e*Trade

Maybe it's just that I am new to investing in stocks directly, but when I accidentally tried to transfer an amount greater than what was available for withdrawal in my account, the difference was automatically borrowed on a margin with no attempt to obtain confirmation that this was the action I intended. To me it seems almost predatory that one would not be notified in any way that they are withdrawing more money than what is "available for withdrawal" (and truly, with that phrasing, it seems funny that one should even be capable of doing so).

I set up a custodial account for my niece nearly 18 years ago, and recently received a letter from the IRS stating I owe back taxes for dividends the account received nearly 2 years ago. When I called E-Trade asking why this dividend was reported under my tax ID, and not my niece's, I was told that I, as custodian, am the responsible party for any taxes. This goes against all of the research I have done, and, actually would negate the entire reason for the account if it were true. My complaint about E-Trade is not only that their customer service reps know nothing; I also am upset that this dividend was reported under my tax ID and not my niece's.

One time I had a very large account with them. I engaged a money manager at another brokerage and tried to transfer part of the account to the other brokerage. It took 10 months, because e*trade kept falsely saying there were margin clerking problems. Luckily the money manager was patient and didn't just boot me. Another time I had a dispute of around $60000 with them. Their legal position was ridiculous, that I had to keep re-filing my account documents due to imperfections that were mostly their fault and that anyone else would ignore. The problem was that they would state their legally unsupportable nonsense on the phone but refused to put it in writing on their "Secure Message" messaging system.

My Account was restricted for some mysterious reason and now I have been waiting for a week for e-trade to unlock my account. They keep promising to call me back to unlock it (the department that does this does not accept inbound calls!) But I am still waiting. I now have no access to my money and each person I speak to doesn't really sound like they care to help. No managers available just no, thats all I hear - pathetic!

E*TRADE keeps changing fee structure on its mutual funds and ETFs. I had DCA into few funds for couple of years. These are small amounts I deposit into mutual funds. In my recent account review I noticed that my account value was falling instead of great stock market returns. I came to know that for past 6+ months E*TRADE was charging me $19.99 for each auto deposit of $250 into 3 funds. Apparently E*TRADE changed these funds from NTF to fees based without proper notifications. That's whopping $350 fees they charged me without my knowledge.

I have been trying for 16 years to get the money out of a custodial account originally established in my name for college savings. Clearly, we weren't able to use it for college. Apparently it isn't enough mine to liquidate or change the investments, despite being well over 18, but it IS enough mine to charge me taxes and fees. It isn't enough my parents for eTrade to allow them access either, because I am over 18 (in fact the account is well over 18 years old, so there should be no question of that).

I lost my wife in 2000 and she had an e*Trade account that I automatically inherited. Life gets in the way and quite frankly I forgot about it until I recently came across some paperwork. OK that was my fault. I tried to log in using the information I found without success so contacted e*Trade. Answer back was, "We closed that account (why?) and since we don't keep record more than 7 years, it's done." Tough luck. I've had the same telephone number for years but no one called or emailed. I agree that Customer Service is a joke and virtually useless. Got a voice mail saying "yep, Account closed, money gone - no further action is required on your behalf!" Pressed them for reasons they closed the account in writing and I eventually got a BS letter. That has been passed on to legal representation. $7,000 - 10,000 just vaporized without trace. I call this Corporate Theft.

Etrade shut down my Etrade account without explanation. I had a grey sheet penny stock and Etrade said "Either transfer your shares or we will sell your shares automatically." Etrade will not divulge why they will not service my account. I cannot sell my shares as on the grey sheets. It is not possible. Etrade did find the shares when they sold them for me. Etrade also will not reimburse me for the cost of the trade(s) to acquire the shares.

I have been a customer with e*Trade for 12 years. Sunday, I logged into my account and discovered that all 3 of my accounts had been frozen. E*Trade did not proactively notify me by email or phone. I am lucky that I discovered the fact two days after they froze it. I got grilled to the nth degree by their rep and manager--very private and intrusive questions way beyond the questions they have asked in the past when needing to verify my identity (beyond the 8 question list). These were questions to uncover a crime (but no crime had been committed). Although the reps were evasive, I could tell that some wire transfers I made to buy and sell property were being viewed as "suspicious activity" and that they were getting ready to submit a SAR (or perhaps had already done so).

Rolled my 401K into E-trade, a relatively large amount. Shortly after applied for a loan. Was told it would take 3-5 business days... Three Weeks later... After overnighting additional paperwork on a weekend, (thus not slowing the process, they had it by Monday morning) and instantly wiring funds to make up for a trading shortfall of $90, in order to make certain that the full loan amount was available, and being told about 10 times that it would take 3-5 business days, I am now told loan paperwork is completed, and all is good on the money side... It will take 3-5 business days to receive the funds from the loan...

Out of courtesy, I informed my account manager I was transferring 2000 to another company. After a few weeks, I found out they were lying to me. Even though they had the same SS number on the application and the only thing different was the lack of a middle initial, E*TRADE wanted me to submit a new application for transfer with a Notary signature. I called my rep and he assured me they were sending the check that day.

I contacted E*trade on 11/23/16 to inquire about my account. Something seemed off and I asked the customer service rep if a recent company merger had been reflected correctly with the corresponding shares in my account. The rep told me he had found a discrepancy and would need to do a manual update. On 12/2/16, I spoke to the rep again and he told me I would see the correction in my account after a couple of days. On 12/7/16, I assumed the E*Trade rep was done working on my account. On this day I saw a $3,000 GAIN in my portfolio. I thought I hit the jackpot! After so many months of watching my shares lose money with this company, I thought I finally got a break and finally made a profit. After watching the stock go up and down by a few dollars for over an hour, once it started dipping under $3,000 I decided to sell all my shares belonging to this particular company.

Had very bad experience with their customer service. They make system complicated for us simple people to understand. I do not do taxes or stocks for a living. I am an engineer and would like to stay that way. They put my residency status as foreign national when I have been working here for seven years. When I asked them about it and kindly requested to amend it, they completely disowned the problem. Redirected it to be my problem and refused to help me at any cost. Unfortunately, I have to deal with this problem as-is. Morgan Stanley would never do this.

I have traded for a few years now with Etrade. I understand there are risks involved in the market. As a beginner I was led to believe that you can invest your money and hope to see some sort of gains. After these few years I have learned how manipulating Etrade's platform is. The sad part is they call you a customer elite when you have met a certain amount of trades but when you lose money or need any assistance you're not so elite anymore. Don't be surprised that it is this brokerage firm involved in taking parts of your funds. Every issue I have ever had has never been properly resolved.

After being with E-Trade over 20 years I had not traded in the last couple of years because of investments targeted by the OOovvvomitt administration coal companies to be frank. I decided to set up a traditional Ira and for some reason which they would not tell me they had decided to end our business relationship as they state it. After wasting countless hours talking and being on hold and BS so called customer service I was told the reasons are in the mail? Unbelievable! They can't even be decent enough to tell you texting or by the phone. And behind the scenes closing all my accounts without even telling me!

My wife and I are staying in Mexico and we let E*TRADE know that and I asked them how to remove my spouse from our joint account. E*Trade advised us to explain in a letter with both signatures and that it be notarized. We sent it a notarized letter and they canceled the correspondence with the explanation they don't accept Mexican notaries. Based on that info E*TRADE restricted the account where we have no access to our money. My US Bank accepted the Mexican Notary. I tried to speak with their legal, but they won't unless you are an attorney. E*Trade can restrict your money by repeating we are protecting both parties, when no one requested a restriction in the first place. Still unresolved. E*TRADE won't even let us close the account.

I opened my account with E*trade in 2004 due to my workplace had given us stocks. I also used it for everything. In the last three years when there was funds they would bounce a check. Since they are not local I would deposit funds using my cellphone. I deposited a check that I had no idea was a fake check and they locked ALL my accounts up and I could not get any funds. They kept my funds locked up–which I had 2 times the amount that would cover the check in the account–for almost a month! When I called them they would tell me one thing and do another. They were not honest. I finally asked them to close the accounts and they said they already had and mailed me the checks. It took me 3 weeks to get any funds and I had to borrow due to using them and not a local bank. You live and learn but they were the worst financial and brokerage institution ever! I found a local person who is wonderful.

Trying to make trades with their representatives is a nightmare. They often talk so much and for so long that the prices have gone up by the time they finally push that buy button causing loss over and over. I had 2 accounts. One morning I was trying to use one of them and had no access to my own money for over 8 hours while they were updating or some excuse. They do not return calls, have little to no expertise in even simple things like stopping a check protocol. Worst banking and worst trading experience of my life.

I have used e*Trade for over 20 years. I stopped trading with them ages ago fearful of keeping any large amount of money in their bank after numerous mistakes and false information received. For convenience I still use them for a monthly auto pay and take that out immediately and put it into a bank. I know, mistake after mistake. Once I stopped a check and had to send in a letter to continue the stop payment for 6 months. They kept saying they didn't get it no matter how many times I faxed it. Finally I had to close that particular account just so that vendor wouldn't cash the check.

I opened an e*Trade account in the spring of 2016. The brokerage account opening went fine, but it took over a month to get my IRA rolled over to them. I kept being given misinformation. I would get secure messages saying everything was complete, then get request for more info, etc. Finally I had to have a conference call between the company that had my IRA at the time and e*Trade, so that they could tell e*Trade how to take my money. That should have been enough to scare me away from e*Trade, but I figured maybe it was just incompetence on the IRA rollover side.

I've had an e*trade account for 10 years. Account was initially established as placeholder or institution of our company stock option plans. I have plenty of free flowing cash that is available cash on hand (not tied to stock investments). For the past 3 years every time I write a check out of this account the check is returned by the merchant, business, dealership, even my other banking institution (BOA) has returned the checks.

E*trade is absolutely the worst. For the past month my password seemed to be suddenly wiped out in their system. Almost every morning I would have to call to ask for a password reset. They explained nothing is wrong with their system. Then 2 weeks ago I could not log on at all. Very obvious there was a system error because people were complaining on Twitter of the same issue. By the time I logged on 4 hrs later I was out 3,000. Angry and frustrated yet Etrade would do nothing. The week after I had a direct deposit coming in for 10,000k I tried to log on my account and pay bills. Once again log in disabled. Called customer service and they reset the password. The reset did not work. I called back again and to my shock the rep said my account was closed and no explanation was given. They said my direct deposit was returned. I was freaking out because my debit cards were linked with them and I was without any living money.

I spoke to the customer service whether I can sell short and buy to cover on the same day. (I deposited the fund on the day which made my overall balance more than 25K). He replied yes and absolutely. When I tried to cover it up. It said I cannot do it. When I spoke to the other customer service "He said I cannot do it". I just made the trade only after getting the first customer service rep word. No one helped, one guy said he will listen to the tape and return back the call. None helped. I lost a lot of money on the same day. I don't want to be with them with the rest of my life. Thanks e*Trade for screwing me up!

After reading many comments, I guess I am not alone, they canceled my account and took about $250 dollars from my account. They claimed that there was a monthly fee around $60.00 and they try to contact me but they failed. I was never contacted nor received any email, no phone, no mail. Stay away from this website. They are scammers and thieves.

E-trade cancelled my business account with no warning. Their communication is very poor. Do not trust them with your money or your business. I see from many web reviews that I'm not alone in this fate. Avoid.

They claimed they try to reach us by mail that they be closing the account, however we never ever received the mail. There was a 10K balance which they claimed was issued back to us with a closing letter. Again, we never received any mail. When I asked them why they did not call or email us, they simply replied that emails get hacked. So informing us by email that our account will get closed will help hacker how? "So why not making a phone call?" I asked. They put me on hold and told me, "We understand your frustration," but unable to help me.

I have been more than 5 years trading, never made money and lost my hard earnings. They know when a stock will go up and down. They know how to trick you to add more than your capital out of tricky market and company news then forfeit everything without your choice. Finally will start keep calling you to cover your debits. CROOKS!!! Blood suckers. Be careful!

Their customer care representative are not knowledgeable. I made a mistake in transferring my account to another trading firm. There was a hidden cost of 60$. I thought that would move My ESPP account, but ETRADE did not move my ESPP account. So after this incomplete transfer they restricted my account for months until I send rescind form. Now I have sent the rescind form still it has taken more than 3 working days. Customer care do not know says it will take some time, they won't give accurate estimate.

Do not trust E*TRADE to invest your $$ in their "Managed" Portfolio. They take you to cleaners with their 1.25% fee and are as careless as a 2 year old with your investments. You will end up in a very unfortunate situation. They create confusion and lie to keep you. Beware and leave if you're unfortunate enough to trust them. Sigh...

I've been an e*Trade account holder for many years. I had a stock trading account, checking and savings account. The debit cards I have are expiring. I called in to request new debit cards and received a letter that they're closing all my accounts with no explanation. I'm not a day trader, but I have direct deposit and links to other bank accounts going through e*Trade. Now I have to redo a lot of work because of the geniuses on staff. This company obviously does not care about their customers. I would recommend no one ever do business with them. Use a financial institution that values your business... like a credit union.