Let me start with my reasons for opting for Indiabulls account. I was looking for opening an online trading account, and compared ICICI Direct, Sharekhan and Indiabulls. I found ICICI Direct to be best amongst the lot, but they charge the highest commissions and have steep annual charges. Since I was hoping to be a infrequent trader (I am not a millionaire, yet!!!), my requirement were simple: a trustworthy online trading account with low transaction charges. Indiabulls seemed to fit the bill. I made a mistake and am paying for it. There is no free lunch!!! The account opening procedure was pretty simple. A relationship manager came to my office to get the formalities completed. That was the first shock. The person had almost no knowledge of financial domain, and was simply selling the account like a cell phone account. Anyway, I went ahead as I did not plan to use his services. My main aim was just to get an account to be able to buy some shares off my personal research. Now it is exactly 1 month to that day today, and I am yet to get hold of my account details. All I have got till now is few emails confirming that my account has been created with Indiabulls. I tried to contact so called relationship manager, but he seems to have changed his mobile number. Email requests to Indiabulls have never been replied. If anybody knows what kind of action I can take to at least make them refund my account opening fee, please let me know in comments. I would absolutely prohibit everyone to stay away from Indiabulls. My overall impression is that company’s rank and file employees are lowly paid and disgruntled, who’s attitude towards customer satisfaction is worse than even government organizations. Also, I am now hearing that Indiabulls POA gives them power to trade in your account even without your permissions. So, stay alert... you have been warned!!! Update on 1st March 2006: My horrible experience with Indiabulls continues. I still don’t have the login password. Finally I managed to get through to my account manager. He ’helpfully’ offered to tell me my password. That means he knew it, and I did not. When I asked why it was not sent to me, he offered some lame excuse. He opened the password envelope to be sent to me, and read the password. He also prodded me to transfer some funds in the account, so that Indiabulls can use their ’investing expertize’ for ’my advantage’. Update on 20th April 2006: Finally Indiabulls relented on about 25th March and activated my Account. The facilities provided are bare minimum, and there is no way to calculate your gain/loss/brokerage paid etc. also, they regularly disable login between 2:30 and 3:30 pm, and hence you simply cannot hope to do any online day trading using Indiabulls, since if you cannot login, you cannot change your orders, and Indiabulls gets to square off your positions at their luxury.
Update on 1st April 2011:
After discontinuing it for years, I started using my account last year again, after getting bad service from IndiaInfoline and Reliance. Things seem to have improved a lot. Website is much more responsive now. Also, there is nice portfolio view, where one can keep track of profits/losses. Best part is, they have not put any frivolous charges to the best of my knowledge. So they seem to be the best out there.