What To Do When Your Online Broker Screws Up

Online brokers love to boast about the growing number of online trading accounts. But there's one statistic the industry would like to keep secret: Investor complaints against online brokers are rising about four times faster than account openings. Last year, the number of online complaints skyrocketed to 3,000--a 200% hike over 1998 and a 1,200% jump over 1997, says the Securities & Exchange Commission.

The SEC says investors are unhappiest about tech glitches--the inability to gain access to accounts for long periods of time, or delays in execution because of system outages. But investors also are increasingly upset about lack of response from brokers when trading problems arise, and because of what they see as the failure of online brokers to get the best price on stock orders. With online trading systems straining under the weight of 15 million accounts, there are plenty of plain-vanilla errors in order-processing.