Complain about a product or service

Merrill-Lynch

Ellie of Toccoa GA (01/17/08)

I invested in a 401K retirement through my employer, Walmart of Toccoa, GA. I tried to withdraw $6,500 accrued and invested money and close-out the account but was denied withdrawal. Was told I can only withdraw $159.00 for hardship. I don't want hardship; I want to withdraw all monies and close the account. Please assist with withdrawal and closure of account.

Amy of Santa Barbara CA (04/26/07)
I have a margin account with Merrill Lynch and called my broker and told him that I needed a certain amount, he would then be asked to sell the right amount of Merrill Lynch to cover it. He went months without reimbursing the funds charging me interest as well as 19 separate annual account fees (what is the annual part of this?) and there are missing funds over the years from my account including $81 in interest when the funds should have been sold the next business day.

Ronald of Hackensack NJ (05/29/06)
We have had a managed brokerage account with Merrill Lynch for a few years and have been less than satisfied with them. After having $81,000 sitting in our cash management account for several weeks with our broker saying he couldn't find anything to invest it in, we decided to transfer the account to Piper Jaffray in Walker, MN. On May 11, 2006 I took the signed transfer papers to Piper Jaffray and gave them a check for $75,000 from our cash management account to get started on until the balance was transferred over.

Merrill Lynch immediately blocked Internet access to our account and returned the check to Piper Jaffray for nonsufficient funds. As of Friday, the account still wasn't transferred over and we have had no access to our money or information about the account. I find this extremely inappropriate. We should have been allowed to check the progress on the Internet and not denied access until the entire transfer was completed. 

We have not had access to our money or information about the account once they found we intended to transfer the account to Piper Jaffray

Lundes of Saylorsburg PA (02/15/06)
On February 14, 2006, at 9:24 am, I received a phone call from James S. He called me to compliant about my response to Merrill Lynch's Customer Satisfaction Survey. He stated, while yelling, that he and Ms. G did not appreciated my responses, and that effective immediately he is going to kick me out of Merrill Lynch and close my accounts.

About two weeks prior to this call, Merrill Lynch sent out to all of its clients soliciting a survey concerning the company and its employees performance. I filled out the survey, quite honestly, and the two financial advisors mentioned above became upset and is now conspiring retaliatory actions against me. After complaining to: Jean DeP (whom I filed a complaint on late in 2004, for a total unprofessional manner in which she handle my complaint about my then advisor Robert S, which she stated on the phone Robert is a senior around here, we are not going to do anything to him --- I still have not received a response to either complaint).

Barbro of Summerland Key FL (10/22/03)
Upon my husband's death, March 2002, I applied for a new account number for his IRA in his trust (from IRS) I received the number and all other documents from the IRS and forwarded them to my financial planner at ML. I subsequently received a form from my financial planner's office at ML, but didn't sign it for a while. The form stated that it was a distribution form, so I called the ML office and asked them if this was really the right form and the one that I should sign for just moving the money into the new IRA account number. The persons at the office (financial planner and paper pusher) assured me they used this form for that. Now I also have to add that these people admitted later that they sent me the wrong form and that they didn't know of other forms, and thought this was the right one.

SO upon their recommendation I signed the form and returned it. Subesequently they changed the account and MADE IT A NON-IRA. Now nobody told me about this. I had received the regular monthly statements but I did not examine them every month as to title only that the amounts looked right. Then I get the 1099 and I just about faint. I called the ML planner and he was as surprised as I was. He didn't seem to know about this either. Then I contacted my accountant and tried to work with ML, waited a couple of months, phoning regularly without results.

Then I hired the attorney that had set up the trust fund to begin with and he tried to work with ML to make corrections. Also I need to mention that if someone had told me what happened I could have rolled it into another IRA within 60 days. Now it was almost 12 months and ML isn't making any comments until the attorney contacted them. ML told him that they DO NOT MAKE corrections to fix this mistake, which I clearly see as their fault. They admit that this happened but that I had signed the form and therefore I am stuck with this. The fact that I could have rolled it over into another IRA was ignored. 

I am 60 years old, retired. This was to be part of my living expenses. The taxes on this IRA that I owe are $228,000 + $2,500 to the accountant + $$ to attorney. Still waiting to hear from IRS.

Linda of Cincinnati OH (08/24/03)
I have a small roll-over IRA with Merrill-Lynch. First it was transferred from my local office without notification to me. Second, $15 a quarter was being deducted for low Balance account ($3000). I then attempted to have this account Rolled over to another institution. Twice I have submitted forms, twice new requirements have been added. It has been over six months now and Merrill- Lunch has yet to release MY funds. I wrote a demand tyoe letter a month ago and I have received no response. I want my funds, small though they may be, out of Merrill-Lynch's hands.

Georgeof Saint Paul MN (08/13/03)
I havce been charged $45.00 to continue my account with this co. I have them hold gold coins for me. They lost a suite in the 1980 when they tryed to charge for the holding of the gold coins. They say the $45.00 is proper because I do not have over $20,000.00 invested with them.

I now have to pay this unfair charge and redeem my coins.

Philipof Ramsey NJ (07/19/03)
Both my wife and I had IRAs at Merrill Lynch. For years I ignored the exorbitant charges that were being leviied on the account. Each year it grew larger and larger. This year I finally had enough and decided that I wasn't going to pay $100 for my IRA and another $100 fro her IRA so I initiated a transfer to Charles Schwab (who charges nothing for our accounts). I purposely allowed two weeks to do this in order to avoid the upcoming charge. Well lo and behold Merrill took its sweet time in executing the transfer to Schwab and missed it by two days... surprise, surprise and each of our accounts were debited for $150 because of this. 

GJ of Minneapolis writes (2/19/03):
It seems that financial institutions such as Merrill Lynch are using the Patriots Act to hold our major deposits for two weeks, without giving us availability to our funds. This appears to be in direct contradiction to Regulation CC, which was supposed to guard our rights in this area.

I deposited a check for $10,978 into my Merrill Lynch CMA account. This was in the form of a Trust Check from Northwest Title – backed by US Bank. The current history for this check is: Feb 9th, 2003: Mailed the check from the main downtown Minneapolis post office to the Merrill Lynch’s downtown Minneapolis box office address. Whenever I have sent mail from the main post office to downtown companies, they have received the mail the next day. Feb 11th, 2003. I called Merrill Lynch to ask where my deposit for the $10,978 was. They said that the funds would be available in 24-48 hours.

Feb 12th, 2003: My check is posted – note that it took 3 business days to post. I assumed that my funds were available, and therefore, paid bills with checks.

Feb 15th, 2003: My debit card is declined for a $6 purchase. The Merrill Lynch Financial Advisory Center then informed me that my deposit would not by available until Feb 21st, 2003.

Feb 15th, 18th and 19th. I called the Financial Advisory Center and Merrill Lynch’s Middle Office to see if there was any way they could cover the checks that I wrote, given the $10,978 deposit. They stated that the only way was for me to wire them money from another source to cover the checks. Had I known that this money would take so long to clear, I would have run my financial affairs differently. Now, I have absolutely no cash and am facing check overcharge fees, potential damage to my credit report, embarrassment with my creditors, and lengthy time to resolve the problems caused.

It appears that there was a regulation that did protect consumers from the pains that I am experiencing. According to the federalreserve.gov website, there is a Regulation CC, which specifies that: “Funds from local checks must be made available by the second business day following the day of deposit” and “Funds from nonlocal checks must be made available by the fifth business day following the day of deposit.” It does state that there is a possibility of a delay: “For certain types of deposits, Regulation CC permits financial institutions to delay, for a “reasonable period of time,” the availability of funds.

A “reasonable” time period is generally defined as one additional business day (making a total of two business days) for on-us checks, five additional business days (total of seven) for local checks, and six additional business days (total of eleven) for nonlocal checks” Large deposits can be classified as on of these “certain types of deposits” and, according to the regulation, should be handled as follows: “Large deposits (greater than $5,000) — Any amount exceeding $5,000 may be held. Your institution must make the first $5,000 of the deposit available for withdrawal according to your availability policy and the remainder within the “reasonable” time frames discussed above.”

I do not have availability to the first $5000 – I don’t even have availability to the first few $100. Obviously, Regulation CC is no longer protecting us. Merrill Lynch tells me that this is due to the “Patriots Act”. I fail to see, though, how depositing a trust check backed by US Bank can be called a potential act of terrorism. Is this going on in all institutions? If so – Americans need to revise some of the laws in the Patriots Act – or else the terrorists that we have to fear will be our own American banks.

Thomas of San Francisco (8/20/02):
Ruth S at the time of her death was the holder of an IRA account with Merrill Lynch Pierce Fenner and Smith valued at $6,752.26. The named beneficiary is believed to be Robert S, Ruth's husband whose death preceeded Ruth's. As a result the IRA is distributable to the Estate of Ruth S, whose sole beneficiary is the Scott Trust.

Thomas R and Patrick R are co-trustees of the Scott Trust and sons of Ruth S. Thomas and Patrick R have made repeated attempts to obtain distribution of the IRA account held by Merrill Lynch but have been unsuccessful. All legally neccesary documentation has been sent and registered letters requesting distrubution have been ignored. Telephone calls are ignored, e-mails are rejected, fax line is perpetually busy. Meanwhile the stock price has dropped by approximately 50%. Richard H, Senior Client Associate at the Financial Advisory Center is ignoring his responsibility to act on a legitimate claim for distribution.

The damage is several thousand dollars lost in market downturn, based on current fund price, cost of legal intervention and considerable time and complete loss of confidence in Merrill Lynch. There appears to be no way to communicate with Mr. H except through arbitration and legal representation. It shouldn't be this difficult to retrieve money that is owed.

Greg of Worcester MA (8/20/02):
On 7/29/02 I contacted Merrill Lynch to cancel a recurring montly contribution to my IRA. On 8/15/02 my cancelled monthly contribution continued, causing my checking account to go into default. I called ML on 8/15/02 at appoximately 10:30am about getting my funds returned. They said the money was already invested and that I would have to sell stock, and pay a commission fee to get the money back in 20 days. A wire transfer would take 3 days and cost an extra 20 dollars.

I spoke with many, many managers and brokers who listened to half my story and transferred me, or defended their right to charge me fees to get my money back. I explained that the unauthorized transaction occured less than three hours ago, I didn't believe the money was already invested, and I didn't feel it was my obligation to pay any fee to undo a mistake made at their end. One person questioned if I even cancelled my recurring payments. I asked her to review the phone records since Merrill Lynch claims to record all conversation for training and quality purposes. I believe she then told me it really doesn't change anything because since the money was invested in stock, they couldn't just take it back without selling the stock.

At this point I was ready to close my entire IRA until I realized I would pay fees on every fund I am invested in. I opted to cool off and call them back later. My second call yielded simmilar results. I was bounced from office to office explaining and re-explaining. One broker I spoke with said the fees were less than one percent of my holdings and it really wasn't a big deal to pay it. I also asked about bank fees I incurred as a result of this. I was answered with silence and then transferred.

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