I encourage anyone with trading issues to contact their brokerage by phone. I have made trades with Scottrade over the phone when I couldn't trade online, even ahead of DTC clearing post-split. They might restrict you to trading within your margin and I recall Scottrade waiving the broker fee also but that was a few years back. My experience with Scottrade has been that I have ALWAYS been able to speak to a broker to clarify or unravel a trading problem.