I have switched over from ICICIdirect to Sharekhan even after repeated requests to improve the service was not heeded :
Slow website, ICICIDIRECT does day robbery by not executing the orders before 10:45am and some times order placed at 10am gets queued and executed at very high price. Very high brokerage -for futures and options they charge 0.15% whereas normal brokers charge 0.05% to 0.1%
Futures and options- horrible experience-to pull out the futures contract and placing the order will be a nightmare.
Margin trading -square off is done at 2:45pm when all other brokers do it before the end of day. Nowadays prices rise only during the last half-an hour.
Customer support is pathetic. To speak to a customer support executive it takes half an hour. Sometimes they dont have the technical knowledge
For Bangalore branch there is only one low calibre fellow called Chintesh who will be loitering around. Apart from him nobody else knows what is share trading.
Today (16th Jun04) I placed a sell order (for squaring off position) for ONGC 600put at 10:00am and the order was queued and didn’t appear until 10:40am. A day like 17th May04 traders can be totally chopped off. Such brokers should be penalised for causing erosion in investors wealth.