E*TRADE Reviews

I have been an E*TRADE customer for almost 20 years and they have sucked since they were purchased from Morgan Stanley. Instead of getting any type of help the Platinum support they want to send you to a Morgan Stanley person to sell you something. I have a couple of million, and my Platinum guy is a kid that has worked in the industry for 3 years and knows nothing.

E*TRADE restricted my account 30 days ago after I initiated a wire transfer to pay my landlord, I’ve uploaded all documents they requested, even made a 4 way call with them to another bank to verify a cashier's check, I can’t speak to anyone when I call, only the CSR that can’t tell me anything or do anything but send a email to back office and request they call me and they never do…. This is completely unacceptable. Can anyone give me any other contact information? A number or email to the Compliance Dept.

Horrible - signed up due to promo. They keep locking you for no reason. When asked, Customer care just don't care. As the representative suggested, I am transferring out even if losing that promo.

AWFUL!!!! AWFUL!!!! They make it impossible for beneficiaries to receive benefits. My mother passed away 3 years ago and there has been more red tape with E*TRADE than selling her properties. Communication and customer service are a joke. Their fees are half of her investments. STAY FAR AWAY!!! There are much better options.

I have been trying to open an inherited account from E*Trade for over 6 months. Mind you, it is an emotional time because someone has died. Their instructions are terrible. When I call to confirm that they have everything, I have been told yes so many times, only to call back when the account has still not been opened when they tell me that they need another piece of paper. My account was finally opened 8 months after the death, and then they said my phone number was not put in the correct field and that it needs to be corrected. But that it would only take an hour. The next day, it still didn't work. And the next day I called, and they said maybe 3 days. Then I called again, and the agent said that I needed to fill out yet another piece of paper so that they could send me text messages. Still no access to the account. What a joke! Don't give them your funds. They are not serious people.

Horrible company. Had a checking account less than 60 days. Has been frozen twice. The first time there was minimal funds in the account, they reactivated right away. Now there is substantial funds, they are holding on to my money. Save yourself the grief; avoid these crooks.

Very bad company. I never receive statements. I never receive email. Customer service is extremely unprofessional. Caution: use eTrade at your own risk.

Very disappointed in the way Etrade MS has handled the issues with the Roth IRA I setup last year. I had two instance where the limited sell trade of the option contract did not execute on the last day of trading, resulting in the execution of the option contract. As it is a Roth IRA I could not transfer money freely into the retirement account and had to rely on the proceeds of the sell of the executed option to fulfill the obligation (the money was there in the account but still in the clearing process) as well as there was plenty of cash and margin in the regular brokerage account. Despite that Etrade-MS basically forced me to close the IRA and transfer the money out of the account. Basically a lifetime punishment for letting an in the money option execute.

Do not trust this company. They make it as easy as possible for them to get your money, but as difficult as possible for you to access your own money. They should be investigated, they operate much like any criminal enterprise you have heard of.

My experience with E*TRADE has been overwhelmingly negative. While I will acknowledge that individual customer service representatives were generally polite and professional, that is the only positive aspect of this platform. My direct deposit was withheld without clear justification, multiple accounts were frozen, and my brokerage account became inaccessible with little transparency or timely resolution. Despite repeated calls, I received inconsistent explanations and no meaningful accountability. The operational handling of my funds created unnecessary stress and financial disruption.

Absolutely worthless set of customer service reps. Wanted to do a transfer to another account (They handled ESPP from my previous employer). It's now exactly 1.5 months and each time I call them, they guarantee that this will be done in 2-3 business days. No notifications, nothing. I have escalated and now cannot even do that!

Horrible experience ongoing... MANAGERs need to be retrained. Park your investments elsewhere!! Run away from ETrade!!! 49 calls and locked out of my cash account?? You cannot fathom how dismal my experience with this CONFEDERACY OF DUNCES and they have me locked out of using my cash account balance for a month over a pre auth from a hotel???

After a recent ATM withdrawal, Etrade blocked my account access pending a code sent to my phone. Unfortunately, it was not possible to access the phone and when I called the overseas number provided, I just received a recorded message (something within the country). They should consider, many moons ago, that they are causing serious problems, totally unnecessarily. Had Etrade wanted to do something by email to verify, that is usually more accessible for people.

They are a scam. They will charge a fee without notice and explanation. They will tell you to be aware with company that I bought trades with. If something wrong with the company, you will lose all your shares and owe them a fee.

In one word this company is HORRIBLE. And at this point I am ready to pull all accounts away from them. Started with opening a personal brokerage account. This shockingly took 2 weeks for them to accomplish... A simple brokerage account. Next I tried to move my IRA from William Blair to eTrade. This took about 5 weeks of back and forth and resending the application, paperwork, statements multiple times because they couldn't find it. At the same time I was trying to move my wife's IRA and rollover her 401k into an IRA with etrade. Her IRA was just as miserable of a process as my own taking about 5 weeks. The 401k though... Took 2 months for etrade to get themselves in order. In that time the 401k was emptied but it took nearly 2 weeks for it to show in etrade. Simply unacceptable.

I have been an E-Trade customer since they first started operating. All these years I have had a great experience. However, recently and after its acquisition by Morgan Stanley, we have had a very unpleasant experience. We opened an E-Trade account for my 23-year-old daughter. Opening the account was a little cumbersome (had to take pictures and send DL) but within reason and funding the account directly from her bank was quite easy. However, when my daughter tried to access the account, the E-Trade system could not verify her mobile number (supposedly because she was under our family plan and their third-party verifier could not handle it). As such she could not access the account or the funds. E trade customer service instructed her to go through an additional arduous process of sending a multitude of additional information via some nebulous process using a different mobile phone app in conjunction with Docusign.

Terrible bank, Run! Continually restricts account with an intentionally difficult process in place to further frustrate customers. They provided no answers, no help and wholly ignored my customer needs. Almost 2 weeks without being able to access MY money because E-Trade restricted my access to my money. Theft is described as permanently or temporarily depriving a person of their personal property or finances, They continue to hold my money, while providing no answers and even less help.

I am giving Etrade a 2 star because when it was time for me to make a withdrawal from my Child's Coverdell Account for College, instead over being able to transfer the cash proceeds to my checking account or my son's they said a check would have to be mailed out, Now if this was 1984, I would have been cool with that, but this is 2025, I invested thru electronic transfer from my bank amount to fund this account for 14 years, and when I needed some of the funds they said a check would have to be mailed out, for this type of account. Now I have owned another coverdell account with Janus and that was not the case when funds settled, they transferred to my bank account. This policy of sending out a check is bogus, and charging $25 for expedited delivery is extra B.S.

They froze my account without telling me because I asked about giving power of attorney to my Son, I had some accounts on auto pay with them and they returned them all, they destroyed my credit! DO NOT USE THEM! THEY ARE CROOKS! Have been with them 17 years.

This is the worst financial institution. I can't wait to get my money out. The account was set up by my company, but it is just such a hassle dealing with their poor systems. Do yourself a favor and sign up with Schwab.

Etrade has completely failed us in the worst way. I work with my son to manage his Roth IRA account at Etrade. We are trying to do an asset transfer of over $40K to a rollover Roth IRA account. We started this process over 5 weeks ago. Our first attempt we used the transfer form for the firm we were transferring assets to. Etrade’s first response was they did not accept e-signatures. We provided Etrade a wet signature. They then said they don't accept transfer requests from outside banks, so we filled out an Etrade form to initiate a transfer to another bank. They responded that they needed a color photograph of my son’s drivers license, and we sent that.

Best $100 I spent. Tried it out a few years ago, traded for some decent stocks at nearly a dollar. Took $20 to set aside for security, the rest for trade. Fast forward to date, the stocks paid 50 cents in dividends, then it merged, costing $15. I sold some of the stocks at 80% to make up the difference, and another merger hit at $38. Selling all the stocks left the account in a negative $12 balance with no purchasing power. The $20 security was also eaten up along the way. I’d rather go feed Vegas slot machines than this.

E*trade is terrible! They literally sabotage trades by closing out positions on options trades. Yesterday October 24th 2025 I had opened a $618 put on QQQ because it was rejecting off of a resistance level at around $618.30. It took mostly the entire trading day but with about 15 minutes left in the trading day price had reversed and closed below the 9 ema heading to the 21 ema around $217. I was charting on trading view just knowing that I was in the money and would have some profits. With more than 10 minutes left I went back to my E*trade account where I was holding the position. Somehow I was logged out of my account. That was strange because I was just on there less than 5 minutes before going back and forth from E*trade and trading view. QQQ was making almost a dollar move past my strike price so I knew that I was in the money.

My experience with E trade was horrible. I only had my account a couple of months and I change my phone number. Because I had not finish putting everything into the system, they shut down my account and I could not get into it and had to jumped through hoops, like sending over my Drivers Licenses and a detail note with wording they had created for me to hand write and either fax or email it over to them for the back office to just release my account from hostage. Their MFA Multi-Factor Authentication would not even let me log into my account for more than (10) days.

My father passed away over two years ago and we are still trying to get his assets from E*Trade. The case manager is never available, others direct us on next steps, we complete all tasks and then are constantly told of a new form needed. This is unbelievable and I will definitely not leave any assets with them in the future if this ever gets settled. Do yourself a favor and run from this company.

Wow - I saw an E trade baby commercial from 15 years ago and thought I would check them out. I was planning to move my brokerage portfolio and open a HYSA. I did a test transfer of $4k just to test timing. I was told I need to wait 60 days to link my external Schwab account and now they have frozen my HYSA asking for identification documents I uploaded days ago. They still will not allow my to access my funds and can not tell me why. I just want to get my money back and get the heck away from these people. Be careful and go slow, really you should not even consider them.

I have been a loyal E*Trade customer for over 20 years. I just opened a Family Trust through them. They did not honor the introductory bonus offer even though the trust was not in my name. They ran the application originally through beneficiaries because a death certificate wish they requested was enclosed for Grantor. They then voided the Trust application for no apparent reason. I had to call to find out the holdup which cost me $$$ in crypto profits and their phone system to try to speak to someone is a nightmare and no follow-through. The trust check I sent in with application to fund the trust account was deposited into my individual account in error when they canceled the trust application causing me much stress with other Trust partners thinking I was trying to do something nefarious. Very disappointed.

Called multiple times to validate my account. Every time they told me to call next day and promised it will get done. After 6 calls in a period of 14 days they said the documents expired and needed to submit again. I asked why they didn't do it in the first 14 days, the guy told me that is in the past and an explanation was irrelevant. Don't trust your money with people that won't even give you an explanation when customers is asking a simple question. In reality they basically told me I don't care if you are upset or we wasted your time just do what I told you to do and hope for the best.

Worst platform to have brokerage account. Account is very hard to navigate, hard to see portfolio, hard to check open orders. If possible I will give 0 stars. Instead of showing the current portfolio value it displays what was made in the past year.

If you want poor communication and service, put your money with E*Trade. They are not prepared to provide banking services, and the level of service is well below their peers. E*Trade Savings product, great phone service, but the savings product must be new because the service on high yield savings is very poor. They do not communicate regarding changes to interest rates, they do not communicate regarding confirmation of beneficiaries (which have to be uploaded using a handwritten form).