Merrill-Lynch
This company is not yet accredited. See reviews below to learn more or submit your own review.
Merrill-Lynch Reviews
A link has directed you to this review. Its location on this page may change next time you visit.
I have a Merrill Edge account and my financial advisor in a Phoenix office never returned my phone calls. I called on Monday 3/16/20 her voice message said she would call back by the end of the business day. I know she must have been inundated with calls from clients, so on Tuesday 3/17/20 I called the advisor helpline to have some questions answered but they said I need to speak to my advisor to make changes.
I gave my advise the benefit of the doubt and waited until Wednesday 3/18/20 I called 6:30AM left a message thinking I would be the first call on her voice mail, I called again at 9am and finally at 12pm left her a message never to reach out to me again. I called the advisor help line and told them I was no longer her client and needed help that I was trying to get since Monday 3/16/20. I'm 71 years old and my portfolio was dropping below the amount I could afford to lose. I was finally able to liquidate my holding but not before losing more than I planned on because I never received a call back on 3/16/20. So on Wednesday 3/18 when I finally was able to liquidate it was to late in the day to do everything so it took 2 days and I lost even more money.
I told them to check on the financial adviser at the Bank of America branch maybe she was sick or had some kind of emergency and someone needed to change her voice message. She was good in time that were good but in the mist of what's going on I was left out in the cold and lost more money then I could afford to due to the lack of communication by MERRILL LYNCH. I know I'm not alone in this situation so beware of the lack of communication from MERRILL LYNCH advisors.
Surprisingly ignorant about trusts, estate planning and wealth management. They seem unable to communicate the basics facts about financial management. Forget customer service. All they want to do is sell you things. Do not ever do business with Merrill Lynch. You will regret it.
My mother died and left her Merrill Lynch funds to me and my 3 sisters. Each time I spoke with a rep, he/she gave me instructions on how to proceed. Then the rep would follow up upon receiving my form and that of my sisters. 7 representatives later, no follow up, and yet we completed all beneficiary forms, I accused them of trying to keep my mother’s money. My sisters and I were grieving the loss of our mother. Why was Merrill Lynch having us fill out forms twice, never calling us back, saying they would take care of everything repeatedly and never doing so?
Twice I was told our rep had been “out” a week. I never called over the course of 2 months and got my previous rep. Over that 2 months, the stock market plunged due to the corona virus, so Merrill Lynch’s stall tactics lost us a bunch of money. The warnings in these reviews are right on. RUN FROM THIS COMPANY. I think, honestly, they are crooks. A lawyer with investments in other firms verified my experience with Merrill Lynch mob was common.
I got home last night to find a letter telling me my account was closing in 30 days like it or not. I tried to call Merrill, I keeped getting routed to Bank of America. After speaking to bank of America 2 times and holding for 1 hour and 20 minutes the final women told me to call back that she couldn't put me on the phone with anyone. I asked her to please help me that I've been on hold almost 1.5 hrs and I was hung up on. Listen to these warnings. Do not go near that place.
Run Forest Run!!! They could care less about you or your money.
I tried to roll over my ML IRA to another company. They ignored my request, wouldn’t complete the IRA rollover form, closed the account and sent me a check. For eight weeks I struggled with ML to get the form signed. Eventually they overnighted the form but it was too late to meet the 60-day rollover window. IRS letter comes. Working with ML to resolve the issue is frustrating. Not helpful. Each phone call lasts an hour, the people I talk to consults with a team of experts for 5-10 minutes before saying ML did nothing wrong and not offering any assistance.
I had a lot of cash in an ira that I wanted to transfer to a different brokerage. I sent the form they requested. It was denied, they claimed it was the wrong form. They overnighted a different form, I sent it back, waited, no response. Called, and that one was the wrong form too. (Seeing a pattern here?) Not to worry, I'm told, the correct form was online. As the rep was disconnecting, I said not so fast, let me read through it. Even I could tell it wasn't the right form. After a few rounds of 'is not', 'is too', I told her to go double check. After a few minutes, she was back, and it was indeed the wrong form yet again. Clearly, they don't want to transfer my money away from ML.
She said her supervisor was looking at my file, and didn't understand why the first form didn't work. She said they would try to 'push it through'. I then said if my money hadn't been transferred by the end of the week, I'd file a complaint with the SCC and whoever else regulates brokerages. Her attitude quickly changed, and she said she would call me in an hour with an update.
The update was that the first form was fine and my money would transfer this week. We'll see. They've now scammed me out of almost 2 months of interest on a very large sum of money. Older seniors would never be able to work through all of their bull. I also was liquidating some stocks into cash, as well as moving some stocks to a more customer oriented company. Well, they managed to sell the shares AND transfer them to the other brokerage on the same day. Then they had the nerve to demand that I repurchase that number of shares to "pay them back". I should've told them to stick it, but I had a large quantity of cash in the account and I don't know whether they can legally 'take' my funds and buy it themselves. It was a dog stock and I wanted nothing to do with it, much less purchase more.
God was smiling, because there was an unexpected downtick in the stock price just then so I was actually able to purchase the shares, give them to ML, I'm sure they charged their fee, and actually make money. They VERY reluctantly let me keep the tiny windfall. Could they legally wrest it from me? Can they legally force me to buy stock to cover their own mistake? They now 'owe' me two months interest on over 100,000, and that's if they actually transfer the money this week. I am absolutely sure that all of these 'wrong' forms were a deliberate tactic to hold onto my funds. Go to ETrade. I started an account with only a tiny bit of cash, bought 2 S&P index funds, and actually received a call welcoming me, and asked whether I was aware that I was basically buying redundant funds (I was). If ML pulls one on you, file a true complaint with the SEC, SCC, FINRA, and everybody else that regulates brokerages. They deserve it.
Wilshire Consumer Credit Customer Service has provided me with excellent service through some of difficulties I have personally encountered & provided appropriate accommodation to meet my needs consistently. Well appreciated!
My mother is a senior and I handle most of her business affairs. She had a CD at Bank of America for 13 years, which wasn't making any money for several years. We agreed to transfer it to Merrill. The CD was in her and my name, and she was receiving the updates on her monthly BoA statement. She is not computer savvy. Merrill said she would not need to be present to transfer the funds from BoA to a Merrill brokerage account. I made it very clear that 1) the funds are my mother's money, 2) she needs to receive the statement at her address with her name as the primary owner. None of this happened.
The account was created in my name only with my home address, which puts me in a very bad situation. It makes me look as if I was trying to pull a fast one with a considerable amount of my mother's money. To rectify, mom and I both went to BoA and met with the agent, signed new papers to have this fixed, and VOILA, nothing has changed. It's been several months now and tax time is coming. Something is fishy. Why did Merrill do this? What will it take to get the account back to my mom's name and her mailing address? Very dissatisfied customer.
I purchased a life insurance policy through Merrill Lynch which was subsequently transferred to Transamerica Life. I invested $70,000 into the policy and that cash value was suppose to generate enough income to pay for the premiums. The policy started losing its value. When I inquired as to who was overseeing my account I found out no one, not Transamerica not Merrill Lynch. Now my account is totally depleted and Transamerica is asking me to pay an additional $10,000 or the policy would be terminated. Twice I wrote to CEO Andy Sieg and he didn't even have the decency to reply either personally or through an associate. Pitiful Oversight. I would suggest not investing any funds with Merrill Lynch.
Merrill Lynch is a despicable company that will tell you anything to get your business, then pull the plug on an agreement afterwards with no reason other than what suits their situation at the time. You can bet on their decisions benefiting them only and not you. This company is not to be trusted whatsoever, and I want to warn anyone reading this to avoid doing business with them. I also found that they did not adequately disclose very important investor information such as your money being put into a cash account collecting minimal interest between the time a trade settles and the time it is reinvested, and worse, it might not be FDIC insured so in the event of a market meltdown you could lose some or all of your money.
They seemed uncomfortable that I as a savvy investor was asking them these questions and had to get a supervisor to intervene who then rescinded an offer made for me to move funds over there. I definitely smell a rat over at Merrill Lynch and recommend that you do a lot of research, ask a lot of questions, and do not accept what they tell you as Gospel.
I spoke to a team lead who was extremely rude, unhelpful, would not listen to an alternative point of view and threatened to disconnect the call because she did not like what I was saying, i.e., my point of view that conflicted with hers. How unprofessional! This made me happy I terminated my business plans with the company.
Merrill Lynch is an absolutely clownish, despicable company that Bank Of America made a mistake in acquiring. Aside from Merrill's incompetence and arrogance, their values are not aligned with Bank of America's with the latter being customer service and relationship management oriented, while fiendish Merrill's is clearly how much money they can make off of you including by inadequate nondisclosure, deception, and rescinding offers they later think they shouldn't have made with no explanation. Further, you should check into the company's history of discrimination; they had to pay penalties based on this.
Simply put, do not do business with Merrill Lynch. Pull your accounts from them and get some money with offers from reputable brokers in the process who will more likely do the right thing with your money and your comfort level in customer service. Do not put new money into the company, and if you are a prospective customer go to another investment brokerage that cares about you and your money, does not play games, and is trustworthy unlike Merrill. Merrill is an illegitimate company that should be investigated for its bad business practices and who knows what else. I give the company a 0 on a 1-10 scale. AVOID!
Merrill-Lynch Company Information
- Company Name:
- Merrill Lynch
- Year Founded:
- 1914
- Address:
- 250 Vesey Street
- City:
- New York
- State/Province:
- NY
- Postal Code:
- 10007
- Phone:
- (800) 637-7455
- Website:
- www.ml.com
You’re signed up
We’ll start sending you the news you need delivered straight to you. We value your privacy. Unsubscribe easily.