Charles Schwab & Co.

Already have a brokerage account and wanted to open a savings account. Long application process and uploading of documents. Waited 2 weeks and finally called after long wait on phone was told that it takes time and I would hear soon. One week later I go on chat and ask for update. I was told I had missing information and to submit whole new application! I cancelled application but am concerned about all my information on file. Waste of my time.

Terrible customer and unreliable website for trading. It took them 7 weeks to conduct a trade inquiry because of their website issues. Customer service rep called me today after repeated attempts to get a status. He was extremely rude and basically blamed me for selling the shares. So the risk was all mine and they waited 7 weeks for the stock to turn around so they can tell me you didn't lose money. Horrible experience. Moving to Merrill. Stay away from them.

I have been a customer for 8 years. Their customer service has become terrible, almost non existent. It is impossible to talk to anyone helpful or to do online chat due to long waiting times. If you do connect, they seem to be totally clueless. If you send an online message, you will never get a response. I inquired about bringing in new money to my account. Got no response at all 20 days later. You would have thought they would jump at the opportunity of a large new investment. I opened up a new Roth IRA account. 6 business days later it is still not active with no indication of why. I contacted the local CS office, & they could not help at all. Got through on chat, with the same result. "Sorry can't do anything. Just have to wait for Operations to look at it".

I opened both a Schwab checking and brokerage account in 2013. I never used the checking account feature regularly until 2019. I regret closing my Wells Fargo account and switching to this terrible company. I have had nothing but endless problems from day one, but in 2020 and now 2021, it has become inexcusably awful.

This is the worst brokerage I have ever used, and I've used most of them. There is literally no way to email them. You have to "chat" except the chat never connects. Phone calls take hours on hold and then hours more after they transfer you. Avoid this brokerage like the plague. Fidelity - great service - answers calls immediately. Etrade - can send messages so you don't waste time. Schwab - never lets you talk to a human. Seriously this company is the worst.

Any wait time to inquire about your brokerage account, and simple questions on fees and transfers takes longer than 2 hours. Not a one-off occurence either. Entire week of waits. Tread at your own risk.

For three months I have tried to reach a person to speak to regarding investment management for Expats. I have called many times, (on hold for 20-30 minutes, usually disconnected) I have messaged them on their webpage, I even called a branch office who transferred my call to the same 'on hold' experience. Why would you trust a company you can't reach with your life's savings and investments?

I have been a customer for 30+ years and for decades Schwab & Co has been the go-to place for small investors. The last 6-8 months has witnessed a steady record of poor experiences with this company. The trading platforms (Edge) works fine in a Goldilocks environment and most likely on a windows machine. If your computer is a MAC be prepared for a whole host of problems most of which are slowness and crashes if you go too fast.

Charles Schwab is a very good company if you intend to trade a few time a day or less. You can reach knowledgeable people via the phone if there are issues or you have questions! However, day traders should stay away -- latency issues, servers going down, sometimes you cannot get out of trades (two times already this week). Unfortunately, it appears their systems weren't designed for scale. The growth in traders and trading volume has created an enormous problem for their IT and call centers.