E-trade Consumer Reviews - Page 4

Account Started: 11/8/02. Problem Started: 6/23/04. Disputed Value: $155. E-trade is a predatory company that bills more for services not rendered than for services rendered. I've been a customer for 3 years, and an active trader for two of those. Then E-trade began to bill me for account inactivity. Recently, they increased account inactivity rates from an outstanding $25/qtr to $40/qtr without any notice. This is completely outrageous as they hide these fees deep within their contract and it is easy to forget about them after 2 years of continuous trading.

It is obvious that E-trade is going to lose more from this issue by encouraging a disgruntled consumer to advertise against them than they would from simply refunding the account and encouraging more active trading in the future. But their customer service is of the lowest quality. After waiting on hold for over 30 minutes on 2 separate occasions for the "current account holders" department, I decided to call the "new accounts" department. This line only took 3 minutes before I got an answer. This means that E-trade, while overloaded with their current account volume is counter-compensating by putting even more energy into opening new accounts.

Finally, when I attempt to sever ties with the company, they freeze my funds for 72 hours waiting for the account to "settle." I have made one single trade in 12 months time and they claim it will take 72 hours for the account to settle. In those 12 months, they charged me $155 for services not rendered and the 30 cents worth of server space that my account occupied. This is absolutely a humiliating experience for me, and I wouldn't wish it upon anyone.

SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA -- Heavy on lawyers, light on customer service. Good luck getting any money OUT of an eTrade account and to your heirs should you pass away. I was in a Domestic Partnership and it was easier to stop life support when he was terminal than it has been to get the stock options from eTrade. So far, I have had to get a notary signature, gold Medallion signature, fill out multiple forms, sit on hold only to talk to someone in a foreign country who I can barely understand, pay for and consult two attorneys and because they claim they never got his faxes to put his eTrade account in our trust, I now have to go to Probate.

I am the Beneficiary on his Will, I am the Beneficiary on his Trust, I was his Durable Power of Attorney for Health Care Decisions and we signed an Affidavit with his company that we were in a Domestic Partnership (28 years). Good luck for those of you in Domestic Partnerships, you will be discriminated against and NOT treated equal to a married couple. When Corporations create an account for an employee for stock options, it should be automatic that a Beneficiary form goes out to that employee, like with Life Insurance Accounts and 401 Accounts. Not the case with eTrade. Cancer killed my soulmate and eTrade is another cancer in my life.

BRISBANE -- Oh my God if their systems could be anymore outdated, irresponsible and downright stupid. Here we go. Their portfolio section which you trade from to see your holdings does not communicated with your account balance all the time so you may have holdings you don't know about. So this is the second time where shares that have been full sold down then reappear on my account balance.

I am then told that I haven't sold them all and that this is my fault, I should have contacted them. WTF is my statement as you are trying to use what is meant to be a trading platform where you are charged an arm and a leg to trade and they can't get it right but you're wrong. I hate the way they take forever and I mean forever to settle. I wish they could fix the errors or admit that they have an issue and make amends not charge me like I have millions of dollars.

E-trade's talking baby ads are no joke. The company tries to appeal to young techy business types who don't know much about investing. I very glad they only had a portion of our portfolio. Markets and investments go up and down, but you can be certain that your ups will not be as high with E-trade, and your downs will go much lower. They eat you alive with hidden costs and fees. During a downturn, they would not let me sell or close an account. They needed the last thousands for sell-offs and fees.

Then, they started charging me every month. My 15 grand in stocks investments went negative with these guys. Customer service was apologetic and ineffective. Stick with Fidelity, Schwab, Well Fargo and any number of other reputable financial service companies that treat customers as adults and talking babies. E-trade is a sure thing bad move.

SANTA CLARA, CALIFORNIA -- I want to transfer my ETrade i401K account to my Vanguard traditional IRA account. ETrade's left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing. They misinformed me that the securities can transfer in kind to Vanguard. After back and forth with ETrade and Vanguard over several days, I find out ETrade requires liquidation of my securities (why didn't they tell me initially?). After a couple more phone calls, I find out they require that I manually sell them. Robo calls from them are vague. I return their call and I have to repeat what I've already in detail told a previous representative in a previous call. Time burner.

2/13/12 I was told their computers would automatically know the securities are sold and proceed with transferring the money. I sold the securities 2/14/12. 2/15/12 I was told that the request must be re-submitted. 2/16/12 I was told that funds must be sent by a check to me or wired to Vanguard for a $25 fee. I approved the wire and the wire fee. I was told the funds would wire 2/17/12. 2/17/12 I receive a robo call from ETrade. I call and I have to repeat ALL I said on 2/16/12. I am told that the funds will wire 2/21/12. I hope it happens, I am so done with ETrade.

I had several accounts with E*Trade. Nothing was on margin and no checks every bounced. They closed out all my accounts on me. Customer service said you will get something in mail explaining why. Well later came and it was basically we reserve the right to close out your account at any time for any reason. 2 weeks later I'm still chasing my money from them and the customer service has no clue.

FDIC will not do anything because they say it is a OCC issue. OCC will not get back to me. So now I'm waiting till they decide it is a right time for me to have my money back. I will just make sure I let everyone I know about the problems I have had with them. Maybe they will not join or will switch their accounts elsewhere. This is a poorly run business.

I have a Brokerage Account with E-Trade and every time I have to call and ask for a balance update. Why? Ex: I will get my jobs direct deposit. Let's say &700.00 I will withdraw 100.00 from the ATM. My account will view $500.00, ATM fees are reimbursed that's why I'm giving you single digit numbers. Then I would fill up my Tank of my car for approx. 46.01 my account will then view $353.30. Do anyone see how crazy this is? Then when I'll call and explain to them the wrongful account balances they'll give me some lame excuse that for every transaction Visa/ or a Merchant will put a hold on your funds for a certain amount of money "for protection".

Protection from what, when the money was already withdrawn and this is 2-3 days later. So then I started only using debit. And the same thing happens today. This is causing me late fees on paying my insurance and car note. I work hard for my money for it to be tied up in god knows what. And to hear poor excuses. What are they doing with my money why do I have to wait 3-10 business days for my money to be available. I need help, a lawyer or something. I need to be reimbursed for all my late fees due to the banks negligence.

I have been an E*Trade customer for many years. Ten days ago my money market account was suddenly frozen. No word of explanation. No notice. I emailed customer service repeatedly and spoke with four different representatives. Not one was able to explain what happened or tell me how to solve the problem. I was promised repeatedly a case manager would call me. None did.

I contacted the Corporate Information Officer by email and the Chief Operations Officer by fax. NO ANSWER. They refuse to honor my credit card charges and keep sending me overdraft notices, when my "available balance" is more than 100 times the charged amount. What can I do when even the Chief Operations Officer does not care?

I was hoping to find a way to reverse 5 (FIVE) years of inactivity fees which they started charging me once I turned off paper statements. If I had been getting a paper statement I would have done whatever it took to stop these exorbitant fees. I only had 2 stocks with $2000 in the account and actually forgot about them until I wanted to transfer them to another brokerage account. They have been stealing all of my cash dividends which I have been paying taxes on for five years and STILL charging me $40 a quarter for an Inactivity Fee! Now before I can transfer these stocks I have to pay over $800 in Inactivity Fees and $60 to transfer and close the account.

If you are a small investor or just starting out, beware of the quarterly $40 fee that ETrade will charge you for not having any activity on your account (you pay them for letting your money sit in their coffers!) When I learned of this fee, I spoke to a representative who said that all I had to do to avoid getting charged was to make a trade once per quarter. Fair enough. So I made a trade on 6/23/09.

When my statement came in, I saw that there was that $40 charge for the 2nd quarter. So I called to inquire, and guess what... the cutoff date was 6/22. So the trade didn't count towards eliminating the fee, AND I paid the $12.99 trading fee as well. The representative was quite condescending when I complained, and wouldn't put me through to her supervisor. Shame on them for taking advantage of their customers with hidden, small print fee policies!