Horrible experience with Stock Broker for Maintenance Charge
Many of my friends do regular trading on shares and they trade on BSE and NSE both. For those who do not know the difference between both so I would like to explain it here.BSE means Bombay Stock Exchange and NSE is for National Stock Exchange. Both are the part of share market and we get more companies listed on the National Stock Exchange as compared to the Bombay Stock Exchange so if you are someone who wants to have more investing options then NSE is the right place for you. I also prefer to invest more in the national stock exchange rather than BSE because of more companies listed in this segment but again it depends on your preference so you can choose the one you like.
I opened my demat account and trading account in the year 2017 in one of the companies called Sharekhan. In India, if you want to do share trading then you must have a demat and trading account where you can keep your holdings in a demat account and in trading you perform trade. While opening the account both the segments are opened for you so you need not to worry big it is a consolidated process and will be taken care of by the broker itself however unit sign the form and provide the required documents. there are some opening charges for the account and along with that we also need to fund the account with some decent money which can be at least 10,000 INR however if you give more than probably you are going to get better brokerage charges. Here better means you will be charged less if you open the account with a higher margin and here margin refers to the initial funding that you deposited in the trading account
Annual Charges on the Demat account
Initially, when I opened the account I was told that the first year there will be no charge on the account however thereafter they will be charging some account towards the envelope maintenance but that can be waived off after discussion. I thought okay if they are ready to wave it later then let's go with it but my experience later on was very bad. I did some trading in the first year but it was not too much because I'm still not comfortable in that environment and even in the same year I entered in crypto market which I found more interesting for me rather than spending time in the share market. The problem with the stock market is that it runs between working hours and it is difficult for any working person to manage. Although these brokers provide assistance where one person will be aligned with us and he can buy or sell on our behalf but I never felt comfortable with this concept because it is like giving your money to someone else and expecting returns but if he or she is so good then why can't they go ahead with their own money and make great returns on the investment.
After one year I was charged some annual maintenance amount that I did not pay and since I was not active much after one year so it was accumulated. I did some stock buying in late 2020. When I bought these stocks then I got to know that there is some outstanding of 1300 inr in my account and I will have to pay this else they will sell out this stock to adjust the amount. it was shocking for me because I was told a different statement in the beginning so I asked them to reverse it since it was already told me but they did not agree. I was given two options either I make the payment of the outstanding that also includes the GST else they will adjust the same by selling of the stocks from my holding and this was something I was not happy with. I did not want my stocks to be sold out so I paid the outstanding but I requested them that it was already told that my account will not be charged for the envelope maintenance so please make sure that you do not charge going forward.
That time I was told that there is a process that they are going to apply in my account now so going forward I will not be charged and I thought now the issue is sorted out. Since then I have done login sometimes in my account but never did any trade and its been more than two years. last month I did trade on one of the shares because they were notifying me that my account will be marked as dominant because of no transactions. I did buy one share with a very less amount just to keep my account active as I do not want it to be marked as dormant.
Now I got to know about another twist which was completely unexpected for me. I added the fund and purchased the stock I wanted to buy and the next day I got an email from their site that there is an outstanding and they will be settling off against the stock sale if I don't pay them. this was a surprise for me because it was already discussed in 2020 that I will not be paying anything towards the annual maintenance charge because I don't use my account much and they also committed the same at that time. once again the same option is given to me if I do not pay the outstanding then they are going to sell off the stocks to make the adjustment and surprisingly there were a number of notifications to me for making this payment unless I did some trade in the account.
Now again I am in the situation that if I dont make the payment then they are going to deduct the same from my holding and it is a very bad experience I must tell you because they are not bothered about the customers instead they are trying to make money by following bad practices. Once again I did not want to lose my holding so decided to pay the outstanding which is for account maintenance.
This time I had no intention to fight with them and I just paid off all the outstanding but I have also decided that I will be closing this account soon. I have already opened my account with one of the brokers that does not charge any involvement in this charge. There is some option that I can use to transfer the holding from that broker to another one which is my new account but I will need to explore the option to see how it works. I believe I have already paid the charges for this year so I have ample amount of time to perform the transfer but to be honest I really want to get rid of this broker which is not just pathetic in terms of service but they are also so bad with customers.
Crypto is better because we do not need to pay any annual maintenance charge here if we trade then we are required to pay some brokerage which makes sense but in the stock market, things are really not well managed.
Thank you