste dégeu ils sont !!! :(
14. What other service charges are there, besides the interest you got charged?
    
    What you opened was a margin account. If you invest with money you don't have, they will lend you "on margin" the required funds and charged you interest. What you should have done was converted the Canadian funds to US dollars (they charge a fee for this, but it's cheaper than interest).
15. Thanks for the heads up!
16. You know im not impressed with Questrade. I hate a lot of there stuff
    -the awful videos they make
    -the service if you ever call them is awful
    -i get the feeling they are not very transparent. I don't feel its easy to see what you get charged with etc.
    
    I'm going to look into switching brokers
17. Yeah this happened to me.. I bought Apple stocks on my margin account, which had my own money in there to buy the stock. My stupidity for not researching as I looked at the statement showing an amount in brackets, which I thought was interest being paid to me as I have other stocks that pays dividend.
    
    5 months later I found out that they don't automatically convert currency for you and even if you have money to cover the "borrowed" money, you are still paying interest. I wish they sent me an email or some kind of notification in the IQ software reminding you if you owe money.
    
    Oh well lesson learned. For a simple stock investor like me who mostly buy and hold, I like Questrade.
18. tnx for ur info so i am quite disappointed that i cant find any good site to have some fun with my saved money that is really low but i have seen advertisement people starting from 300 like 2months ago and they have 10000$ it just seemed too good to be true i lost my 200$ in just 15min in one of these sites. Buying stocks also seems that is not a good idea. or at least in this site. The question in my mind is that so how people claim they double their money?
19. QUESTRADE IS AWFUL.
    
    They have all these hidden charges and fees, and their service is absolutely terrible. I can't even withdraw my own money. And, yes, they have this ridiculous platform in which they charge you interest to borrow moeny instead of using your own actual money. WTF. I hope someone sues them so hard. They're assholes.
    
    To the people saying this is a life lesson learnt, look, most other banks don't do this. They don't let you borrow money for trades. What's in there is what you can spend, and the conversion is done for you. Questrade is horseshit.
20. thanks for the heads up