Confused - Sharekhan vs Icicidirect vs Hdfc vs Kotak vs Indiabulls vs 5paise

Dear friend:

If anyone is reading this to find out what KotakSecurities is all about - you are doing a sensible diligence. I did not do any research on KotakSecurities before I went with them. I opened an account with them in May 2006, thinking that Kotak being a reputed house would offer the the best of services in the best price.

I’ve had a very frustrating experience in the last one year. I’ll list them here for your understanding:

[1] Their brokerage is one of the most outrageous in the industry. They charge a whopping 0.59% as brokerage plus your monthly DP charges will have 0.04% of the delivery you do per month - this makes your brokerage 0.65% that you’ll pay through your nose; they will siphon your hard earned money when you least expect it. BUT BEWARE, the SALES FOLKS WON’T TELL YOU THIS WHEN THEY SELL THEIR PRODUCT TO YOU. I’VE ALWAYS THOUGHT THAT ICICI IS THE ONLY ENTITY THAT WILL INVOLVE ITSELF IN OUTRAGEOUS ACTS, but NOW THEY HAVE COMPANY - KOTAK.

[2] They don’t have any concept of CUSTOMER SERVICE. Their customer service number "30305757" is a BIG JOKE. I’ll give anyone Rs.1000 if you can call this number and get anybody to pick up the phone. THESE GUYS ARE REAL JOKERS - THEY’LL PROMPTLY CALL YOU ONLY IF YOU OWE THEM ANY MONEY; OTHERWISE, THEY DON’T KNOW YOU AT ALL.

[3] These guys claim that they have the BEST BROKER AWARDS - how can the esteemed panelists give away these awards to such a lousy Broking House? May be the panelists are paid a large amount of money under the table by the Kotak folks or the Kotak folks have managed to cheat the panelists also. If any one of the panelists were a subscriber to Kotak Securities, these guys would have still won the award - "THE WORST BROKER AWARD".

[4] Their local customer service executives (in Chennai) are extremely dumb; I think they do special interviews to pick the dumbest of the dumb from the potential candidates. They cannot even answer basic questions realting to my account and have zero empowerment; first of all, they are dumb and you’ll have to bang your head to make them understand what you want and if you are successful in making them understand what you want, they’ll say "we’ll have to talk to our Bombay office and get back" without exception. AND THEY WILL NEVER GET BACK. YOU SHOULD CONSIDER YOURSELF EXTREMELY FORTUNATE if they get back to you.

[5] I’ve tried talking all their customer service executies up the hierarchy (including Lakshmi Sundaram, Head of Customer Care) and everyone without exception is indiffernet to customer’s concerns. They’ll make BIG promises that they can never keep up - they just are SHAMELESS in making promises and not living upto it.

Good thing about them:

[1] Their website for trading is quite good and I liked it a lot. Their MutualFund platform is good too. These were the only reasons I was sticking with them for this long. But now I have reached my limit - I just cannot tolerate these guys any longer. I am moving out and closing everything I have to do with them.

Good luck investing and Beware!! Do your research before choosing a broking house they can suck the life out of you and drain all your profits without you even knowing about it.

The best broking houses in the industry (as far as I can tell with the data I have now) are HDFCSecurities and Angel Broking.

best regards
- Anand

You are spot on on 2 major things rather 3. As for their brokerages, I had already mentioned, it is on the higher side. Yes it is true that it is frustrating to get their number 30305757. Whenever I travel (especially where there is no internet, it is quite bothersome to call up Kotak (understatement) to place buy or sell orders. I have actually run quite a hige cell bill. I bang my head a lot of times. Yes you are also right, when you talk about the support people. However, the only reason, I am with them is 3 fold:

1. All said & done, their online support is quite good
2. I can place trades in the off-market times. HDFC provided it earlier, but have now stopped for some strange reason.
3. Their online IPO is among the best

Cheers

No, ICICI does not allow 0 balance in savings unless it is a salary account. If you want price to performance, check outr Integrated services. My friends who have Reliance Money account have complained bitterly about the software and the lack of support.

All in all, my recommendation would be with HDFC

Hi FRIENDS


in reliance trade

CAN ANY ONE LET ME KNOW THAT IS IT POSSIBLE TO CHANGE THE DEPOSITORY BANK ACCOUNT AFTER wards...?

Like initially if we linked with one account and later can we change to another uti account ? ?

please let me know

Thanks in advance

Edit/Delete Message

hi,
i m not a intraday trader...plan to invest once a month..which 1 shud i go for (icicidirect,5paisa,hdfc et al).
i hav icici sal a/c.
thnx in advance
piyush

If u mean reliancemoney, then yes. you can change bank account.
go to the demat office, ask them for a form to change bank acct and submit them.

I am trading with Indiabulls regularly for the last three years. I use their Java software. Their software is great and that is their main strength. I have still to encounter a bug in it, and I am a very experienced computer and internet user.

Advantages of Indiabulls Java software: it is lean and small, requires no installation (only your computer should have sun java runtime should be loaded, which most computers are these days). The software blows away all the "professional" trading software, odin, diet odin etc and gives you instant access to all sorts of parameters, gives you instant updation of charts of all stocks you are trading in etc. You can view the full chart even if you load in late, by refreshing the chart.

My accounts are tax audited, but as yet not a single mistake has been found by my auditor.

And for all this Indiabulls charges you a one time payment of Rs 750/-. I also use ICICI Direct (for MFs only). I find their software hopelessly dated and I have already written to Mr. Kamath to look at Indiabulls and learn.

I hope some big co like Reliance Money will take over Indiabulls and use its software power to its advantage.

And one more thing: Never go for Kotak if you do online trading. Their software sucks in every way possible. It is unbelievable how such a reputed company can rely on such outdated software. They also charge heavily for their software.

From the feedback in the forum, it appears that most vendors give poor service, and perhaps indiabulls is the best bet among all vendors.