e*Trade

Gordon of Larkspur, CA April 28, 2008

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 April 25, 2008

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 April 24, 2008

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 April 12, 2008

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 April 12, 2008

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.

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