Zecco.com

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Zecco.com is an American online investor portal. Zecco stands for "Zero Commission Cost". Zecco's stated philosophy was to eliminate commission fees. Zecco was among the first online investing websites that allowed for any trades without a commission. Currently Zecco Trading allows for ten free trades a month[1]. However, Zecco requires a minimum balance of $2,500 to be able to receive the 10 free trades. If that balance is not met, or the 10 trades are exceeded, the price is $4.50.

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[edit] Community

Zecco.com was also the second investing website to allow (but does not obligate) users to disclose their portfolios and performance publicly in the user forums[2] after Tradeking, which launched with these capabilities in December 2005. Zecco Profiles are given a stated objective, for instance "Speculation" or "Growth. In theory this disclosure allows users to seek out high performers with similar objectives. [3]

Since Zecco cannot offer personal attentive service as Schwab and others do, they rely on the community forums to help newer users get acquainted. Although recently CEO Jeroen Veth in his blog reported tripling the customer service staff to better assist users. In addition, call pickup time has nearly been cut in half since Summer of 07. [4]

[edit] Features

Zecco offers a low price point for trading, but as a result lacks more of the advanced features of some other companies. Zecco does have live tracking, but it does not auto-refresh nor does it compare two stocks simultaneously. Zecco offers some of these features in the form of extra fees[5]. This makes zecco more suitable for smaller investors, or people with more unified portfolios. Zecco also offers tax planning software and assistance at an extra cost. [6].

[edit] Criticisms

Zecco's community is very open about speaking out against certain parts of the trading interface as well as the site as a whole. Recently, due to demand, Zecco reformed its "money transfer" interface. However some still complain due to speed issues with money transfer and being able to buy stock. Dividends do not show up in the users account until the day after they are paid. Other trading companies will put the dividend in immediately. Money transfers have taken 5 days at times to appear in an account as usable. [7] [8]

There had in the past been issues with tax withholding as mentioned in an actual brokers test drive of zecco. Such issues have been resolved. [9]

[edit] Overall Reception

Reviews of Zecco have been mixed. When serious customer service issues arise, at times, it seems Zecco is lacking in this area. However frequent traders have glorified the free trading. Still other investors with just a couple trades a month find the interface to be lacking, and would rather pay the commissions to get such features. Although with the recent improvements in customer service, zecco's usage has gone up consistently over the last 12 months.

Another hinderance to Zecco's growth is the refusal to trade international markets and stocks. Even stocks on the OTCBB that are not US based may not be bought. Zecco currently supports the AMEX, NYSE, NASDAQ, OTCBB, and The Pink Sheets.

[edit] References

  1. ^ Let's All Pick on E*Trade
  2. ^ Investors share tips, track records online - USATODAY.com
  3. ^ http://www.zecco.com/zeccoshare/user/default.aspx?UserID=23248
  4. ^ http://www.zecco.com/blogs/zeccoscoop/You-spoke-We-listened-Were-delivering.aspx
  5. ^ http://www.zecco.com/trading/PremiumTools.aspx
  6. ^ https://www.zecco.com/trading/GainsKeeper.aspx?gkTab=Taxes
  7. ^ http://www.zecco.com/forums/Its-been--days-since-I-sold-No-buying-power-31054_1.aspx
  8. ^ http://www.zecco.com/forums/Transfering-funds-to-my-Zecco-account-30271_1.aspx
  9. ^ http://www.zecco.com/forums/Dividends-and-Taxes---Simple-Questions-from-a-Rookie-14347_1.aspx

[edit] External links