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Hillary of Buford GA (05/11/08)
I set up an Etrade savings account in June 2007. I funded the account with my Wachovia checking and set up this external account for free online transfers. I called first around September when every outgoing transfer failed several times. The rep said that the accounts were not connected to my username when I set up the account and that he had fixed it. I tried again several times and still the transfers never went through. I called again around October regarding this issue and after being transfered from department to department and mostly waiting on hold for 2 hours the last rep I spoke with said he could not even pull up my account and that I would have to write a letter to Etrade in Merrifield Virginia. I wrote five letters and received no response. Each time I called the rep would tell me that I would receive instructions in writing and that all correspondence must be in writing. I finally sent a notarized fax April 16 and a certified letter received April 25 by Etrade requesting a wire transfer to close my account. Finally Etrade sent me a letter. It stated that Etrade had decided to use its discretion to close my account. If I did not withdraw my funds they would be mailed to me. No time frame was given. Apparently it could take a century or a few millennia for Etrade to use its discretion to act on returning my funds. Meanwhile, I have no access and no information regarding my own money. It's frightening. To date Etrade has not returned my money by wire as requested or by any other means. It has been almost a month since my faxed request and it is fast approaching a year since my first letter dated October 23, 2007, when I simply asked what the issue was and how to resolve it.
No access to my own funds for aperiod of over six months and constantly being told to write another letter or to wait for another letter and oh by the way your account has been restricted and i can't tell you why or advise you other than write or wait for anther letter has caused a great deal of anxiety. And now that Etrade has said it will take its own time closing and sending the money back to me and when I call its either the restriction hasn't been lifted yet and the transfer can't go through until then whenever that happens or doesn't happen at Etrade's discretion, apparently or you will receive instructions in the mail (again?!!!) which I've already (finally) received. It has been disheartening being ignored for so long while I've been trying to resolve an issue that I've been given absolutely no information about and it's a real concern now that etrade has given itself an unspecified amount of time to close my account or continue to hold it restricted from my access according to its discretion. It is hard to sleep at night knowing that Etrade has decided to exercise its discretion and has complete access to my account whereas I , the account holder, have no access to my own money because Etrade has restricted my access with no explanation and no recourse with Etrade other than call and be rebuffed or write and be ignored. I am poorer than I was before I funded the account because I have no access to my own money and no real timeframe to expect it back.
Tara of Seattle WA (05/07/08)
On February 11, 2008 I mailed two checks in the amounts of $10,000 and $30,000 in the same envelope via expedited mail USPS (2-3 days), attached with a signature return receipt, a tracking number, and insurance. The envelope reached E*Trade on February 15, 2008. At this time one check in the amount of $10,000 was put into my account. I waited until February 19Th to check on the other checks status. My mother a co-owner on the account phoned E*Trade to discover that they never received a second check in the same envelope for $30,000.
E*Trade then began to question my mother on whether she knew what she was talking about, if the check had in fact been in the envelope, and questioned whether there was even a check for this amount to begin with. After speaking with three customer service representatives (of which names and employee IDs can be accounted for) she spoke with one representative who asked for the tracking number of the envelope. I called this representative back with the tracking number and spoke with an individual who then also questioned whether I mailed the check. At which point she told me she would request a research on the account, which would take two days. My response to this was, You want me to wait two days while you find $30,000? Will I get any updates?? She replied with an attitude that it wasn'tt a big deal and there was nothing more that could be done, and that I would get calls with updates.
Not receiving any updates via phone or email I called in to speak with a manager for the status of the research the following day. I spoke with a manager in the banking department who requested I send a copy of the $30,000 check. I faxed him a copy of both checks that same day. The manager was then to call me when he received the fax. After not hearing from him I called the following day to attempt to reach this manager. After speaking with a representative who was hesitant to send me to this managers extension she gave me to a different manager, who then transferred me to the manager I requested. I left a voice mail and requested he call me back, he did in fact call back 20 minutes later confirming he had received the faxed duplicates of the checks. I was then told that I would need to wait two business days.
I called everyday a couple times a day checking on the status, still no updates were provided. The only response was that the research was still in process. I spoke with a different manager requesting I get back interest on the missing $30,000, he agreed and put a request in for this to occur. He stated that if it didn't happen automatically it would be manually credited to my account. I also informed this manager that there was a signature request form on the front of the shipping envelope that I did not get returned to me either. I also informed him that I was doubted the entire time that I even had these funds, and wanted to know what would be done to make this right. He said he would give me back interest and immediate access to the funds once they were located, if they were located. He said the funds would be available the same time as the $10,000 deposit as they were supposed to be received by E*Trade at the same time.
February 22ND the $30,000 check was miraculous found somewhere in E*Trades institution. None of the representatives or managers I spoke with gave me an answer as to where it was, nor an apology. February 24Th I called E*Trade after looking at my account on line and none of the funds were available. I was then told the $10,000 would clear the next day (Monday 2/25/2008), but the $30,000 would not clear until Thursday or Friday. I asked to speak with a supervisor regarding what I was told in the past about having immediate access to these funds. I was then left on hold for 25 minutes until I hung up and called back. At which point I was told to call the manager of the banking department the following day, and that their hours were 8a-12midnight.
The following day I called to speak with a manager, the representative would not let me speak with one. He said that it was a waste of everyones time since there was nothing that could be done. Bringing me close to tears I called my mom to ask if she would call and inquire about the issue while I went to class.
My mom then called and spoke with a supervisor named Jessette. Jessette told my mother that she would look into the problem of the funds not being readily available. My mother was very clear that a financial institution that lost funds and had bad customer service skills was not a place her and her daughter wished to do business. Especially when they suspected us of lying about sending the funds and then later not apologizing once they realized it was their error. As previously agreed the funds were to be available and not held, so my mother informed Ms L that if the funds were not released by days end our financial business would be taken to another banking institution. Ms L assured a phone call regarding status and availability of funds by days end and promised back interest to the original deposit date within 24-48 hours. Neither have occurred.
Frank of Jupiter FL (05/02/08)
On Thursday May 1st I logged on to my ETrade account at 9:34 am to check my bank account balance, and had an available balance of $152.97. I made a print of this statement. When I checked my account later on I had a negative balance of $6.10 because ETrade had placed a hold on a transfer that I initiated on 4/29/08 from another financial institution (Bank Atlantic).
The money was withdrawn from BankAtlantic on 4/30/08. ETrade is wrongfully placing a hold on this money (even though it has been credited to the account) in order to purposefully bring the account to overdraft status in order to attempt to collect an insufficient fund fee.
Insufficient fund fees.
Dave of Tampa FL (05/01/08)
I have been a loyal customer of Etrade since they transfered my account from another brokerage. I gave them over $500 in commisions just for the month of April. I deployed to Iraq in Feb 2008. The account has worked fine until 3 days ago. I can log in but can't access the brokerage portion. I called the security center and answered all of their questions correctly but they told me I made a mistake and I had to send a notarized letter to unlock the account. I told them I am on a small operating base in Iraq and there is no notary here. She said there is nothing she can do - I asked to speak to a manager, explain to me why it was locked out, how I could prove my idenity in many other ways...she played the broken record game and said not without a notary.
I spoke to 3 other reps from this security department (plus two Etrade traders) and none of them cared if I had to risk my life or wait to go on leave in 6 months to fix this issue. Now I have to get my team of 10 to go on a special mission to a larger base to get a notary which puts all of us in danger from IEDs, small arms fire, and whatever else could be out there. I want to know if it is legal that they can lock my account and deny me access to my funds but unfortunately I do not have any means to fight this. I have written 10 messages explaining my circumstances and get a cut and paste reply I need to contact the security center. It's bad enough being in a war zone, but the fact Etrade will not even recognize that they are putting me in harms way and taking my circumstances of being in war is absolutely dispicable. Etrade should be embarassed on the national news.
Time, phone calls, potential enemy action, lost interest, stress, the list goes on.
Thomas of East Brunswick NJ (04/30/08)
I have an account with etrade which I am soon closing. I had it dormant for about two years because I wanted the stocks I had there to sit for a while. I logged in to buy another stock recently and noticed they had charge my account $280 which I learned was from not doing any transactions. How can I get this money back?
Gordon of Larkspur CA (04/28/08)
It took a year to transfer an account and required innumerable calls, emails, faxes, letters and submissions of documents. The average response time to email and letters was one month or more. After finally getting the account transfered, I tried to do an online trade today only to get a message that the account was not approved for trading and to call Customer Service (shudder). I did so and was told they needed a document that was sent to them well over a year ago.
After being put on hold for over half an hour, I was told they found the document (a major victory) but that it would take 2 or 3 business days to activate the account for trading and there was nobody I could talk to who could do it more quickly. ETrade has by far the worst customer service I've ever encountered.
Consequences unknown at this time. It will depend on whether the security I was attempting to trade goes up or down.
Mike of Highlands Ranch CO (04/25/08)
I was a manager of an investment club that decided to dissolve. We then divided our joint account into 12 individual accounts. Each account was opened with about 5k. Now we are hit with $160 per year in service fees. These fees were not in place when the accounts were opened. We I called to have the fees reversed I was told only the last imposed fee could be reversed. My account is now -$167.00. It contains 3 loser stocks that I was holding until they get above my purchase price.
E*Trades only offers to rectify the situation were for me to add more cash to the account so they could take out more fees. If I transfer to another firm they will assess me another $60. If I liquidate they will only charge $39. All though one holding is valued at less than the transaction fee. I am amazed that they don't notify the customer if there account goes into a negative cash holding. The only positive I see is that ETFC is down 70% since the started assessing me their fees.
Jill of Greenville SC (04/24/08)
I invested my money in a one-year CD with etrade. They never sent me a signature card and so when my CD matured the beginning of March and I faxed a letter saying I wanted my CD closed and my money sent to me, nothing happened. I had assumed they were taking care of it according to the instructions in my fax. About a week later I called etrade and thus began the miserable process of trying to get my money. They claimed they called me to tell me they needed a copy of my signature, but I received no phone call and no message was left. They said if I faxed a copy of my drivers lisence to them for proof of my signature with my account number and instructions to close out my account, they would do so. Again I waited and nothing happened.
I am a student and faxing costs me because I do not own a fax machine. I even got a thank-you in the mail from etrade thanking me for renewing my CD. I called etrade. I talked to a Christopher Bingham and he said I could fax it directly to him and he would take care of it. I called to follow up, not trusting they had received my fax, and I talked to several people over the next couple days. One representative said he spoke to Christopher and that Christopher had received my fax and was taking care of it. So I called the next day to follow up and got a different story. I spoke with a Johnny Shia and he said he could not get a hold of Christopher and did not have a record of my fax and asked if I could please fax it again. Obviously I was way beyond the grace period, but it was because of etrades ineptness. I consented only on the condidtion that Johnny gave me his personal extension. I was tired of hearing the same empty promise that the representative would follow up. Johnny Shia has been the only one to follow up.
I called etrads 800 number because I wanted to see if it showed that my account had finally been closed out and my money shipped. I spoke to someone who put me on hold for the longest time only to tell me he couldnt located my fax in the system (they supposedly scan them into the conputer becuae they have 3 locations). I then called Johnny to make sure my fax was received, and in fact it had been. Obviously their system? (if you can call it that) is a mess. He said it was being processed and he would call me when my money would be shipped. He actually did call to tell me they had sent my money Fed Ex, which I has specified in my fax. My money finally arrived April 24, 2008. Johnny was the only person I spoke to who actually does what he says he will do. Therefore, do NOT do business with etrade, but if you must talk to Johnny. In all, I had to send 5 faxes and wait a month and a half to get my money sent to me.
Kenneth of Iowa Falls IA (04/12/08)
I attempted to call etrade to close my account. I was informed that I could not close my account because I had a ballance on my account. After selling my stocks, I had $25.97 in my account.
When I try to call etrade back, I am placed on hold for excessive amounts of time, never reaching a customer service representative, and therefore STILL can not close my account.
I need to close this account, but I am not able to close it because I can never reach a representative to close my account.
Etrade absorbed my $25.97 for a service fee and the account is STILL open.
Robert of West Chester PA (04/12/08)
The complaints about abysmal customer service are legion. I am now going through what many others have previously reported. Try to get access to the funds you have on deposit with them, and they will arbitrarily decide you are a security risk and freeze your account. You cannot get access to your account until you send them a notarized letter. I have sent such a notarized letter which asks them to close my account and wire the funds to the bank account that they have previously verified. They are now refusing to do that because they have not yet authenticated my notarized letter. The first person told me it would take 48 hours, the last person I spoke with said that he will contact me next Thursday, which is 6 days after their receipt of my notarized letter.
This goes beyond stupidity, malfeasance and incompetence. Etrade has intentionally put in place customer service procedures to insure that any attempt to withdraw funds from Etrade will be very seriously delayed, which guarantees Etrade the use of your money for free.
Some advice to the people who want to sell stocks while they are going through this nightmare. As incredible as this may seem, while they are adamantly maintaining that they can't talk to you until you have authenticated yourself with this Notarized letter nonsense, if you tell them that you want to close your account with Etrade, they will conference a broker onto the phone call and let you sell all of the securities in your account, even though supposedly in their eyes you are not the authenticated account owner. This will not get you the use of your funds, but it will be helpful if the sale of all your securities will limit potential future losses.
How to explain this paradox? Since Etrade is intent on depriving you of your assets by retaining them for their own use, I strongly suspect that customer assets in the form of cash are more valuable to Etrade than customer assets in the form of securities, hence they are more than happy to let you liquidate securities even if you are not the real account owner. Their security procedures are designed to thwart only those potentially fraudulent transactions that would not unilaterally be in Etrades best interest. There seems to be no problem with potentially fraudulent transactions that benefit Etrade, such as turning securities into cash.
Hopefully what they are doing will turn out to be illegal, and the persons responsible for this scam will be awarded a sabbatical in a penitentiary.
Ruth of Greenwood Village CO (04/07/08)
Whatever you do, don't become an E*Trade customer. They charge you $160.00 per year (at least)in inactivity fees. Yes, that's right; they charge you for every quarter that you don't make a trade. This is MUCH higher than normal industry maintenance fees. They are extremely rude and sold all of my stock to pay for their egregiously high fees. You have been warned.
N. of Fairfax VA (04/07/08)
The entire process of their quick transfer couldnt be more painful than it is? I think quick transfer crap is not even lawful when they have dedicated someone money yet cant make them available for owner for up to 7 days? Scottrdar are very small but they are able to make funds available same day or next biz day. This is rip-off and frustrating when the funds are not available to use for the propose of it transfer
I wanted to buy shares yet i couldn't case these suckers did not make my payments available for 10 days and 7 days
Ernest of Portland OR (03/25/08)
I initiated a transfer from my e*Trade account to my bank. A list of verification questions was presented, none of which had any information that was related to me and therefore I was unable to select answers. I don't know where they got this information but it wasn't mine. The transaction failed. Then I tried a second time. A second set of questions was presented that did have information I recognized and I answered all correctly. I got confirmation that the transaction was verified. Then my account was put into secure mode due to the incorrect answers to the 1st set of questions. This tied up my entire account. I called to get it cleared up. I was told that I had 1 hour to fax them a list of personal financial information including a copy of a government issued ID with my signature. I faxed it within 15 minutes of my call and had a successful transmission report. I called 1 1/2 hours after I faxed and was told that they did not receive the fax and that there was nothing more they could do for me since I didn't send them a fax. That fax option was only good for 1 hour. Then they told me that I had to get a notarized copy of the same information and overnight it to them, but they wouldn't give me an address where I could get a signature for the receipt...only a P.O. Box. I was told that I could not speak to anyone else since I was not verified even though I had successfully answered all their questions and was able to logon to my account. Afterwards I checked online and found many similar complaints.
This has delayed funds that I needed urgently for medical treatment. They still are not transfering my money. I had to pay for a notary and because I have a disability and can't drive I had to spend $44 for cab fare to get the notarized information expressed to them. They took up 2 hours of my time while I was at work. VERY FRUSTRATING.
Jerome of Neenah WI (03/17/08)
I have had lots of problems dealing with Etrade in the past, and when it seemed like they were going under I was very happy to transfer my money to another brokerage. I conducted the transfer about 1/15. In February, I checked on the transfer and found I had been shorted $43.38. It seems they waited to do the transfer until 1/31 when two funds paid dividends. The January account statement says they paid the dividends, but it never was included in the money which was transferred. Etrade says that the company that it transferred to should pay the dividends. I know that's not true. So I asked how the new brokerage was going to pay the dividend on Etrade Money Market Fund. They new I had them, so they promptly paid the 14 cents they stole (.0000000000000001% dividend). The other dividend of $43.24 has never been paid. I wasted 10 hours on the phone.
It seems there is some kind of racket where they can prevent their company from going under by outright stealing customers' money. I wish I could prove it. Even though the statement clearly shows they stole my money, they know I can't get justice without spending a lot more than $43.24. If there is a class action against this company, I will gladly join.
Kevin of Tsawwassen OTHER (03/14/08)
I opened an account with E-Trade in 2002 and invested $5000 in a speculative stock that slowly lost most of its value.
From 2004 to 2008 I did not use my eTrade account, and recently found out they had been charging $40 per quarter no activity, taking my account to negative $300.
Wishing to close my account, I mailed them a check to cover these fees bringing the amount owing to zero.
Upon phoning in and telling them I wanted to close my account, the operator handed me over to a new agent who said that a security restriction had *just* been placed on my account. The only way I can modify my account is to fax them ID verification and go through a series of detailed account history questions (which I very likely do not know).
The saga is still not over.
Roughly 10 hours of phone calls and hundreds of dollars spent to cover their no activity fees.
Joseph of Spartanburg SC (03/10/08)
I have been trying to get my IRA CD closed and sent to me so I can invest elsewhere since it matured Feb 12, 2008. I have called, faxed numerous times, called some more, refaxed and been promised the moon. Today, Mar 10, I got a thank you from E*Trade thanking me for renewing my CD for another year. Not only did they illegally renew it but they lowered the rate from 5.26% to 2.85% even though it was supposed to always renew at the previous year's rate. I have all the documentation for all this communication but have no idea who to contact. I would think IRAs would be protected from this kind of abuse.
This is not the first time E*Trade has cheated my IRA. The last time it cost me thousands of dollars because they let a lot of money just sit for six months without transferring it to the proper place. I called over and over first to confirm they had received the instructions and follow-up calls. Every time I called they assured me that it was being processed. After 6 months they put it were it belonged but refused to pay the interest it would have been receiving. To the person that got turned down by E*Trade: count your blessings. Wish I had.
The funds are to be combined with other funds to make up a miminum deposit. Until this CD is received none of my IRA is being invested in the best way.
Maria of West Babylon NY (03/05/08)
I opened an acount on Jan. 20, 2008 and they have held my money ever since. I requested to close the account several times because I didn't get the credit in the etrade account but the funds were deducted from my bank account. If you open an account with etrade your money is going to be held for a long time and when you try to get credit for the time they held it... you won't, Also it you try to close it, you will have to fax, mail or e-mail letters like five time because it gets lost.
Due to my money being held I was fustrated and upset. With all the stress I have I really didn't need the extra stress from e*trade.
Gregory of Galveston TX (03/05/08)
My wife and I are long-standing customers of E*Trade, with 3 brokerage accounts. On 3/3/08, we opened a Complete Savings account and funded it via ACH (electronic) transfer from our local bank. The funds were withdrawn from our bank and credited to our new E*Trade account on 3/4/08; however, these funds are UNAVAILABLE TO US until 3/15/08. Nine business days from the date of electronic transfer.
Though this stipulation is in the E*Trade Customer Agreement, there is certainly no attempt to draw attention to it, nor explanation for it. This is exemplary of an institution burying clauses detrimental to potential customers within a lengthy contract for service.
I spoke with a customer service representative, then his supervisor, Roger. Both told me the same thing. Company policy is to hold verified funds in a new account (regardless of history with the bank, or funds in other accounts exceeding the amount deposited) for nine business days following the date of transfer. According to Roger, there is no way around this and it is irrevocable. Once the process is initiated, the customer is denied access to his money for the duration of E*Trades elective holding period.
Roger refused to connect me to his supervisor, refused to provide me his supervisor's phone number.
Kelly of Pleasanton CA (02/27/08)
On February 11, 2008 I attempted to open a savings account at Etrade.com. I was declined due to information provided to Etrade by ChexSystems. I requested a report from ChexSystem. On February 15, 2008 I received a letter from ChexSystems indicating that conflicting information on my report and they were conducting an investigation. On February 18, 2008 I contacted ChexSystems for clarification. After several minutes on hold I was told that the letter was sent in error and there was no negative information on my report. A new report was to be sent.
I contacted Etrade with the above information and was told that the savings account would be opened once Etrade received a copy of the clean report from ChexSystems. On February 24, 2008, I faxed a copy of the ChexSystems report to Etrade. On February 27, 2008, I called Etrade to follow up on the status of my application. I was told that I needed to go online and resubmit the application. I did, and was declined again. I contacted ChexSystems who assured me that there was no negative information on my report. I called Etrade and was transferred to four different departments before I reached someone who told me there was nothing they could do. She said that faxing a copy of my report was of no benefit. I asked her what I should do; she offered no solution. I asked for a supervisor who told me that I needed to mail in an application with a copy of report from ChexSystems. She could not retrieve any information from previous applications and I would surely be declined again if I attempted to apply over the phone. I am a business owner. I would be appalled if a potential client of ours received this level of service while trying to give us their business.
Kimberly of Aberdeen MD (02/01/08)
I bought my home 3 1/2 years ago. immediately upon settlement e trade sold my mortgage to counrtywide. i received a letter from countrywide saying i would no longer make any payments to e trade. I never again heard from e trade and my morgage payments (i later got a home equity loan) are current. This week a letter was hand delivered to me stating i must contact e trade immediately. When i finally got through i was told that I owe them $18,000. Apparently, I got 2 mortgages when i initially bought my home and e trade neglected to sell the second one then took 3 years to figure it out. Now i actually have 3 mortgages, which most i have talked to said it rare. My contract with e trade states they will send me monthly statements which they never have. However, the fact is they do have a lien on my home & apparently i do in fact owe them $18,000. I am on a strict budget. I do not have $18,000, nor will it fit into my budget. I feel e trade was neglectful on there end and find it perposterous that 3 1/2 years later this is dumped on me. The facts are they legally can sell my house at this point and there is nothing i can do. In addition, they can prevent me from selling my house which i plan to do in a year and 1/2. I have called many government listings and consulted with anattorney. I have a couple leads on how to correct this predicament, but nothing solid so far. Needless to say, this single mom of two young girls is completely stressed out! My credit is not at all as good as it was when i bought my home & to top it all off I am starting a new job in one week, which will also impact my ability to lend or refinance!
Charlie of Brea CA (01/23/08)
I opened three banking and one investing accounts on E*Trade 10 days ago. I expected to be able to use my $25000 to buy the stock I wanted to buy as soon as possible. However, until now, my money is still locked up in all my E*Trade accounts. I can't move or use my funds at all. The worst of all, I found that ETrade will charge me as much as $40 quarterly.
The stock I am going to buy has gone up 20%. If I could buy the stock 10 days ago, I would have earned another $2500 to $5000. I am now closing the accounts on ETrade and opening my investing account on Ameritrade or Scottrade. I have never felt so negative about a company.
T of Norcross GA (01/14/08)
My personal account had only about $800.0 in cash and as time went by, it kept getting charged. So, I called to close the account. So, they sent me the remaining cash and close my account. A year later, I still received a statement, but this time I owed them money. So, I called to closed it, and they said the account cannot be closed since there is a Restricted Stock (worthless stock). So, I filled out the form and fax and send them the requirement and with appriate check to cover the charges and the cost. However, the account never close now it shown more charges, and the same worthless stock is still in the statement again. E*Trade full of incompetent workers and they should not exist.
Currently, my account still showing open and with negative balance. Also, the worthless stock that I requested to remove by filling out the worthless stock form and signed and sent in my passport to proof of ID...still wasting time.
Rob of Westlake Village CA (01/13/08)
On Monday, January 7th, 2008, I openned an account with eTrade.com online and used their Quick Transfer option to link my Bank of America checking account to my new eTrade account and proceeded to use the Quick Transfer to transfer a large sum to eTrade to fund the account. I read through the fine print to see that my money would show up in my account on the evening of the fourth business day after the transfer is made. That should have been yesterday, Friday January 11, 2008. The funds were, in fact, deducted from my BOA account on 1/9/08. This morning the funds were not in my eTrade account, so I called to their customer service line and spoke with a Gail Mooney. She explained that my funds would not be available in my account until January 21st! I asked her where their website stated that, whereupon she put me on hold, and returned shortly thereafter. My conversation with her lasted about 22 minutes, all of the while she was searching the eTrade.com website for the information about why my money would be pending for so long. She finally told me that it is corporate policy and could not explain further.
I told her that I wanted to close my account and get my money back. She told me that I could not get my money back until January 21st at the earliest. She explained that I would earn interest on the money while it was pending. I simply cannot believe nor accept that I could make a transfer to such a large brokerage like eTrade and basically have my money unavailable to me for two entire weeks. I just filed a complaint with the SEC and will contact BOA to determine if my transfer to eTrade can be reversed. Back in 1994, I walked into a major brokerage firm in Boston and wrote out a $3000 check to start my first stock account and I owned stocks that same evening. Flash forward 14 years and eTrade needs 14 days? Beware, I consider my funds hijacked by eTrade.
Adam of Carmel IN (01/08/08)
About 2 weeks ago I attempted to transfer some money from my eTrade account to my bank and was given a long list of questions to answer. Some of the were about people I had never heard of, so I dutifully replied that I did not know those people. In response, eTrade decided I was wrong about who I knew and blocked my account. When I called customer service, they asked another series of question, one was what year I had last closed on a mortgage. It had been most of 10 years, so I took an educated guess. They decided I was wrong again and further blocked my account. Their excuse was the information they were asking abut was public record. Unfortunately I was not in a position to run a credit check on myself to get this information. Customer service then asked me to fax in a copy of my driver's license, then I later found out they had lost it. They then asked me to send in a notarized note saying I am who I am. The search for a notary continues. While all this is going on, our stock hit a record high, but I can't get at it to sell it. This has been an ongoing disaster and eTrade continues to put the onus on me to fix their mistake. As soon as I get this fixed, I am done with eTrade. If a class action suit arises from this, I would be glad to get on board.
Unable to transfer funds out the eTrade to pay bills. Unable to sell stocks which are at a record high.
Inoyo of Chatteris OTHER (01/08/08)
My company uses Etrade to deal with employee stock options. By default employees get a linked brokerage account. I activated this account and have been using it for over 5 years now. The last week, in December, I checked my account with no problems. I went back to work on 2nd Jan 2008 and when I tried to load my brokerage portfolio I get the 'you are trying to access a customer only feature'! It is now 7 days since I had access to my account with over $20,000 of stocks. The last two days the market has tanked and I have been unable to sell anything as I still have no access. I have lost thousands of dollars. I rang Etrade on Wed 2nd Jan to complain and was told it was too early to tell what had happened, they took my work telephone number and my email address and said if they could not contact me via these two methods they would use the message center. I am still waiting to hear ANYTHING from them. I called the next day and am told that she (Sheralee Thomas) has had no response from the queried department and I should wait! Now I don't know who to complain to. I have contacted them via their website mentioning getting a lawyer with still no reply. I am at my wits end with these guys and the black hole of communication they create.
Bryan of Waco TX (01/03/08)
I opened an account during the year 2000. I invested $1,000 dollars in two stocks. I bought fifteen shares of Dell for $800 and $200 of PCCLF which was a Chinese penny stock at the time. I would receive account balances usually in the sum of $750 to $650 for several years. My plan was just to leave it alone until I retire. I received a letter from E-trade a couple of months ago stating a discount for returning customers. When I contacted them for questioning they stated that they had sold my stocks because of inactivity. They insisted it was their right to sell my stocks even without my consent because of the $60.00 maintenance fee they charge per quarter year. I may have not read the fine print close enough, but how can they sell my stocks without some type of warning? I just don't understand how that can be legal in any format.
Therefore, I lost $1,000 dollars.
Andrew of New Hope PA (12/28/07)
First, Etrade somehow messed up the online access to my account. After multiple phone calls, the only solution was to create a new user name. So now I have TWO user names with Etrade, but only one that goes to the correct account. The other one goes to... who knows where? It was obvious from this experience that Etrade has terrible customer service, so I called to close my account. And I called. And I called. And I called. And each time they transfered me and put me on hold forever. I eventually hung up. And, of course, the ONLINE bank won't let me close my account ONLINE! As of this writing I am STILL on hold!
Teresa of San Diego CA (12/27/07)
Enticed by eTrade's online offer of 50 free trades if you opened up an IRA before December 31, I opened up an IRA online from eTrade's website a few days ago, while I was on my eTrade account.
I then logged onto my account and didn't see or hear anything about the promised 50 free trades. I wrote to their online Customer Service department from within my account. They said that the offer only applied if you opened up the IRA from within the promotional icon on their website. If you just went ahead and opened up the IRA on their website where they direct you to open it, the offer doesn't apply (you don't get the 50 free trades as promised.) Interesting-- I had read the fine print about the IRA promotional offer very carefully before opening the IRA, and it said nothing about this!
Secondly, they said, I was not eligible for the 50 free trades because another account with the same login ID had at some point been eligible for a promotional offer. I don't recall having taken advantage of any promotion offered with the account they referred to (my son's), which used the same login ID. Could this have been 6 months ago???!! Or never? Here they referred to the not available with any other promotion fine print of the open an IRA promotion to justify not giving me the free trades.
I can't believe this. I truly feel that I have been scammed. I am an intelligent and educated person, as I imagine most people using eTrade area, and I thought that eTrade was a professional service. I feel that this was a deliberately deceptive advertising campaign to get people to open up IRAs before December 31, with deliberately deceptive ways to create ways to not offer people the promised promotion.
Hemchander of Acworth GA (12/20/07)
I put a stop order on a trade on 12/11/07 for CFC for 1$2.60 but etrade waited until the price went down to $11.42 (five minutes after it touched $12.60). When I complained and showed them that their own stock chart was showing that the price was $12.60, they said I can complain to SEC and that I am not entitled to any adjustments on my losses. I got so ticked that I closed my account with them.
Janis of Everett WA (12/19/07)
On November 12, 2007 I sent a $2000.00 check to e*trade to fund my RothIRA account. I was careful to put all information necessary for them to fund the right account. I waited two weeks for it to show up on my account. After that I called my bank and found the check had cleared e*trade's account on Nov 15 and my bank account on Nov 16. I called e*trade and they opened a reference to search for the funds. Four days later I called e*trade and was told my claim was rejected. I faxed copies of the check to them. I called three days later and was told they never received it (even though my fax showed a successful transmission). I faxed it TWO more times to TWO different fax numbers. This time one of the people called and verified she received it. I waited another week. Called them 12/14 and was told they didn't receive any of the faxes. I gave them the name of the person who said she did receive it. They checked with her and yes they had it. Sorry, sorry, sorry for the difficulty. They would handle it personally. It would be in my account Monday 12/17. Well guess what? It's Tuesday evening and still no money. I'm at my wits' end! Their customer service is HORRIBLE. Too many people, NONE of them give a damn. I don't care how cheap they are this isn't worth it.
I have lost out on the interest my money was earning in my savings account before I sent it to e*trade and the stocks I wanted to invest in have gained in value in the 30+ days that I have unable to access my money.
Janis of Everett WA (12/18/07)
On November 12, 2007 I sent a $2000.00 check to e*trade to fund my RothIRA account. I was careful to put all information necessary for them to fund the right account. I waited two weeks for it to show up on my account. After that I called my bank and found the check had cleared e*trade's account on Nov 15 and my bank account on Nov 16. I called e*trade and they opened a reference to search for the funds. Four days later I called e*trade and was told my claim was rejected. I faxed copies of the check to them. I called three days later and was told they never received it (even though my fax showed a successful transmission). I faxed it TWO more times to TWO different fax numbers. This time one of the people called and verified she received it. I waited another week. Called them 12/14 and was told they didn't receive any of the faxes. I gave them the name of the person who said she did receive it. They checked with her and yes they had it. Sorry, sorry, sorry for the difficulty. They would handle it personally. It would be in my account Monday 12/17. Well guess what? It's Tuesday evening and still no money. I'm at my wits' end! Their customer service is HORRIBLE. Too many people, NONE of them give a damn. I don't care how cheap they are this isn't worth it.
I have lost out on the interest my money was earning in my savings account before I sent it to e*trade and the stocks I wanted to invest in have gained in value in the 30+ days that I have unable to access my money.
Andy of El Cerrito CA (12/16/07)
We opened an account with etrade this month, and the first thing we noticed was that the funds were not immediately available even though they were immediately withdrawn from our bank account through the quick-transfer link. The second thing we noticed is that checks and a credit card were ordered without our knowledge or consent. The third thing we noticed was that in calling to close our account, which still did not have the funds available or even showing, we were told to wait until the funds did actually settle into the account and then transfer it back. THE CONSEQUENCES OF THAT WOULD BE A $25 TRANSFER-OUT FEE , WE STILL WOULD HAVE TO CLOSE THE ACCOUNT OVER THE PHONE. As luck would have it, when we called back, they were closed. we called our bank and we are having the initial withdrawal disputed and hopefully refunded without incident. We were also able to remove the link to our account once we searched through our account info page, so hopefully that means etrade cannot have any future access to our account without legal repercussions. We will have to call them tomorrow to close the account, and are hoping through explaining that we have intercepted the pending funds by unlinking our bank account - they will close it without incident or unwarranted charges of any sort.
So far, since we are still in transit of trying to get our money back, I cannot say for sure that there are any damages presently, but if things do not go as planned we could lose up to $300.00, which is the amount we transferred in hopes of buying stocks.
Mike of Springfield MA (12/13/07)
I have several complaints about e*Trade. Their system for executing Limit Orders did not work. The stock price was well above my sell price for two days and the transaction did not take place. I did a market order and ended up making a bit more, but the action I entrusted to them didn't happen. Their dividend reinvestment system didn't work very well either. I own an ETF that generates a monthly dividend. Every month I would have to call because the dividend would not get reinvested.
Then one day my account disappeared! I called and this guy who seemed to know what he was talking about assured me that it was a common system malfunction and everything would be fine within 24 hours. It was restored within a few hours, but the cash I had in the account disappeared a few days later. Another call and it was restored. Then I made a purchase using that cash. When it disappeared again my account went negative. Suddenly nobody was reassuring me. The reps were treating me like I was doing something nefarious. One young woman actually tried to explain to me that I owed e*Trade additional money. This lasted about two weeks before I got ahold of someone who bothered to look at my account history and realized there was a glitch. As soon as it was fixed I began to transfer the account to another brokerage. Guess what. The cash disappeared again and I ended up with a negative balance in my new account. Fortunately, my new broker dealt with e*Trade and in a few weeks had recovered the cash. It all just took a lot of time and caused a lot of frustration, there were no monetary losses. However, I was diligent, if I hadn't been paying attention who knows what would have happened.
Jeannie of Fort Lauderdale FL (12/12/07)
We opened an Etrade account over the phone on Dec. 3, 2007. We funded the account by using the quick transfer. AFTER using the quick transfer, we were told that there was a five day hold on our funds and that we would not be able to trade until the following Monday. The following Monday we were not able to trade and were told we would be able to on Tuesday, the next day. On Tuesday we were not able to trade and were told we would be able to on Wednesday. On Wednesday, we were finally able to trade and placed an order only to be told that we could not buy stocks under $10 for the first 10 days. No one informed us of this either on the phone or online. We then decided to trade other stocks and were charged $12.99 even though we were promised $8 trades. In the meantime we missed out on approximately 40%-50% in gains while waiting to trade. This company is very disorganized and there are MANY HIDDEN FEES INVOLVED. BUYER BEWARE!
Richard of Dearborn MI (12/11/07)
I lived overseas while Etrade began charging service fees. Upon return, the very confusing ETrade account statements were being monitored by my wife. The service charges appeared to be hidden in margin buys to which we have never signed up. What should have been around $800 in the account dwindled to $200. Etrade is the most pathetic of the financial industry who instead of creating good products, rather improves their bottom line by hurting customers with excessive service charges.
I lost about $600 and much time chasing reasons for the account being choked by service fees.
Bonnie of St. Johns AZ (12/06/07)
I have been trying to open a savings account with E-Trade since October 23, 2007. I gave up today (Dec. 6), in part thanks to finding this web site and all the other complaints. I called E-Trade for the final time today and ended up telling them to forget it. After my initial online application I received a phone call (10/25) from E-Trade stating that they needed more information. Since I then decided I wanted a joint account, they said to let the original application lapse, then re-apply for a joint account which I did (10/26). I never heard from them, and called on 11/5 and was asked to fax copies of social security cards and drivers licenses. This was done on 11/6; the account was never opened.
On 11/9 I called again, was told they would process a new application and that I needed to fax social security cards and a utility bill showing my mailing address as well as my physical address (they're different). They gave me a new account number and a different fax number. I complied on 11/9, and called them an hour later to make sure they had received the fax. They had. I spoke with a manager, who assured me he would call me back by the next day to let me know whether they had all they needed. He never called. On 11/15 I called again, spoke to a senior banker who assured me they had everything they needed and it was ok to process the account, and that he would call me by the next day. He never called. He had also given me his phone extension, but was never available when I tried to use it.
On 11/20 I called again, asked the person I spoke with to have the senior banker call me asap. He did not. On 11/26 one of their representatives called me, asked me and my husband a few questions to make sure we were who we said we were, then told me the account was approved and would be opened within 2-3 days. It was not. When the account was still not activated, I called again on 12/3, and spoke to an account specialist. He said he would have someone call me with a new account number by the next day. Guess who never heard from anyone? On 12/5 I went to E-Trade's web site and emailed their customer service dept. this entire scenario, complete with the names of the people I had spoken to. Their response? They sent me an email, and told me to call them to settle the matter! I did call them today, and when the person on the other end of the phone again told me they had no record of any account in my name, and that the senior banker was not available for me to talk to him, I finally told them to forget it, that I had found this web site and was going to post my story. I've joined the apparently large crowd of people who will NEVER deal with E-Trade again. Thankfully I didn't lose anything but time and paience.
The frustration of being treated this way, of giving my personal information to so many incompetent people so many times, of being made to feel like I was being interrogated. This was the WORST transaction I have ever experienced in my 62 years on this planet. I am on disability, and this experience has caused me so much stress that my fibromyalgia is acting up again.
Mario of San Francisco CA (11/20/07)
I tried to open a Saving Account online with Etrade Banking in order to take advantage of their higher interest rates and consolidate my savings and brokerage accounts. When I opened the account, I tried to set up a quick transfer from my banking institution to my new Etrade savings account. While verifying my bank account type, I accidentally clicked on a savings button instead of the checking button. Upon verification that the account was set up, I transferred $100 from my banking institution, but Etrade denied my transfer. After calling Etrade to clarify the issue, they placed blame on the banking institution and told me to call them. However, my bank did not find anything wrong. I called Etrade again, informing them of the situation and was told to attempt another transfer. That transfer was denied and this occurred three times. To date, Etrade has blocked my account and no representative is allowed to speak to me except through written letters. They have not responded.
Elsie of Tarrytown NY (11/18/07)
My husband and I are in E-Trade Nightmare Hell. We have nearly a half million dollars invested in an IRA there. Two years ago, my husband called to purchase a $100,000 CD within the IRA account, our only one with E-Trade. It took two hours, which should have been a sign. (The other sign was E-Trade taking over three weeks to open the IRA with all this money without notifying us--a common complaint, I see from these boards. Just found my desperate letters on that.) Anyway, some idiot moved the $100,000 out of the IRA money market without my husband's permission. Mind you, we weren't surrendering the IRA funds-- just wanted to transfer the hundred thou out of the money market into the CD within the tax-free IRA account.
Fast forward to last week. The IRS sent us a bill because we hadn't paid taxes on the interest on the $100,000 CD!
Turns out they moved the money from the IRA and misregistered it as a regular account. We cannot get any satisfaction from their outsourced Philippino help line, nor from the local relationship manager who was unbelievable rude and had a real blame the victim attitude. In four separate phone calls to four separate people, we were told they would solve the problem within 48 hours. It's been a week. Every phone call says something different, but one of their people said: We can't do anything. You just have to pay the tax until the CD expires in 2010. Unbelievable. I am in the process of pulling out all the other funds and putting them at another brokerage. We may hire a tax lawyer. E-Trade has not been able to produce anything historical that shows the money was moved out of the IRA. We have statements--new account number, true--with the IRA statements, so didn't realize until the IRS notice that this money was invested outside the IRA without permission. They are so horrible.
Consequences kick in soon unless we can resolve this because the IRS says we owe them tax on 2005 interest gain and presumably will continue to do so until the CD comes due.
Karen of Portland, OR (10/29/07)
Until I read the other complaints on this site I was starting to get paranoid that I was on a list generated to cause less lucrative clients to close their accounts because their bungling is so outrageous. I have had Checking, Saving and HELOC account for 2 years but I keep very little in them and use E*TRADE to move money between all of my other accounts with tranfers to and from. I have direct debit from checking to pay the HELOC. Once last year they failed to take the HELOC payment from my checking account stating I had insufficient funds - I did not, and charged me $25 that I had reversed. This year in Feb they just slapped a $25.00 dollar insufficient funds charge on for no apparent reason and I called and had it reversed. I noticed it again last Friday and called in and had the charge removed and then yesterday (Sunday) I got a call on my cellphone from a third party organization - not E*Trade, wanting to know why I haven't made my HELOC payment this month - it is showing as being already taken from my account 10 days ago.
UGgggh, I feel trapped, I hate E*TRADE. I only have the Checking because it gave me 0.5 point deduction on my HELOC with direct debit. I can't afford to pay off my HELOC right now.
Todd Koenings of Alexandria VA (10/10/07)
Without notice the company started charging $40 quarterly fees even though there was no use of the account.
The result was that the stock $ value that I thought was stable was being siphoned away by Etrade without my knowledge over the course of years. So, my stock value of $841 is actually worth $341 after Etrade collects its cash calls which are actually $40 quarterly fees for nothing (no activity on my part).
Lilian of Campbell CA (10/08/07)
E*trade sent ME email and asked me to call in for important account matters. I called and after giving them all my personal data, including the challenge question that they had asked me before for security reason, they told me that it was still NOT enough to verify my identity! Then they asked me lots of questions that they said a third-party company came up with through searching on public records, I believed I had answered correctly since I was really ME, but according to E*trade, I failed! TWICE! They chose to believe someone who got info from public records (guess it was just somebody with the same name as mine) and NOT to believe ME who had done business with them for over 10 years! Well, they will never have to verify my ID since I am closing all my accounts with them!
Ron Robbins of Woodland WA (10/05/07)
I opened an account with ETrade.com with a $1000 transfer from my checking account to my ETrade account. The funds were taken from my checking account on 9/27/07. ETrade would not allow me to purchase stock until 10/5/07. I contacted ETrade asking why my funds were frozen. I was advised that since it was not a wire transfer they had to ensure the funds were available. The funds were removed from my checking and were not available to me at ETrade during that period of time.
During the period I did not have access to my funds I lost the opportunity to purchase stock options that increased 30% before I could make a buy through ETrade. I told them which stock I wanted and how many shares and that they had my money. They refuesed to allow the trade.
Barbara of San Jose CA (10/05/07)
Opened an ETrade 'account'--MM; Sept. 26/07 1k, which was 'swiped and deposited' that day. Three days later, still Zero in the account. Was told after a phonecall to a 'different rep,' (Mr.Sullivan did not pick up) that it would be 'another five days before I'd be credited.'(Oct 2, if I count correctly). Still Zero on that day. Oct. 4 I called again, and a very disgruntled Mr. Sullivan answered, saying my account would be blown off to seven days. (Mind you, the check was cleared and shows on my personal bank records). I read through three more hrs ETrade's fine print, and learned of a nine day hold, and then of an ll-day hold, All for no reason. Me thinks this is ramped up each time I 'log in.'
I look for this to be a long process, but there are other options such as smallclaims court (in CA, they're rather stringent) and filings with the SEC. Other undisclosed snafus are ordering checks sans telling you the cost + ordering a debitcard sans disclosing cost(s). One thing I do is call each day lodging my concern at high decible levels--that the individual will hear and get sick of hearing me. The advantage is that there is a physical office in the vicinity.
There is no resolution at this writing and I expect a protracted effort-that this company thinks that I am a woman sans support. ETrade needs to rethink its policies regarding consumer treatment, especially in the era of 'blogs.'
C.s. of Williamstown NJ (10/03/07)
mailed in an application requesting a custodial saving account.One week later I recieved two messages requesting proof of address and providing E-Trades fax number. I was advised to call customer service if I had any questions. I called customer service and the rep could not find any of my information in the system and did not seem to know what I was talking about. I blew it off and faxed my proof of address. The following week, I called customer service and asked about the status of my account. I explained to her that I faxed in proof of address a week ago. She said that my information was not in the system and that my application had not been receeved yet. I told her that it had been received because two reps. had left a message requesting more information. She did a search using my child's name and still could not find anything.Her only response was that sometimes it takes 10 days to process information (10 business days had already passed).
I took the hint and paid $50 to have my bank issue a stop payment on the check.
Gina of San Francisco CA (10/01/07)
I put a large amount of money into an E*Trade CD with the explicit understanding that on the 30th of the month, my interest money would be transfered into my checking at another bank. First off, they entered the account as quarterly payout. I didn't receive the interest payout the first month and even after they corrected it to monthly (my representative at E*Trade initially screwed it up) they would not send me the money until the next month. When it came time for the next payout I was informed there's a three day hold on the funds before it can go to the other bank, which contradicts what I was told by at least a half-dozen people at E*Trade. This company is so disorganized, one part of it doesn't know the other is doing and they will lie to cover it up. Every customer service person will give you a different response.
Apart from not getting the funds on time, due to that, I had $100 of bounced check fees.
Katherine Mcpherson of San Mateo CA (09/18/07)
With absolutely no notice, E*Trade handed over two of my accounts to the state. One was a savings account (I was saving it!)and the other a 6 month CD (with only limited penalty-free times to access it). It took over a year to get them to admit what had happened. Now I have been waiting for 8 months for the state to post it on their site so I can get the funds back.
We lost over $6,000.
Lorraine of Walnut Creek CA (08/26/07)
I opened this savings account online and initiated the ACH transfer of the initial balance from my checking account. 3 days later they took the money from my checking account. It did not post to their account. Per their agreement the account is not fully open until they have a signature card on file.
I received said card and returned it to them 3 days later. Over a week passed and still my money did not appear in my savings account. I sent an email. The response was, Unfortunately, using the information provided in your email, I was unable to locate an account in your name. However, we may need to use different identifying information to locate your account. Please contact us at the number listed below so that we may further assist you.
I called the 800 number and spoke with a representative who spoke so little English that she absolutely could not understand me or why I was calling. I asked for a supervisor. After a VERY long wait, the same rep comes back on the line and says there are no supervisors available. I terminated the call and sent another email letting them know that this is unacceptable and requested to close the account. No response. I drafted a letter ordering them to close the account and return my deposit and put it into the mail.
I also Googled to see if others had this sort of problem and was dismayed at what I found! I hold out little hope that I will ever see my money again. Fortunately it is only $25.00. I am now extremely concerned that I will have close my checking account to keep E*Trade from making illegal transfers from it. I have my direct deposit and all my automatic payments for things like my utilities attached to that account. Closing it and opening a new one will be a hardship. I can not tell you how sick I am about this. Yes, I do accept my responsibility for not seeking out this information in the first place. My initial research was into the savings account itself, not into problems with E*Trade and that search turned up good reviews including that they have outstanding security features the main selling point for opening this account.
Richard of Zion Grove PA (08/23/07)
I obtained online approval for an e-trade mortgage. I paid the fees required, had a closing date established for the property I was buying. On the very date of closing, just before I left for the attorney's office, I rec'd a call from E-Trade, stating that my rate would be different (higher, of course) than the paperwork already signed. I would need to agree to the higher rate for them to fax the req'd documentation to my attorney's office. I told them that this seemed to be a 'bait and switch' operation, and that everything was prepared to go. The supervisor stated that there is fine print in the paperwork stating that they have the right to change anything, even AFTER closing. I stated that I would postpone closing over the weekend, while I thought about all this.
My submission fee was returned by E-trade when I backed out of the deal. However my attorney fees for all work done to that point(title search, time, etc) approached $1000, which I had no recourse to request a refund. Incidentally, the E-trade mortgage supervisor stated 'your attorney shouldn't charge you unless you proceed with the deal' and when I stated that no attorney would prepare all this (weeks of phone calls with online department and so forth), she stated 'well I've only been doing this for 10 years, so I guess you know more than me.' I was correct about the attorney fees, and never rec'd any apology or credit from E-trade. I also had to fight to get a partial refund of my real estate deposit, as I was considered to be the one in default by the seller. My total out-of-pocket, in addition to losing the deal itself, was approx $2000.
Nathan of Toronto (08/20/07)
I placed an order to exchange a convertible debenture into the stock on July 18. I changed my mind and wanted to cancell the order. The order was to go through on July 27. Yet there was no one willing to make a successful effort to cancel the trade.
My loss is almost $6000. I am disgusted.
Robert of Hillsborough CA (08/19/07)
I placed an order with Etrade on Aug.16, 2007 around 10:30 EST. the order number was 235 I wanted to sell 30k shares at a limit price of .13 cents the stock closed at .135 and my order was not filled (to me that is a red flag). They told me that there system went down and they would do a trade inquiry. The next they tell me that the trade stands. I told them that does not make sense since the stock closed at .135 cents. I said my order should have filled. There response was they don't know what happened and that it could have been an institution that did this trade in house. My response was to have them send me level 3 quotes and as of this evening I still have nothing.
Beth of Rochester Hills MI (08/13/07)
I continue to find it extremely difficult to sell stock and collect my money. etrade charges $50 if you would like a check or 7/10 days to establish a transfer to my bank. This process is unnecessarily complicated - I am forced to use this with my employer and am frustrated that I can't get access to my money!
J of HI (07/07/07)
Without explanation our Etrade accounts were suddenly frozen. This includes 3 separate Etrade accounts for my husband and me, 3 accounts our adult daughter has with Etrade and an investment club account, where I am the acting president. We have sent letters to Etrade corporate, requesting information and a time frame to release our funds. We have been told our accounts are under review. Exasperated and unable to withdraw funds or even learn the balance. We have sent two letters with our phone numbers and email address. No reply.
Since we do not know the balance or even if our current stock positions are still there, we do not know of the losses in our account. We certainly have missed chances to buy/sell stocks. The most perplexing issue is WHY?
H. of Calgary, Alberta, Canada (04/27/07)
Having read their promotional material, I applied for new accounts for myself and spouse on March 6, 2007 with E*Trade Canada. Since then I have been subjected to such a continuous series of incompetent bungling as to cause me to decide not to use this company. I have received repeated telephone messages stating that E*Trade cannot open my account because they are missing information. When I call back, the representatives are not knowledgeable as to what E*Trade has in fact received, and in every instance they already have the information. I am then promised that the account will be opened within 2 days, or 48 hours. The process is then repeated. A seemingly endless do loop. It is now April 26th, and today I got another such message, again asking for information that has been delivered long ago. I have repeatedly demanded to speak to a supervisor, but have been ignored. I have sent numerous e-mails to their customer Service department, but the response has been more of the same---need missing information that they already have. This firm is so incompetent they should be put out of business. I cannot trust them to handle my money! I now have a one inch thick file of telephone logs, e-mails, and letters----all to open an account??? Unbelievable. If anyone is thinking about opening an account with E*Trade and would like more information, please contact me and I can make copies of correspondence available.
I have wasted hours and hours of my time in trying to do a simple matter---open an account and give this company business.
Tim of Martinez GA (04/25/07)
I ran into a situation where I needed to pull some funds out of my ESPP. So I logged into my etrade account and sold off about 46 shares. It even allowed me to setup a direct link to my bank for transferring the money. After waiting for about a week for my account to be settled and have the money show up in my etrade account, I was ready to transfer it to my normal bank account. After logging into their secure website, I clicked on the link to make transfer. Immediately I was hit with two pages of security questions. All of which was information never offered to my employer or to etrade. I'm talking questions about my family members and from my past like a vehicle that I owned and paid cash for (never financed). I answered each question accurately and it still said that it couldn't verify who I was and to call their 800 number for verification. I did and got the answer you have to send a notorized letter saying you are who you are. I'm like NO! I've been put out enough. First, I have to wait a week for the stock I sold to go into my etrade account (which I guess anyone can access my account and do). Second, you allowed me to put my bank information in and set it up for direct transfers with no security questions (again, I guess anyone can log into my account and do that). Third, you have (without my knowledge and consent) did a background check on me to decide what personal security questions to ask me which only I am supposed to know and the answers I correctly gave, you said were not correct (I don't know how). Forth, You make me call a 800 number for the security department and you ask me for my social, my address, my father's middle name (challenge question) to verify who I am and are able to talk to me about my account over the phone yet they still won't allow me to transfer my money because they say that anyone can access my information. Hello! If that is so, then Etade is not a secure site and my information is available to anyone. Also, I have spoke to several associates with etrade and they all say that have no manager or no supervisor I can speak with and that I have no choice but to comply and send a notorized letter saying I am who I am. Which to me, seems less secure than the measures I took in the beginning. After yelling and screaming at Etrade people, I pull a little truth out of one of them saying We have to protect our client's interest...meaning my employer. I understand that to a certain degree, but I told her that I was not cancelling my account but just withdrawing some funds from it to help me with another situation. And that they needed to realize that the money involved was not my employer's money, it was not etrade's money but it was MY money! Because I had issues with thier handling of the situation, they promptly locked me out of my access to my accounts, disabled my etrade checking account and my etrade debit card to keep me from pulling my money out. All because their 3rd party security team didn't have my personal information correct (which I didn't give consent to have). I was very dissappointed with their handling of this entire situation and as a result, I have decided to cancel my contributions to Etrade and opt out of my ESPP with my job.
Because I was unable to transfer my money from that account to my personal bank account, I ended up bouncing checks and incurring alot of overdraft fees and NSF fees!
Chris of Orinda CA (04/24/07)
This was last year, but I see recent complaints with the same result so I thought I present my experience. I had etrade many years ago, but frustrated wit the poor service I transferred to Harris Direct. Then recently HD was acquired by Etrade. First problem was the day the accounts trasferred and a new online access to etrade was provided - didn't work. I tried to call in and waited like an hour and a half on the phone. Couple days later I called back and waited like 1 hour. I decided this was the old etrade! Even with a future promise I could have a direct number of a person the call for any requests, I decided to tranfer the account (smart move). It took more than a month to transfer the accounts - another problem in the transfer when only a small part of the cash trasferred. Bottom line, I learned my lesson. Do not accept poor service, change providers and move on.
Matthew of Sea WA (04/15/07)
I applied for a promotional offer giving me Morningstar access for one year if I deposit a certain amount of money. I apply for the offer, deposit the money, and then proceed to get a myriad of unrelated and inaccurate reasons why they won't fulfill their obligation, starting with the classic 'it takes 8 weeks'. If you have a certain amount of money in the account, they offer access to a free financial advisor. I called the guy with questions about portfolio allocation, and the like but all he wanted to do was sell me a Goldman Sachs adviser fund with a front-load and heavy expenses. Give me a break!
He kept calling, but when I told him I wanted to make a portfolio of cheaper funds he wouldn't return my calls. Go figure! At the moment, I'm sitting here on hold on the phone with them an unusually high load of phone calls... But it seems like every time I call it's unusually high. They need someone who can do math to figure out the definition of 'usual'. That's what I like, bankers that can't do math.
John of Lakeland FL (03/20/07)
On 2/20/07 I responded to a savings account promotion with an initial deposit of 2 checks with a detailed cover letter for the distribution of money in a one-year CD and a savings account. On 3/5/07 I contacted a Rep to find out why no accounts were opened. He stated he would check it out and get back with me but he never did.
On 3/6/07 I canceled the accounts and sent a confirming email 3/7/07 with a request my funds be returned.
On 3/9/07 I noticed the accounts were opened but the distribution of funds was very different from what I had written in plain English on the applications originally sent.
Since 3/9/07 I have contacted about 13 Reps, one supervisor, sent 2 Faxs and one letter to a Sr.VP with NO RESULTS
Mr. Jarett Lilien in Arlington VA is the president of ETrade. Mr Bob McDonnel is the Attorney General of VA. These two will be meeting soon if I do not get some action by 3/21/07
I have lost several hundred dollars in lost interest and several hundred dollars because of interest rate changes during the month. The stress of dealing with these people is greater than combat
Tim of Greenfield WI (03/17/07)
I have talked to a dozen customer service reps via email and phone calls, personally talked to 3 traders and spent over 4 hours on hold trying to close my brokerage account prior to getting additional service fees. I have been doing this for weeks and weeks with no success. Every time I call I get a different person, who tells me a different story of what I need to do to accomplish this account closure.
They tell me they are going to send me emails with specific dates and times when action will take place, I never receive them. They REFUSE to let me talk to a supervisor or manager, and any time I ask I get put on hold for a minimum of 20 minutes.
Bob of Irvine CA (03/02/07)
E Trade Customer Service wait times exceed 90 minutes.
Kevin of San Diego CA (02/21/07)
e*Trade changed all of their ABA routing numbers several months ago. To inform customers that there checks would no longer be valid, they say they put a pamphlet in with account statements. They failed to use their own account alert system which would make logical sense.
I used a bad check to pay my property taxes. After receiving my check back as a closed account I incurred over $300 in penalties and fees.
James of Redwood City CA (01/26/07)
I am the treasurer for an investment club. We maintain a portfolio valued in the low 6 figures. While not large, I would think this size account would merit decent service from our broker, Etrade, but it does not. We did not choose Etrade, they acquired us when Harris merged with Etrade. During the merger we were sent information related to accessing the new website and account feature but we were not provided with or requested to complete any new account applications for our existing account. In spring of 2006, we changed officers and sent a letter of instruction and club resolution to Etrade indicating the individuals who were to be named as agents for the account. These documents included signatures of the new agents and the club's officers.
Over three months passed with no action or response from Etrade. We called to inquire about the status, we were informed that they received the letter of instruction but did not do as instructed because they need us to complete new account forms. Of course they did not inform us of this situation. We requested the forms, we completed them, had a question about a particular line on the form so I called the help line, through this call I was informed that the forms I had been sent we out of date and they would send me new ones. Pretty inconvenient, as a club, we have many members, getting the signatures of all members on an application is time consuming and difficult, to be told the three pages of signature I had were on the wrong form (which I got from Etrade) is inexcusable, but I got the new form and obtained all of the signatures again.
It is by now Fall, the completed brokerage forms, along with a bank account application and a new letter of instruction requesting a transfer from the brokerage to the new bank account were sent to Etrade, all in one package. The bank account was opened, the money transferred, however they will not allow our club’s agents to access the new account or the old account because they say they never got the application (that was in the same package). So they removed money from our brokerage account and placed it into a bank account but will not tell us what the account number is or allow us to access it. And customer service is helpless to assist, they claim to have not received the package (thought they have a copy of the first sheets and acted on the last three sheets of what was in the package) and they suggested that I complete new application forms.
Faa, like that is going to happen, we are closing and moving to a full service brokerage. By comparison, in one month, working with Charles Schwab, I have successfully opened three trust accounts, two college saver accounts, a Rollover IRA account transfer, a trust bank account and transferred several stock Drip account balances with only two phone calls and sending forms once.
Vasu of San Jose CA (01/11/07)
I deposited $2000 from my bank via on line transfer on 12/29/2006 with the plan to buy some AAPL stock before they made their announcement at Mac World. The money was taking from my bank with in 2 days but didn't show up in my account for 12 days. the first time I saw the money in the bank was after I complained 3rd time by this time it was too late. The person I talked to the for the first time told me that it would take 4-5 days but took 13 days.
Stanely of N Attleboro MA (12/06/06)
I've had an etrade account since 2000 and I moved and the statements did not follow me. Suddenly, when I updated my records I had a long list of accumulated account service fees. I contacted the 800 number and the representative told me ways that I can avoid them, but would not give me any credit for these fees.
I have accumulated $474.36 of fees that had I known that this were to occur, I would have ended my relationship with E*Trade.
Bahman of Tustin CA (12/04/06)
Why open an account with E*Trade? Biggggg Mistake!! I've been with E*Trade since 1998 trading stocks and options. I've seen it all. From their 2000 IPO distribution scheme to call waiting time of anywhere from 15-45 minutes to higher commissions! Even I place my orders online, still have to call in when there are problems with order executions and face the long 30 minutes wait.
I quit trading in this account because of all the problems and now E*trade has started charging me what they call inactivity fee of $40 dollars every three months. Finally I decided to close this account and transfer my securities out. It has been over a month and I am still going in loops and having problems with them closing this account. There are some worthless stocks in the account and even though I have filled the proper form they have not cleared the account so it can be closed. Ever time I call, the call is redirected to offshore customer service like Philippines , and after waiting more than 30 minutes you get disconnected! As much I have had bad experience with E*Trade , I enjoy doing business with Ameritrade, Fidelity and Scott Trade.
Tracee of Modesto CA (09/02/06)
Initially when we moved 6/05 I put in a change of address to e-trade via online. Recently I phoned at least 12 times and got no answer I finally got someone. A James Gray. He tells me my 95,259 shares of BICO was sold in June 2005 to pay activity fees of $96.02. The one statement I received I thought was telling me about my shares...I'm a novice and didn't realize it was telling me they sold my shares for $28.57. Today my shares are worth over $16,000.00 I asked James if I had 1 million dollars worth of stock would they sell them to pay the $96.02 without calling me....he didn't have an answer. I was never notified I owed etrade any amount. No letters, no phone calls. they sold my remaining stocks to pay this fee without my consent or knowledge.
I have lost over $16,000.00 as of today Sept. 2, 2006
Kathryn of Bethesda MD (07/29/06)
I recently moved. During the move, I reported my debit card stolen immediately after it was stolen. During this conversation, I also asked the CSR to change my maiden name to my married name and change my address. Six weeks, ten phone calls and two faxes to ETrade later, I still have no new debit card. Each time I called ETrade, the CSR indicated that they could not see my history, but a new debit card was in the mail.
The last time I called (and after a particular heated exchange with a CSR), my husband's debit card was reported stolen to VISA (the next day). Neither me nor my husband reported this card missing. My husband and I have reason to believe that the E*Trade CSR stole his identity to close his debit card (as this person had knowledge that we would have no access to cash if my husband's card was reported stolen). I am afraid that since this person used our personal information to close his card that he may continue to use our personal information to perform other devious acts.
I cannot believe that a bank with almost solely an on-line presence would have such broken processes. Not once during this process did ETrade contact me to tell me of issues with trying to change my name. More importantly, however, I am exremely upset and concerned that ETrade would employ a devious employee and I am fearful that my and my husband's identities have been stolen.
Deborah of Pleasanton CA (07/28/06)
We had several negative experiences with E*Trade Financial. First, E*Trade ignored several of our change of address requests. It took several months before E*Trade and their third party vendor, Clarke American, stopped sending our account materials to the wrong address. They sent PIN numbers, ATM cards, and checks to our previous address for months.
The other negative experience was with E*Trade's online Bill Pay system. E*Trade issued payment a day later than scheduled and, as a result, we were assessed a hefty penalty fee for the late property tax payment that E*Trade caused. After several phone calls and ignored faxes, we spoke with one of E*Trade's branch managers, Amy Alley. She was very unprofessional and rude for the entire conversation. That was the final straw for us. We're in the process of switching our accounts to another institution. I wouldn't recommend E*Trade to my worst enemy!
We were assessed a $250.99 penalty fee from our property tax collector's office because E*Trade did not deliver a payment when it was scheduled in their system (E*Trade's online Bill Pay system). E*Trade refused to cover the fee caused by their negligence.
Gary of Banner WY (05/15/06)
My wife and I have 5 investment accounts. We were with HarrisDirect but E-Trade acquired them. I spent hours trying to get in touch with a real person. Once I spent 1 1/2 hours (hour long TV program and 1/2 hour news) and still didn't get through. I have sent 5 e-mails and all I get back is their automated response saying someone will respond quickly. I sent $2000 to open a Simple IRA 2 months ago, I still don't have the account on my computer but they have the $2000.
I was fed up so I decided to transfer my accounts to Scottrade. That was 2 months ago and I still have one account that they won't transfer because it has a worthless security in it. Well I have sent in the form twice to get rid of the security and it is still on my account. I tried to wire some money to Scottrade last week. It was supposed to go out the same day, well it is the following week and it still hasn't gone out. My wife and I had about 1.5 million dollars in the 5 accounts.
Gord of Barrie Canada (04/05/06)
I phoned twice during the daytime and got no answer after at least half an hour wait. I finally got someone on my third try at 11pm. They also billed $25 per quarter for a "low activity" fee; they sold my remaining stocks to pay this fee. It cost me $50 to simply close the account.
In Dec. 2005 I was notified that I had $118 left sitting as cash with no stocks. By April 2006 it was worth $90, but after the $50 closing fee and $10 cheque fee, I get about $30.
Alison of Oakland CA (03/11/06)
I have spent over 8 months trying to close my account at Etrade. Three of those months were spent back in 2000, when I couldn't get them to answer the phone and there was no information on the website about closing the account. I figured I had 2 worthless shares in there and the account would lie dormant forever. I started getting "inactivity charges" last year, so I called to close the account. I was told to send in a form (a link nicely buried in their site, btw) that would pronounce these dead shares "worthless securities".
I sent TWO. The first they insist they didn't get, until they said they got both. Now, I am being asked to fax a third copy of this same form to them. Problem is, it's a joint account with my mom who lives on the opposite coast. I have waited on the phone for someone to pick up for as long as 1hr 45 minutes - and have given up without anyone picking up several times after waiting that long. All I want to do is close this account, but etrade refuses to do so.
Margaret of Arlington VA (03/11/06)
I had an auto loan with etrade wherein my brokerage account was to be debited each month the payment. For the past two months the debits have not occurred, the people who actually handle the loan, CLC NOT etrade, tell me that they tried to pull the money but etrade told them it was nsf as the funds had to be in the account 10 business days prior to the payment due date. The funds have been in there and the debits are not happening. I have been on hold with etrade for 1.75 hours as they have never emailed me back, other than their auto inquiry.
I believe this is a dereliction of their fiduciary duty, to accomodate questions which will impair my credit rating due to their erroneous actions. The damage suffered is my worrying about my credit rating as my first home is completed, the time I've spent trying to resolve this and the 25 dollar nsf fee they've charged me!!!!!
Louise of Greenbelt MD (02/21/06)
I need to update my automatic payment information with eTrade. My userID and password were not recognized, therefore, the ONLY way I could contact eTrade is by phone. Today, I called 3 times, the first 2 times, I was put on hold for over 50 minutes. I hung up. The third time, I am holding for over 20 minutes and still holding right now. The voice message said the average hold time is 15 minutes. If a customer could not log in to their account online, they cannot send any e-mail to E-trade's customer service. RIDICULOUS!!
John of Los Angeles CA (02/07/06)
Last month I opened an online brokerage account with e*Trade. I'm a novice, but I thought I dip my toe into the world of investing. I transferred $2000, made a few buys, and all was rosy. Then, as soon as my $2000 cleared the bank, e*Trade switched off my account with no explanation. My portfolio was blank and I had no access to my cash. I called customer service and they said they wanted to verify my account via telephone and that someone would call that day or the next. Okay, sounds good. Glad to know they take extra precautions.
It is now going on three weeks and I've received no call and my account is still non-existent. I've called customer service four times (I was once on hold for 2 hours) and they just tell me the same thing—I need to talk to a "Linda." The last person told me my account was flagged with the word "indictment," which has sent me into total panic mode. I have never been indicted for anything ever!
I've sent 5 emails, 3 faxes, one letter, and I've left 5 phone message for this "Linda" (whose voice mail does not identify her by name nor that she even works for e*Trade) and I've heard nothing back. In my last message, all I asked was for her to please call me back just to reassure me she is real, there really is an "e*Trade", and we would eventually straighten out the situation. I received no call.
Frankly, I beginning to think I've been hustled and I will never see my $2000 again. E*Trade has my money and it looks like they are keeping it. Stocks that I would have sold have lost money and I can do nothing about it. Approximately $600 cash is just sitting in my Brokerage that I need to pay bills, but I cannot access it to transfer. This phantom " indictment" charge has me terrified—has someone stolen my identity? Oh, just for comic relief, yesterday I finally did receive something back from e*Trade. It was an email form letter suggesting I consult their automated online Help Center "designed to answer many questions." It's a nightmare.
Patricia of Massapequa Park NY (02/01/06)
I spent over one hour this morning on the phone having to make three separate calls to Etrade due to problems. Your Power Etrade phone number no longer gives customers the quick response it is supposed to. Since taking over Harris Direct, Etrade has been operating like a second rate brokerage firm. Problems all over the place from trade executions to balances not updating to very long phone holds to lousy customer service! It is a disgrace. Here is what I went through today in the first hour of trading:
1. My first buy order on VYST – it sat there appearing to be an “open order” for a very long time – no response from Etrade on whether it executed nor could I cancel it. I tried calling Etrade and was on hold for ten minutes – I couldn’t wait so hung up. Bad enough your site was not updating information regarding trade status but I was unable to get someone on the phone.
2. My sell order of CALB – I put the order in on the bid – the bid was large enough for that order to execute right away. It sat there for 15 minutes – I once again had to call Etrade and waited 10 minutes before a broker picked up the call and put me on hold another 5 minutes to get the trade executed. Luckily for me it was not a stock that was moving – I would have lost the trade within that time if it were. Of course your Etrade broker blamed it on the fact that it was a penny stock. I have heard that excuse so much from ET. Funny, I never have execution problems on pennies when I trade with Ameritrade nor do they use that excuse.
3. My third and longest call was to customer service regarding the fact that I still have yet to see a credit to my account from my points that I accrued through an Etrade credit card program. Any points earned in 2005 were supposed to be applied to 2006 trading for free commissions. Last year it took me about five phone calls for Etrade to credit my account for free commissions – it was like pulling teeth to receive something I was entitled to. Once again it looks like the same problem.
I called and was put on hold for 15 minutes. I then spoke with a customer service rep that didn’t have a clue what he was talking about. He kept insisting that it had “run out” and that I wasn’t entitled to the free commissions. I tried to calmly explain to him that he didn’t understand the provisions and that I needed to speak with someone who did. He finally was able to pull up some information that proved he was wrong and that he was reading old information. This took another 15 minutes for ME to explain an Etrade program to one of YOUR representatives.
After taking up about 25 minutes of my time he finally transferred me to someone within the credit card department who at least seemed to have a clue on what was happening. She promised me that she would research why I have yet to receive a free commission when I am indeed entitled to 24 this year with the points I accrued. That took another 10 minutes on the phone.
ETRADE is an absolute disgrace! By taking on Harris Direct you have compromised your original customers – real nice! Etrade obviously can’t handle the new load of customers and was ill prepared – new personnel should have been hired and trained prior to the merge.
David of Hawthorne NJ (01/28/06)
I have been calling etrade's 800 numbers for over a week 3-10 times a day with no response. I was a Harrisdirect client who ETRADE brought out, whenever I called harrisdirect it was a 1-3 minute wait.
I have much cash in my account from a recent sale of stock and I can't get to anyone to see if they know what to do with my cash. Harrisdirect made mistakes and in less then 5 minutes corrected the problem. I can't talk to anyone at ETRADE about this problem; how can the exchage allow this company to operate; can I go after the exchange and etrade?
Larry of Camino CA (11/29/05)
In Dec. 2001, I requested that my account be closed out and wanted stock certificates issued to me. There was more than enough money in my cash balance account to accomodate the cost of this transaction. E-Trade conveniently helped themselves to my account deducting their monthly maintenance fee's for the managing of my small sum (dormant account).
Irene of Castro Valley CA (10/20/05)
I have been trying to close my ETrade account since April 2005. In April, I called Etrade - the Customer Service (CS) rep forwarded me to an account manager. The account manager (AM) told me to receive certificates to close my account, I need to pay $80. I sent $80 in May. I saw nothing happen on my account statement. And I did not receive my stock certificates.
I called back in June... while talking to a CS rep, he saw my account was flagged – the account manager had flagged my account so she would be contacted. So the CS rep forwarded me to the AM, who happened to have a manager in the office with her. The AM told me that I needed to send another $80 because the first check of $80 was for the unpaid service charges.... she said she forgot to add that number to the total that she gave me. She gave me her phone number and extension to call when I send the check so that she could monitor the payment. AND she would credit back any service charges that were accrued from April because I was in the process of closing my account.... But I needed to send a second $80 check for the 2 different stock certificates.
Abhijit of Minneapolis MN (09/12/05)
I had opened an online checking account with Etrade under a promotion for $175 for opening the account and Direct Deposit of $1000 for 3 months. On June 6, I received a letter saying my account has been closed due to fraudulent activity. I had $31,000 in my account at that time which I wasn't allowed to withdraw. I had to contact the banks from which I had made the deposits within the past 60 days to reverse the ACH and get back my money after more than a month! I still have $250 in my account and Etrade has refused to refund it to me claiming that it was deposited as part of a promotion that I didn't qualify for, even though the promotion was for only $175!!
Bradley of Bellevue WA (09/08/05)
Forget about putting money here. I have only had my account for 3 days and already I am disgusted. One of their service lines is supposed to be open until midnight. it's not. STRIKE 1. I called during normal hours and after the system tried to connect me to customer service, I got "the number you are trying to reach has been disconnected." STRIKE 2. Today I called 1-800-etrade-1 and have been on hold for 38 minutes. That's ridiculous. STRIKE 3.
Michael of Hingham MA (03/22/05)
Opened a checking (individ.) account, and transferred, $100/$4900, from the joint AMEX acount. Suddenly my account at eTrade gets blocked, and all the money gets transferred back. I called, by now over 10 times, nobody at eTrade can or wants to tell me what is going on, except that my account is being investigated. Now I seem to have a $25 fee charged because of ???.
Somebody is playing god with my account without informing me about the issues. Even if I did something wrong I should be able to know. In the mean time my wife has also started a account with eTrade bank, but is now scared of taking any action.
Jim of Meriden CT (07/10/03)
On two occasions, I wanted to liquidate my cash account from e-trade and leave my stocks intact. I called the customer service on each occasion. On each occasion they said to simply write a check for the full amount and this would close out the account. Nothing more was needed I was told. In each case, I wrote a check that day for the full amount in the cash account.
On each occasion a small amount of interest was left in the account (despite the fact that I knew the exact amount in the account when I wrote the checks). Later, I began being charged fees because I did not have a minimum balance in the cash account. When I contacted Etrade the third time, I was told that I cannot liquidate a cash account which is associated with stocks and that I had to pay the fees.
David of Revere MA (06/25/03)
I had an Etrade account for several years, holding shares in two small stocks. Around the time of the market slide, Etrade decided to start ripping off its customers by charging monthly "service fees" on accounts that weren't actively trading. The customer was left in a catch-22 in that he couldn't sell, at such a loss, couldn't buy, in such a market, and was stuck paying "service fees" to Etrade, in a word, for NOTHING. It got so bad that Etrade actually had the NERVE to sell, without my permission or notice, my remaining shares of stock, JUST to pay their "service fees" Unbelievable! I will NEVER do business with them again.
Gerhard of Augsburg Germany (10/19/02)
I have an account with this company and I wanted to transfer $19K to Germany by mailing a check via FedEx. On October 7th 2002, a check was issued and my account was charged with a $20.00 fee for Foreign FedEx costs. However, this check did not yet arrive in Germany. The service representatives of Etrade are unable to provide me with a tracking number for this shipment. They promised to send me this number by email what they never did.
Yesterday, I received an email from Ryan H in which he indicated that he would be able to provide me with the tracking number on Tuesday, October 22th. I suspect that Etrade never mailed this check on October 7th, 2002 because the tracking number is available to the sender as soon as you put the check in the envelope. I fear that my money may be lost right now.
Donald of Salem, OH (1/7/06):
I knew that eTrade was charging me a ridiculous fee of $25 each quarter. I felt that $100 was way above what they were worth but I felt that if I wanted to make a quick trade on something it was a handy account to have.
Starting in 2005, eTrade suddenly raised this amount to $40 a quarter. I never got any notice that they were raising their fee 60%. They did it quietly. I had enough money to cover the $25 fee each quarter so I was not worried about it. However when I finally checked my account I found they had gone through the money I set aside for the 2005 fees and then some.
I had to endure 40 minutes on hold to close my account and then they charged me $10 to send me a check for my balance after I sold my stock.
Irene of Castro Valley, CA (10/20/05)
I have been trying to close my ETrade account since April 2005. I was told that in order to receive my certificates and close my account I needed to pay $80. I sent the check in May, and when I didn't receive my certificates in June, I called and was told my account was flagged. The account manager said I needed to send another $80, as the first $80 was to pay for unpaid service charges.
The account manager assured me she would monitor the payment and would credit back any service charges that were accrued from April because I was in the process of closing my account. Etrade cashed the two $80 checks.
In July, I received a letter asking for confirmation of an address change (I had not changed my address). I left phone messages for the account manager in July, August and September for an update status of my certificates. She never called back at any time.
On October 10th I called again asking about my stock certificates. The customer service rep looked up my file and said there was no order on file for stock certificates to be mailed to me. He also said that according to my file, I had a name change on the account so I owed $20 for the name change and service charges. My address has not changed in 10 years and my name has not changed in 10 years.
This customer service rep said he would authorize the stock certificate order and that I should get a confirmation in 6 weeks. He also said he would remove the service fee charges. I'm not holding by breath. It's been a LONG 6 months and I'm still waiting.
Damages: I still do not have my stock certificates. My stock is worth less than the $160 that I have paid Etrade to date.
Byron of Castle Rock, CO (6/28/05):
On 6/27/05, I received a "trade confirmation" from e*trade. I have not
traded with e*trade for over a year. The trade date was 6/23/05 and the
settlement date was 6/28/05. The transaction was to sell all 1700 shares of
my BANY stock for $.06/share.
I called customer service and was put on hold for about 30 minutes. When I
was finally able to speak to someone, she told me e*trade sold my stock to
pay for "no trade fees". I asked to be transferred to another person to
explain why this transaction was done. When I asked the second person to
reverse the transaction she said she could not.
I requested my account be closed and it was.
Damages: I lost all 1700 shares of my BANY stock. It was sold for $102.00.
All of that money except $.49 went to e*trade to pay for "fees". They
refused to send me a check for the $.49.
David of Revere MA (6/25/03):
Can't agree with you on your positive rating of Etrade. I had an Etrade account for several years, holding shares in two small stocks. Around the time of the market slide, Etrade decided to start ripping off its customers by charging monthly "service fees" on accounts that weren't actively trading. The customer was left in a catch-22 in that he couldn't sell, at such a loss, couldn't buy, in such a market, and was stuck paying "service fees" to Etrade, in a word, for NOTHING. It got so bad that Etrade actually had the NERVE to sell, without my permission or notice, my remaining shares of stock, JUST to pay their "service fees" Unbelievable!
Adad of San Francisco (4/3/03):
I opened a Stock Basket account in November 2001. I invested about $1500 of my ~$5000 account into a stock basket account. The reason I invested in a stock basket was that the fees were so low and I would not have to check it every day. According to my understanding and the advice given to me by the eTrade representatives I spoke with at the time it was the perfect investment for a beginning investor. I could invest small amounts and there were no fees to buy or sell.
I am currently in Montreal, Canada studying at Concordia University. My email address has not changed since I signed up with eTrade. This morning (when I should have been working on an essay for school) I opened my account online to check my balance. On one of the pages I surfed to I saw a small animated gif which said I had a message. I clicked through the messages, which were mostly for dividends, and the last one was a notice that the fees and structure for the stock baskets were going to change on February 6th.
I saw a box on this notice that read: We realize that these changes may affect how some investors use their Stock Baskets accounts. If you feel your Stock Baskets account will no longer match your investment goals, please call this number: 1-800-388-2900. I called the number and explained to the customer service agent that it made no sense for me to keep my money in the Stock Basket account because with a yearly fee of $125 (minimum) and the new charges for buying or selling, my ~$800 account would soon be worth nothing. I expected that he would simply transfer the money into my cash account and then I could reinvest it in a more sensible way given the new Stock Basket charges.
To my shock he said that it would cost me either $230 or $344 (depending on how he did it) to sell the stocks as there was now new pricing in effect. He said that a letter had been sent to my address in San Francisco, but I called my father and he says that I have not received any mail from eTrade except for a bunch of voting forms from the companies I had invested in. I understand that prices and policies can change, but nobody ever sent me an email about it or called me. I would like to remain an eTrade customer, but this experience has shaken my trust as I feel that my money is being held ransom.
I would of course like to remove my money from the Stock Basket account without paying the exorbitant fees so I can reinvest it in a way that makes more sense considering the amounts I am investing. If this was a matter of charges going up by a few dollars perhaps I wouldn’t mind so much, but this is a change from $0 to over $300 on an account valued at about $800. Also the choice to leave my money there does not make much sense, as the new minimum yearly charge ($125) would soon gobble up my investment.
Gregory of Redding CA (3/16/03):
I had $1,000 to invest and E-trade made that possible since their minimum amount to open an account was $1,000. Now however, it is higher and due to stock market changes my stock is only worth about $250. They are still going to charge me a $30 charge this quarter just for looking at my account. They charged me $25 last year because my stock merged with another and then my stocks changed from 110 to only 39 shares of the merged stock. So, I have been forced to ask for them to a Stock Certificate. I will be worth $0.00 by the time they keep doing their quarterly evaluations and because my portfolio is less than %5,000.
Ahmad of Hicksville, NY, writes:
I opened an account with Etrade thinking I would be granted the 25 free trade promotion for new accounts. I saw the advertisement for the promotion on the site but did not hit the advertisement link to open the account. Instead I hit the "open new account" button. I opened the account on October 3, 2000 and on October 27 I was notified my account was not set up for this promotion because I did not follow the proper link.
I feel there is something fishy going on here and it is Etrade's obligation to fully honor its promotions. This promotion is worth about $500 to me but Etrade has notified me they will not give it to me and instead give me a $75 new account promotion.
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