I was a happy Investorline customer for several ye...

I was a happy Investorline customer for several years up to 4 years ago at a preferred level. While I did not have a huge amount in my accounts I still had enough to be invited to preferred Calgary Investorline customer events in the form of workshops, events, and updates. As well I had a personal Calgary contact who I could call whenever I had any issues. Concierge service yeah!. Then all of sudden this disappeared. Seeking lower fees, with commission free ETFs, I switched to Virtual Brokers. Have been with them happily ever since. Recently it took me two weeks to transfer funds from VB to another provider, which I found to be unacceptable. So when a local BMO planner suggested I take a look at the Investorline platform, and receive a small cash incentive (roughly 10 bps of account value) I was willing to take a serious look at the BMO offering. Then things began to fall apart. A flawed sales process forced me to call the Calgary Toronto Sales Manager, who then said he would have to run my eligibility by yet another Manager. Come on guys, I am not travelling to the moon, I am just looking for better service! Smelling odors of the retail car industry sales practices was an instant deal killer. Never promise the customer one thing, then give them another and then yet another. Have you never taken an effective sales course? Bottom line, BMO Investorline is ok, but there are likely better platforms. Check out broker comparison tools online for more details. Money Sense and Rick Carrick of the Globe and Mail have done great comparisons and rate BMO with only a middling grade. If BMO wanted to, it could easily beat the others, in the meantime they will miss out on increased market share thru muddled sales practices, and less than optimum platform / pricing.