Customer feedback..about a few brokers…normally i do not name them…
My experiences with the brokers in brief. I will keep the author anon
HDFC Sec: My first broker. No cheating, no calls,tips but expensive.
Ventura: A good broker but little bit expensive in terms of charges. Also, they don’t have mobile trading app for small investors. You need to buy at least 10k plan for that (which means you need to generate a brokerage of 10k in that year else balance amount is gone).
ICICI: They approached me for cheap FNO trading. I was trading 50 rupees per options lot and was looking for cheaper brokerage. The guy from ICICI who called me said he will give the rate of 35 rupees per lot. When I did my first Options transaction, then I realized that 35 is some extra charge apart from Rs. 100/- per lot for options trading taking my per lot total to 135. Also, for cash segment the charges are high. Immediately closed the account.
Angel: I used to receive 7-8 calls daily from my account dealer insisting me to trade aggressively in options (mostly Nifty). I lost some 20k in the due course out of which 8k was paid in brokerage. When I was out of funds, they started pushing me for trading in cash segment which I denied.
Nirmal Bang: Same as Angel but didn’t lose money as I rejected many calls which were suspicious. I stopped trading in FNO and withdraw all the money. There moto too was like Angel’s – keep the client busy in trading and generate maximum brokerage.
VNS Finance: This is the one which I mentioned in my previous comment. Happy till now.
Note: I am not into trading anymore (be it FNO or cash). After reading blogs like this one and many others on value investing, I am studying the same and started investing (not trading) for super long term (30 yrs and more if my Son is interested too ? ). I plan to build a portfolio which should take care of my financial life after retirement. Ideally, dividends should be sufficient for this by then is what I am planning.
It’s been over 1 year that I have kept the temptation of trading in FNO out of my mind and will continue doing that.
Tons of thanks to Subra Sir.
param
have been using icici mainly out of intertia – as i hardly do any trades so it really doesn’t matter.
had an interesting conversation from a RM of icicidirect. he told me that my brokerage rate is very high & i should switch to a lower rate. i told him that it does not matter as i don’t do much trading. he asked to do some trade just to keep my account alive. i told him that while opening the account it was clearly agreed that this is for investment & not trading. he almost started begging me to sell some shares & buy them back just to let them know that i’m an active user. refused to bow down. sometimes it helps if you know the rules – i wonder a less stubborn relative would have done.
Krish
Dealt with HDFCsec and agree with what is been stated. Also did with Geojit mostly F&O. You get a call from the agent in the morning on what to buy and in the closing hours on what to sell. Those calls make you think and force you to take action either buy or sell. Started with one blue chip in F&O and by month time gone up to 20 orders in a day. It became addictive and I started to dread weekends due to closure of the market. Lost a lac in 1.5 month time. Luckily got a overseas assignment and got rid of trading addiction. It took almost a decade for me to return to equity investing and thanks to this blog and other personal finance blogs.
Sreekanth
Kotak Securities pushes for advisory service, calls etc. Also changes brokerage charges in the middle after opening account. AMC charges are higher and so are the brokerage charges. Kotak is very expensive for retail users too. Customer service is good.
Savithri Venkataramani
even I lost an unimaginable amount and now brooding over!
Chiradeep Rao
My experience with kotak has been good over 8 years — if you are actually investing for the long term ( not sure how many actually do in practice ) it really does not matter whether your brokerage is .5% or 0.3% or what ever for delivery — if you fall for trading calls you will lose money – 99.99% of the population indulging in trading loses money…
Ritesh
Have been using ACMIIL for more than a decade….except for one incident related to intra-day trade, rest are all fine. Hope this continues…satisfied with them.