How and where to buy ETFs?

Question

I tried to buy a ETF(Exchange Traded Fund) through my scottrade online account. But, I got the following message:

Unable to enter the order because the symbol GLD was not found. This is because the symbol entered is either not in the correct format OR Scottrade does not offer this mutual fund

Do I have to have some special online account to buy ETFs? How and where I can buy ETFs?

Answer 1

I think ETF is not trade as a mutual fund. It is trade as a stock. May be you were at the wrong sector. My self trade those EFT fund which is optionable like SPY and DIA. I am using TOS, may be you can try to trade at this plat form.  

Answer 2

I bought gld at scottrade without a problem.  Maybe you should call them.  

Answer 3

I don't know why you are getting an error because ETFs are supposed to trade like just like stocks.  You do not need to have a special online account to buy ETFs.

I used to have a Scottrade account, but I decided to switch to Firstrade ( http://www.firstrade.com/ ) because they didn't offer DRIPs.  I never traded ETFs when I had a Scottrade account, but I know that Firstrade doesn't have this problem.