Online stock broker Shoonya places ghost orders; leaves users alarmed after showing losses in accounts

Online stock broking applications have significantly scaled up the volume of share market trading in India, by making it more accessible and quicker. But online trading platforms also come with their own glitches, which could leave users hanging, as they may even miss out on opportunities to book profits.

After Zerodha was hit by a technical outage late last year, now users of digital stock broker Shoonya are facing a glitch since Thursday morning.

Traders left in a lurch

• Online investors complained of massive orders they had never placed, and subsequent losses worth lakhs of rupees more than their capital.

• The startup acknowledged the technical issues and assured users that they will be fixed soon, but the matter remained unresolved beyond midday.

• As one user flagged orders getting placed automatically without their clearance, another mentioned how the account was showing a profit suddenly showed a loss 20 times greater.

A glitch could make a big difference

• At the same time the customer support for Shoonya left people out cold, as traders were unable to get any response despite making several calls.

• Before this debacle at Shoonya, Zerodha had left users unable to perform transactions, because of which some users even lost lakhs that they could've made by booking profits on that day.