Brokerages review from UK

Hey guys,

I'm new here and decided to share my experience with some UK brokerages for US market trading as a newbie, if you have some good/bad ones feel free to share too! And let us know what broker you currently use.

So i first tried to open with US companies (cheaper..) like TDAmeritrade, Scottrade, eTrade.. but they dont accept non US residents.

So after looking around i opened with HL (Hargreaves Lansdown), my advice stay far away from these guys!
http://www.hl.co.uk/
Good:
- Easy and fast to open an account
- Dont charge for debit card deposits
- Deposits are instantly available for trading
- No platform inactivity fees.
- Free 5 trades to begin with (refunded 1 month later)

Bad:
- Slow and old platform (bad looking too) and app
- Expensive! 12£ per transaction
- Since i trade US there is also 1.5% exchange rate fee aswell as the exchange rate being bad
- Cant hold $ so you have to convert back and forward per sale and pay more commissions with with terrible rates (many people ignore this and its a mistake)
- Transfer holdings out to another broker: 25£ per holding
- To transfer out you need to send a hand written letter to them
- Close account: 30£ (if you take your last 30£ out they will assume its closing and charge this)
- Customer support is slow!

I've heard Interactive Brokers is quite good too and was going to switch to them but i found these other guys that i ended up choosing GetStocks
https://getstocks.com (if you want to open with them and get some free trades use my invite http://ift.tt/1kk3wTG )
Good:
- Good looking website/app
- Stocks got related tweets/news
- 7.5$ per transaction
- No inactivity fees or transfer out fees
- You can open a $ account and always trade in dollars
- Customer support is fast and very helpful
- If you want to transfer $ to your account you can make wire transfer and use services like TransferWise or Azimo to get the best exchange rates
- If you do well people can subscribe to you by paying a fee that you pick and follow your trades (Piggyback)
- Lots of stocks availabe including new ones (Square and Match were there on IPO day)
- You can buy Transaction bundles like 75$ for 14 trades (better rates if you spend more..)

Bad:
- Card deposits are expensive 2.4% for credit and if you deposit in a different currency also 2.4% + an exchange rate that is not the best
- You can only open with one currency, at account open you pick, no multi currency wallet.

Let me know what you guys use and why! If you wanna ask anything about any of the ones i used feel free.

Brokerages review from UK