Alternatives to Zerodha for Frequent F&O Trading

General
68

@Ragavendran_V - appreciate it! Awaiting redressal from CEO

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@Stonecold

Are you confirming that the CEO, in his below message snippet, has offered a solution WITHOUT EVEN LOOKING AT THE TICKET ??? And they don’t know the ticket no. yet???

If so, that’s another serious gem from Zerodha to address such customer complaints without even knowing the ticket no.!

Don’t get me wrong - if you are neither the aggrieved party nor Zerodha and don’t even have the skin in the game, then humbly requesting you to avoid such comments/questions on issues of such serious nature. Positive constructive contributions are always welcome. Thx.

69

Many Thanks @arvind1k , for your inputs on the precise matter.
A few months back, I heard that Kotak’s portal used to face login issues - like, users were unable to login during peak hours.
If you can provide any feedback on that, it will be great! Thx.

70

I think now they are getting serious as they are launching many new features/plans.
As I take only occasional trades in Kotak can’t comment on login issues, but so far I’ve not been disappointed. You have to generate OTP once you try to login which is valid till 12 mid-night. Means u can login n no of times with that one. Real problem sometimes is that, they log u out too often during the day, if u are idle for some time.
They have recently launched a new app which I’m yet to explore.
I hope this helps.

71

Aliceblue and Fyers didn’t even care to show Stamp duty in the brokerage calculator.

Recently SEBI charges has increased to Rs 10 per cr. Fyers don’t have time to change it.

Is this transperant and alternate to Zerodha.

Big NO

72

Did you care to check the typo mistake in the email? If you send the email to wrong email address no one can help u.

In the Zerodha website email address is showing right.

73

It hurts when we lose money. Hurts even more when apparently it’s not our mistake.

There are no 2 opinions that the support is pathetic.

I had a different issue and even i thought it was 100% due to zerodha system.

Even one of my FnO order was squared off, but thankfully I was in profit although not intended to exit prematurely. Astonishing part was that the margin against my pledged shares were dropped to 0 from 12 lacs and the pledging was still on

Furious as you were i immediately raised support ticket, tried calling support number, visited local franchise, again they asked me to call support number only, which was disconnected after 15 mins as you said. That too in spite of putting the secret code etc from profile and all.

I was assured that they will return to me after 24 to 48 hours and I couldn’t wait for a second. As my order was cancelled, my Margin became zero and even my pledged shares worth 12lacs were not visible

Barely i could pass that day, by the way, i scanned each and every article related to margin on their support portal but no document addressed my issue.

The next day I received a call from a senior support staff. She was very much knowledgeable and she was quite composed and addressed my concerns.

For the benefit of all, I’m sharing this so that if you’ve gone through similar situation, you might get a clue.

My pledged scrip was placed under what sebi calls it as asm which is additional surveillance measure. This is a regulatory action and effect of which is that there is no margin allowed on such script til the time it is removed from that asm list.

Now, why does that happen? you may google it

So, because of this, my margin money became zero. Pledged shares are not visible in kite by default. This is by design and this is to avoid pledged shares being traded.

You can see all of your holdings under console, where it was quite visible.

The point is my 12 lacs worth share were on stake, i couldn’t do any more FnO as there was no margin, my profitable trade was broken. Probably i had worse experience than you.

But for me, the return call addressed my issue completely(keep in mind, true caller may show it as spam). I appreciated her and even given good remarks in the feedback link. Also made a suggestion to add similar situation in the support portal and send an intimation to the client when such regulatory action affects clients trades/margin. Don’t know if they have implemented that.

Point I’m driving is that it may not be you or it may not be zerodha as well. It could be due to some external regulatory factor also

Friend, My suggestion to you is just first work as a team to find the root cause of the issue from zerodha. @siva is willing to help you. Why don’t you just share your support ticket? What’s so secret about it? Don’t get into why he can’t find and all. If you can simplify his work to help you, why not?

We are also willing to know the outcome of the same

And friend, mistakes do happen from our end also, as you’ve also said that you had done in the past, but this time it was automatic, who knows it could be something like my experience.

And you are right, it can happen in future also and therefore it’s all the more important for you to understand what caused it.

Let’s try to learn that to create a better trading eco system.

I want to thank @nithin for taking time to post here.

And no, they are not contradicting. What nitin said is correct for fresh orders and what siva said for exit orders it’s always market. This is also a great design because when you want to exit, it must exit without spending any time.

By the way, I’ve tried a lot of other trading platforms, but couldn’t find even full service brokers software to even come close to zerodha.

Hope this helps

2 Likes
74

Compare to corona advice
Promising increse hospital beds & oxygen will not stop corona. It can b stopped only making vaccination system strong & making people take precaution
On same way…
Promising increase helpdesk will not stop complains. It can b stopped only by making system strong & give people choice to set their setting they want

Surprising answer from CEO @nithin. Y behaving like kid n say we will not do it & not in priority. Even fresher from collage can easily implement it in few hours programming. If customer get choices and settings then complains are less

75

I have tried both zerodha n icicidirect. zerodha is complete crap for active traders. If you buy, sell and again buy, avg price shown is completely wrong n i got losses bcoz of that.
Hopeless customer support n they keep promising to improve but never happens.
icicidirect is costly, but give confirmation screen n good support. They r gud. U can try with icici if money is not a problem.

1 Like
76

If college kid can do it then why don’t you use College kids to create that platform with all the features that user wants. It’s very easy na?. You don’t need to stay with zerodha right?

77

Yeah…that’s y i m with icicidirect :smiley:

78

Just saw your ticket and the answer seems to be what I mentioned earlier. Got our team to double-check on this, and it is the right answer.

image

I am anyways getting someone to call you up.

79

^this is how the world works. We will do what we think is best for our customers and the business, sometimes it may not even be the best. If the customers think that is not good enough, they move to someone else. It is easy for customers to switch/make changes, but it isn’t for the business. The business if it can’t match up to competition, will slowly lose the race over time.

So yeah, in our business model where most people don’t pay any brokerage, it is impossible to give a customer support experience like say American Express (they probably have the best customer support) who generate on an average Rs 20,000+ per customer per year. If we had to have 1 customer service rep for every 1000 customers, we would need 60,000 employees and our business will have losses so large that we will disappear in no time.

Our business model works like a self-service restaurant, where customers are expected to try to figure it out first before reaching out to us. If you are expecting a fine dining experience, you need to go to the right restaurant.

But like I said, we are cognizant that we need to improve the customer service experience as much as possible which fits into our business model. One of the things on our list of things to do is create a Zerodha select program where customers can pay a fixed monthly fee and get a dedicated relationship manager.

Hopefully, this answers your question.

1 Like
80

Today my ticket got resolved in 20 mins, it was like real time.

Now a days we can see a drastic improvement in customer support at Zerodha.

81

you are lucky & i guess with lot of bashing up things are improving

82

Exactly, the problem is in your business model, not that customers are stupid and dumb and hence keep calling your support staff without getting any resolution.

And traders using zerodha are not non-paying customers, they pay very well, and they still don’t get their issues solved. Most of the issues that are being posted in this forum are trader issues and they are not non-paying customers.

Traders pay the brokerage you have asked willingly, they don’t haggle with zerodha on the brokerage. Just imagine people trading on your platform, executing trades, and then you have to contact them and ask them for paying the brokerage. How would you feel if they start haggling with you on the brokerage. Similarly your support staff should also not haggle with the customers, should not close tickets before resolution, thats it.

I love zerodha and I guess till now this may be the best platform. But it is really disrespectful when the CEO implies that the customers are stupid and not intelligent, it is because of these stupid people only, that the CEO, his wife and his brother are able to draw 100 cr salary (ya, resolution has been passed, salary hasn’t been drawn, I know, but u get it, right).

I guess these customers too deserve to be treated respectfully, that’s it. Anyway, I don’t mean any disrespect towards you. So please don’t take this message in the wrong way. Thank you.

83

Looking at the ticket, it looks like the costumer is oblivion to the SLM order. So in place of putting an SLM order the costumer had placed a limit order lower than the CMP, which obviously got executed as market order.
He should have used an SLM order if he wants the order to get triggered only at a lower price than the CMP.

1 Like
84

Dear @nithin - Many thanks again for giving time.

Unfortunately, both your helpdesk and yourself are completely ignoring to PRIMARY CORE issue, and simply closing the matter by offering advice on tangential topics.

  1. The PRIMARY CORE issue is - “I DID NOT PLACE ANY ORDERS. PERIOD.”
    Therefore, your varied responses on RULE OF LIMIT, CMP, LIMIT, MARKET etc. do NOT hold any ground for resolution

  2. Please avoid saying “Orders can’t get placed on their own.”
    Your system has the capability, AND IT DOES PLACE ORDERS, for numerous scenarios. They may include margin shortfall, asm and various other blah blah cases. Though none of those apply to my positions (I assume), so orders remains a question to investigate.

Yes, its completely your prerogative to accept/deny, fix/ignore, allow/disallow whatever you want in a “Free Market Economy”.
But Zerodha has the accountability to provide a redressal for a problem that HAS already occurred.

I await the redressal.

85

There is a very big army of Zerodha fans (as well as protestors) and guess it may include a few dummy/fake accounts on various platforms (including social media).
I truely wish that all the comments are by genuine Zerodha customers.

Not talking negatively, but just be aware that all such terminologies and practices - “straight-thru processing”, “minimal inputs”, “light-speed trading”, “defaulted values” and “seamless execution” - appears good ONLY till you get hit.

I too have been a great fan of Zerodha over the last 6+ years of association, but it took only 2 loss-making instances in last 3 months to wipe out all the benefits of “discount” broking. Matters worsened in the absence of suitable redressal, and continue to be.

Ppl tend to jump on a discussion in defense, and they even make their own assumptions about what happened.
I truely pray for all Zerodha genuine customers and fans (not the dummies), that they don’t get hit with similar loss making situations. It’s bad, tensed, loss-making, and you’re left all alone (even face fire from fans)!

This thread has two topics:

  1. Alternatives to Zerodha for Frequent F&O Trading (title)
  2. Reason and trade instances for why I am looking for alternatives

To maintain the sanctity and decorum of this forum, and to keep it focused, I will comment/respond only on the above two topics.
Expect the same from other contributors as well. Many Thanks.

86

There is a way to know this, order entered by you/your algo/api will come with your client code whereas order by RMS etc would come with admin id mark. That can help you get clarity on who, how the orders were placed.

Try asking for that and it might help

87

Isn’t it going against the fundamental founding principles of Zerodha? I have heard you only saying in many interviews that Zerodha doesn’t discriminate between customers. Whether one has a portfolio in crores and another in few thousands. You had given examples of how brokers like HDFC Securities etc have RM and they are given a target. With this select program, isn’t it creating a divide between the customers. Ain’t you becoming like the giants. Maybe, Zerodha has already become a giant. And it is a good thing and a bad thing too. Bad because it’s no longer lean, can’t move swiftly, can’t adapt to changes easily. Also, people ain’t as forgiving as you once were a startup. One small mistake and userbase would leapfrog to blame-game. I very well understand that managing such a large userbase is difficult and Zerodha has to sustain itself to serve us. It’s a tricky situation. Please read my words as concern and not a criticism.

May I correct you here? Please do what is right. Because what is right and what is best are two different things. For example, Zerodha not executing the mutual fund orders as and when it receives them and instead aggregates them to execute them at bulk post 1:30 pm, this framework must have been designed thinking Zerodha is doing the best for the users. It forgot that it was not doing the right thing. But you know this strategy backfired on April 12, 2021 when there was a technical glitch at BSEStarMF which led to order failures even if the customer had placed an order at 9:30 am. The right thing there was to not hold on to the orders and pass them for execution as and when you receive them. Similarly, the right things is aligning with SEBI cut-off rather than 1:30 pm blanket deadline. The unfortunate incident on 12 April, 2021 taught you a lesson. Karma it was. But the changes are yet not implemented. And there is no sign of implementing them soon enough. So Zerodha seems to have become a bulky conglomerate-type that can’t change swiftly anymore. Please don’t mind me saying this but I am only stating the truth here. People won’t forgive you or Zerodha because now it is a big, unicorn and amongst few profitable companies (in the startup segment) where you and other directors are drawing hundreds of crores of salary as per the media reports. You getting my point, dear. I am concerned that’s why I am saying this. Please don’t take my words in any other way. I apologize if my words have hurt you. But as I said before, I will only say the truth.