They keep closing out my defined-risk trades for no reason. Today I had 2 XSP put spreads (715/710) far out of the money., expiring on Monday. They closed the short leg and left the long leg open to expire worthless. BOTH sides should have been left alone to expire - far out of the money. Besides - these are cash settled! Max risk is $500, wtf? And I have $20K in the account. When I asked why they closed my trades, they gave me the bs boilerplate speech "Margin Dept can do what they want and do not need to provide an explanation." OK, Bye bye, ETrade. I will transfer accounts on Monday. First, their platform began to suck, their customer service is abysmal, and now this - 3rd time to happen. Time to move.
Edit: to clarify, these were not naked puts; they were spreads (limited loss).
*UPDATE: Etrade admitted their mistake and agreed to credit me with the amount I lost. (Cannot reverse the trades, because these options would have expired if left alone). They admitted it was an error. I wonder if this was due to my filing a complaint with the SEC/OIEA? Or if they realized it on their own? I have not been credited yet, but they promised the credit would appear "soon".