RateItAll: The Opinion Network

I recently closed all of my accounts with Etrade after about 8 years as a customer.

Website: 5 stars
I believe that there website is excellent. May be the easiest and one of the quickest that I have used. Bill payments were a sinch to set up and the site provided a projected balance in 7 days (excellent for those of us that don't like to use check registers). Their online trading platform was just as easy to use. Best of all most of their accounts have very little fees attached.

Customer Service: -2 Stars
Unfortanely, customer service has recently went down hill. It seems as if they have outsourced most of their customer service reps. Their customer service reps often leave you on hold for 15+ minutes while coming back on the phone to apologize every minute or so (hold time might not be so bad with out all of the apologies).

I attempted to get a corrected 1099-R from them. i tried several times, and was always told that it would be completed to only later receive a message that my request had been canceled.

The last problem I had with them regarding a debit transaction caused me to to switch all of my accounts. I received an erroneous debit out of our checking account. The transaction was not made by my wife or I. I spoke to a customer service woman and was told that the debit card was swiped. I explained that we haven't used the card in several months and have never purchased anything from the company that charged us, but she said that the card swiped and she couldnd't tell me anything more. It was only $50 so I gave up after about an hour or so and switched my accounts. (by the way this was the second fraudelant transaction on my account, the first was a month or so prior, made from Sigapore, which Etrade resolved).

If Etrade fixed their customer service I would consider returning as a customer of their banking, but my brokerage acocunts are staying with Charles Schwab and Fidelity.

I have been with Etrade for nearly 10 years. I was always able to speak to someone in the U.S. Now I get either an Irish or Indian who can not manage the account without putting me on hold for average of 17 minutes and apologizing continuously for being inept.
IT IS TIME TO GET OUT. they are going to go bankrupt so it is a good time to get out. The CEO got out why not us the customers. I have no loyalty to this company if it has ceased its service to me.

If I could give E*Trade less than one star I would. They made no issue when I deposited a large sum of money in my money market account (from the sale of a house), but froze the account when I tried to transfer the funds out a month later (to close on a new house). Trying to get access to the funds was difficult. Each person I talked with seemed to not really know how the company worked as a whole. I was given a wrong fax number by one person, and then E*Trade can't find the fax and route it to the right department, even though the fax number just belonged to another one of their departments. When I asked to receive confirmation that the issue had finally been resolved, I was told *I* would need to call them! They said they have too many requests to do that: yea, too many requests that they are not handling competently! I'll be closing my accounts with them asap.

Etrade is the worst online Broker. I setup my online account and there was a discrepency on my mailing address and address on my driver's license. They asked me to send documentation stating the reason why and so I did that. Weeks pass by and still my online account was not active. My wired money was there but my account was not active. I called and they told me to send my documentation again. I did and still there was a restriction on my account. I once again called them and they said they are working to resolve the problem asap and that a representative will call me back. Guess what, no one ever called. Every time I called they either didn't receive my documents or keeping giving me false promise that someone is working on it. That was my last straw. I ended up signing up with Scotts Trade. Price reasonable and great customer service. Whatever you do, don't go with Etrade!

I do not recommend doing business with this company. Their customer service is inept and their policies and procedures make doing business next to impossible. This is especially the case if you have any changes in life events like marriage or changes of address. After 4 calls to customer service and 2 faxes w/ info sent they still insist on holding $4600 hostage.

I am amazed by the amount of negative reviews of ETrade. I have been their customer for almost 8 years now and never had any problem with them. Other than the fact that they do not contact customers with issues regarding their accounts (to be fair, all issues are posted as alerts on the accounts and users should check those alerts at least once a day) I believe ETrade to be a good, reliable and courteous brokers.

I called three times and got three different answers to the same question concerning the opening of a new account. That should have been a warning sign already, but I filled out the application and even FedEx'd for 10:30am delivery. I waited the five days I was told before it was opened and then was told they have no record of every receiving my application. I gave them the tracking number as prof it was received. And the answers were ludicrous - the rep said I sent it to Virginia and he's in New Jersey. I reminded him to look at the website to see that overnight mail must go to the Virgina address. He told me I should call back in a few days so they could mail it to him. I reminded him that its called E*Trade for electronic, and all there databases are connected, just as when a trade is executed. I knew it was futile talking with this underpaid rep and asked for a supervisior. He came back five minutes later and said I would be on hold for 10 minutes at least. I gave him my phone number and asked that "Miss Holly" call me back rather than my waiting. He said she might call me tomorrow. "Might call me tomorrow", I couldn't believe was I was hearing. He said she has meetings to go to and I asked what was more important, assisting in a resolution to this case or her meetings. I said I will waiting until the end of the day to give "Miss Holly" time to call, all though I told him I already felt it was unlikely she would call - she never did. I didn't know about the frequent change over of CEO's. One of which, former CEO, Mitch Caplan, might be going to jail. The things you learn AFTER the fact. I wish I had read the reviews posted here before I sent them my transfered funds, that they now can't find any record of.

I opened an account with Etrade 10 days ago. While they took my money from my bank ten days ago, it just cleared today for trading. I opened the account ten days ago because I wanted to trade ten days ago. (I also opened a Scottrade account nnd was trading in five minutes, and have had very friendly, local customer support) Today I tried to transfer my money back to my bank and close my account at Etrade. Etrade wouldn't let me transfer my money out because they said my email address wasn't verified (although they set up the account...and took my money). I was told how to verify my email address, but I would have to wait ten more business days to transfer my money out. They told me they could do an instant wire transfer for $25. Those cocksuckers took my money and wanted to hold it for almost three weeks. I paid the $25 to get my money back now. They cannot even say their practices are industry standard because they are not. I didn't want to yell at the woman helping me as it was not her personal policy, but I let her know I was very angry and asked her if she had similar complaints. She quietly laughed and said "all day".

I opened an account with Etrade 10 days ago. While they took my money from my bank ten days ago, it just cleared today for trading. I opened the account ten days ago because I wanted to trade ten days ago. (I also opened a Scottrade account nnd was trading in five minutes, and have had very friendly, local customer support) Today I tried to transfer my money back to my bank and close my account at Etrade. Etrade wouldn't let me transfer my money out because they said my email address wasn't verified (although they set up the account...and took my money). I was told how to verify my email address, but I would have to wait ten more business days to transfer my money out. They told me they could do an instant wire transfer for $25. Those cocksuckers took my money and wanted to hold it for almost three weeks. I paid the $25 to get my money back now. They cannot even say their practices are industry standard because they are not. I didn't want to yell at the woman helping me as it was not her personal policy, but I let her know I was very angry and asked her if she had similar complaints. She quietly laughed and said "all day".

E Trade used to be a great tool for stock trading and investment - and was free aside from the $10 transaction fee. Now it has turned into a mess after trying to add as many useless features as one could image. I don't have a problem with useless features, but when they charge an annual account fee of something like $160 it's a lot worse than useless. I hadn't checked my account for a while, and when I did, I figured my lowered account value was due to the horrible market. Nope! It was becuase I was being charged a quarterly account fee.

AVOID - horrible customer service has only gotten worse after the layoffs earlier in the year! Right now all incoming deposits by EFT will be subject to their OWN internal clearing which may be anywhere from 10-30 business days!!! YEP, THAT IS RIGHT - plan on waiting up to three months to get your cash - heaven help you if you think that transferring $ 10K from one bank to another that is done simply at EVERY OTHER BANK is that simple like I THOUGHT!!!!

E*Trade Banking: insanely incompetent. I am not a complainer, nor incompetent user (I am a high tech corporate businessman), so I don't say this lightly: in my 50 years I have NEVER experienced such idiocy - and this is in a financial institution (shudder)!

I spent 3 weeks TRYING to give them a deposit, begging them to email account status to me, and spending over 2 hours arguing with customer service personnel. I spend another week begging them to close the UNOPENED account (just to seal off my sensitive personal information, like social security number). All I've ever received is "I'm sorry, there's nothing we can do because of the Patriot Act."

I am not a violent person but it seems that this type of behavior is what causes violent behavior. At very least this is a fat, ripe class action candidate - for fiduciary malfeasance!

Now: keeping in mind that their high yield rate is a desperation act following their crash ride in the mortgage market, and with likely banking investigations, lawsuits, and other fiascos - do you want YOUR money in this looney asylum??

See plenty, plenty more at http://www.ripoffreport.com/reports/0/312/RipOff0312993.htm

Hi last week etrade flagged my account with more that 55K. They deactivated my account i cant log in or see any of my stocks, they would not tell me the reason, all they say if i have anything to ask, ill have to do it in writing. Please tell me what should i do?

Beware the almost unbelievable slowness of fund transfers. My old broker allowed me to electronically transfer funds in by next business day. With E*Trade I electronically transferred funds via wired bank transfer to E*Trade on 9th Feb, it's now Feb 19th and they have yet to show in the account. This is 'to be expected', it's their normal transfer time. If you have a date window, transfer at least three weeks in advance!!

I still have an etrade account..the service was never great but the past year; it is HORRIBLE..no answers, never the same answer, deposits missing (?), customer service reps never now a real answer..it actually took me three attempts to order checks over a period of 45 days and about 7 30 minute phone calls..and that is the best experience I have had..am changing this year..glad I only opened checking and did not move any more money

I tried to set up an account at E*Trade's bank. I wish I had read more of the reviews first. It's almost as if they don't want me to set up an account with them! I've been met with nothing but resistance at anything I've tried to do. Fortunately they don't have any of my money, at least not yet. Unfortunately I already linked my checking account to my (apparently unactivated) E*trade account, so it's possible that they might start pulling funds out of my checking account.

I was actually tried to open a small amount Cd because of the rate. But it never happened. I had spoken with 2 customer service reps that said they were waiting for my ss card and driver license copy. After about a month of going back and forth I finally spoke with a rep that said well the account had been closed after 10 days of it being opened because they needed info. Ok, so why didn't the other 2 reps tell me that? Wasting my time and my money loosing money. Why? Incompentant people or bank or both. The rep got me very angry and I wanted his manager on the phone he wouldn't do that and he wouldn't give me the acting ceo's name or address. That's ok because I'll be writing to lots of people.

I have been whit E*Trade for year, as a foreign student I have invested about 2k (not much) in stocks, after 6 months successful trading my on line banking was blocked, after 60+ phone calls (each one takes about 30+ mins) and 6 months time I received the information that E*Trade can close my account without any reason or a reason which wont be revealed to me and it is possible that I WILL NEVER GET MY FUNDS BACK which is hilarious... E*Trade are scammers BE AWARE!

I rolled over my 401k to an Etrade rollover IRA six weeks ago. The money appeared in the account and I received an alert indicating the money was ready for investment. I attempted a mutual fund purchase and got a "contact customer representative" message. I had included a copy of my DL and Soc. Sec. cards with the check when I set up the account. They said it did'nt scan properly and to please send it again via fax and include a form w-9. I did so and no response. Called repeatedly, still no result. Now I'm reading sob story after sob story on the net about frozen funds. Sheesh! I'm curious if uninvested ira funds are available to etrade for investment or loans or whatever. That might explain the reluctance to activate the account. I've had two other accounts with Etrade, so I did'nt think due diligence was required. I guess that will teach me to think!

Dishonest SOB's. They froze my account with more than a 100K total assets. After a mix up with another account, I received a terse letter explaining while they are sorry, they took all appropriate actions! The only problem is, I was told the matter would be cleared up in just 24 hours...when it initially occurred. 7 and half months later, SEVEN AND A HALF MONTHS later they send me a non-apology in essence. I am begun legal proceedings against them. Absolutely the worst!

DO NOT GIVE THIS COMPANY ANY OF YOUR MONEY!!!

The bad stories here are all absolutely believable to me given my own experience. I am thinking of trying to get a class action lawsuit started. Like some others here, I too had my account quietly (no notice of any kind) "deactivated", and only learned of the problem when I attempted to sell a stock one day and was then "notified" that my ability to do so was disabled. An 800 number was provided for me to call. I thought it had something to do with my ongoing divorce. It was a joint account, and I figured my wife had somehow had it frozen. When I called, they could not immediately tell me why it had been deactivated; when I asked if my wife had caused it to happen, they said "yes", so I let it go until I had my divorce decree and the account had been given in its entriety to me by the court.

So a year later with my decree in hand, I called them again, and they said "Mail it to us." I asked about faxing it and they said we cannot accept a fax. So I sent it Fedex overnight. They promptly signed for it and then lost it... they strung me along for a week or two, then finally said, "Send it again." So I did, with a very clear cover letter pointing to the pertinent part of the decree, included my account number, name, address, etc. This time they did not lose it.

But nothing happened for a week or two, no one called, so I called back, and the new rep I talked to said I need to fill out a "New Account Application" but note that it is really an "Account Re-registration" by writing it at the top of the form... I did, I faxed it over, as they allowed me to fax this time.

I waited a week, called back, and there was no progress. I was getting ticked off now, so I asked them to explain to me again how the account got deactivated when I never saw any letter from her lawayer, or the court, or from E*TRADE. I asked them to send me a copy of the legal instrument by which they had deactivated my account.

That's when they said "Oh, your wife had called and asked to deactivate the account, but we told her she needed to fill out some forms and provide us some court documentation, and she never did. Your account was deactivated by a routine profile data search. Something was flagged related to your wife's data. So just have her send us a copy of her Driver's License, a birth certificate, a copy of her social security card..."

I explained that my wife was in no mood to cooperate with me, and that my court ordered decree should be enought to clear this up since it awarded me the account entirely. She agreed with this after some more talk, and so my process continued... she assured me as soon as the Legal Process Group approved the document (they should have already had it for a week) that the account would be reactivated...

From that day forward, I have spoken to E*TRADE reps about every third day. I am still waiting after 2 months since they received my court ordered decree. I just get a continual run-around. I met someone recently who said they also had a court order, and it took them an entire year to get at their stocks!!!

I have spoken with at least 12 different reps and one supervisor during this ordeal. When asked, they all provide me a callback extension number, which is never answered (always goes right to voicemail). ABout 6 different reps said they would call me back (including the supervisor). Of that six, only one ever did. And he did a couple times, and then quit calling or returning my calls.

There is something really nasty going on at E*TRADE. I am now only hoping that I will *someday* get my funds back under my control. I am considering a letter to the SEC and pursuing prosecution on a class action basis. This is absoultely criminal...

No Stars. My experience with eTrade's new online account verification system - provided by an unknown service provider with inaccurate information - qualifies as the worst customer experience ever. If I believed in conspiracy theories, I would say that the three hours it ultimately took me to get a disbursement check from my brokerage account was part of an elaborate ploy to keep me from withdrawing the money!

I opened an Etrade account and made a wire transfer in the amount of $72k. I immediately qualified for the Etrade Pro status. Within 48 hours, my account was suspended without explanation and the funds were wired back to my Goldman Sachs account. The security department will not disclose the reason for the account closure and no one will speak to me, only to say, please make all enquiries in writing. This is without question the worst online brokerage firm I have ever come across.

I've been with E-Trade for years with a 6 figure account, 1000 trades per year. I have never had a problem. Easy setup. Web access always available, accounts accurate, trades immediate, options setup and execution easy, info and research complete, excellent customer service with a personal representative. Bellyachers need to learn to play by the rules and they won't have any problem.

Truly awful company. They literally take your money and hold it for no reason. I got the "Patriot Act" excuse that a lot of other posts mention as the reason they are holding my money. As a bit of sweet revenge their stock went down 60% today! Hopefully they share a cell with the guys from Enron.

I have been with E-Trade for about six months, and I'm so frustrated with their lack of respect and concern for the customer's needs. They placed a restriction on my account because "they were unsure if I was the one making purchases," though if they were that concerned they could have called me. When I called them after being denied access to my account at the atm, that's when they claimed they need to verify some of my transactions. Fine...now it's been five days and I still can not use the atm, transfer money to another account (that is also with them), check my balances or do any other banking transactions with them. I have been attempting to call them since 7:00 a.m. est this morning, only to be placed on hold for as long as 27 minutes, blindly transferred to someone who can not help me, given numbers to some guy named Olan Mclan (spelling) who has myteriously vanished from the planet. I have left several voicemails, (including one that I left while typing this message). I don't even know if this site actually does anything other than let people vent, which does not help my situation at all.

I attemted to open a simple savings account because of their %4.70 APY. Big mistake !!! They said they would take a $1 out of my checking account. Nearly 4 days passed before I called to find out why no activity took place. They claimed they used some garbage credit verification called Chexpress. They gave no explanation and I had to call them to get it straightened out. What a Fu#%king joke. RUN AWAY FROM E-TRADE !!!

I have been with E-trade for about two years now. It has been a great experience. I am a power E-trade customer and the platform speaks for itself. As far as money been stolen, never. I can see that allot of the comments below don't specify the time period for the money lost or the immediate circumstances surrounding those issues. I fully recommend their service and platforms to any aspiring Active Investor. Since you will qualify for the Power E-Trade does maintenance charges and what not don't apply.

I just closed my etrade account. I signed up and then left for London. Upon returing I stuck several thousands of dollars into account. I have nothing good about the company. I spoke with two reps about the matter. One rep agreed with me but someone above him did not. Another rep today was pleasant enough but failed to see my point so I am walking with my cash and taking my business elsewhere. I feel that anyone should take heed of this company and their poor management and marketing decisions. Maybe the reason their stock is being rated poorily. Below is theemail request I sent today.
Please contact me regarding closing of my account due to your response to my request to receive the 100 free trades which was the only reason I signed up for etarde. I am more then happy to take my family money elsewhere. I transferred money in yesterday but transferred it out today and would like the initial deposit that is lost in your system of restrictions since the 18th transferred back. I really wanted to use etrade. The decision to not allow me use of the promotion was a poor decision whoever made that choice. I could have easily had my wife sign up and get the etrade promotion but instead of making it easy for everyone and developing a good relationship we now have nothing good to say about your company in a time where your company could use good word of mouth and reviews instead of the negative rating that some analysts have reported. I reguested to speak to a manager and telephone operator Johnny Yoo said none was available.

Can you give negative stars? Same problem as everyone else...ETRADE does not bother to contact you to let you know anything regarding your account. Decent rates with terrible service. Do yourself a favor and don't bother wasting your time on this company.

I think all of these banks that offer online complete savings accounts, cds, IRAs, mutual funds, etc.... are good and convenience as long as you know how to manage and be aware of what you need to know about their polices and procedures. If people don't know how to manage their money they're always gonna have complains and issues. People like this maybe can't handle this type of financial service. They should stick with traditional banks.... so they would be happy to complain effortlessly with branch manangers.

Etrade deserves a negative star for how incompetent they are. I just closed my account after 4 months. They took two months just to get my wife added to the account. Customer service is the worst. They had me fax in her info twice and did not bother to call back. Said I didn't send it. Finally got someone who amazingly found it!!! Then when she logged in, one of these new security questions which is done by a third party service asked her where her ex-husband lived!!! Now how unethical is that. I called and they said that it is not their problem. YES IT IS! You have my money, you respect me by not asking my wife such questions. OH, and because she did not know the answer, it blocked her. So I had to call to get her switched back on which only took 50 minutes!!!! Not a week after that, I looked at my account balance in my savings (5.05%apy) and $1000 was missing!!!! Plus, my two transfers were stopped! I called and got a run-around for three days. Finally they admitted they messed up and put the money back in. Didn't offer anything but a shallow apology. I don't know what is going on up there but I am not standing around to see. I have closed both my and my parents accounts with them and moved to another provider. Everyone beware of Etrade.

etrade is an incompetent bank, they restricted my account with $27,000 for no apparent reason, and that was without even notifying me. Likewise they neglected to sort the mess out by them selves, so I had to battle them in an effort to get my money transfered to a decent bank. Leason to be learned: Never use etrade

RE: ETrade.ca

Customer service is as far as I got. They screwed up my application twice and only found out because I had to call and ask why the delay. If you have another option don't use etrade.ca

The most hedious service ever. Stay clear. I lost money from their incompetence

Do NOT use E*Trade. I, too, have been screwed by them. Their security is non-existant. Just two months after opening my account, someone fraudulently accessed it and took my money right out of my account. I immediately alerted E*Trade. Their response? They gave me the name and phone number of the person who stole my money and told ME to call them and get my money back!

I have begged them repeatedly to give me a new account number, look into this fraudulent activity and put safety restrictions on my account. It's like talking to a wall. No one will do anything. And they refuse to let me speak to a supervisor.

I will be tranferring my stocks out of E*Trade immediately and closing this account. What a waste of time and money. Don't make the mistake I did.

wow this is funny...
got my etrade account over a year ago....
they took my money out of my bank account and never activated my account.
they would never activate the account... nor would they return the money to the account it was withdrawn from....
every time i called they would say i need to send noterized certified letters to them to get the account money back...
40 hours of time wasted and I still dont have my money
SCAMMMMMERSSS!

DO NOT USE THIS COMPANY. Their advertising suggests all you pay is a small fee to buy a stock, and a small fee to sell. This is what I believed... I invested $1,000 a few years back, and they have stolen TWO HUNDRED AND THIRTY SEVEN dollars of this investment, for "maintenance fees." It is shocking and disgusting, and obviously if I had known about these fees I would never have used this company. You're better off putting your money in a lame savings account - or under your mattress - than using this rip-off company.

I cannot get my money out of etrade. They have repeatedly lied to me about sending a check to close out the balance. They have a bunch of idiots working there with morons for supervisors and imbiciles running the company.

I am trying to transfer my Simple IRA out of E*Trade and close my account. My financial consultant and I have now had around 10 phone calls with them, and around 10 email exchanges. At this point they have closed my website access but are still holding some of my funds and money, and the deal still is not done. Every time I call or email I get a different story, and my financial consultant got hung up on after a 45 minute hold. Avoid E*Trade at all costs.

Etrade has by far one of the WORST customer service centers that I've personally had the chance to experience. This is my first time actually rating ANY company, however, I feel obligated to warn potential clients so STAY AWAY....0/5 star plus a lemon on the side...

Etrade Sucks

I made the mistake of opening and account with Etrade and after 20 requests to get a debit card from and countless phone calls I gave up on them. THey are the most incompetent bunch I have ever run into. Now it is virtually impossible to get my money back out of etrade and after three attempts to make a wire and transfer the money back to the bank from which it was so easy to send to them I am at a loss

No one will answer my questions and now will not even answer the phone if I put in my account info. My account balance is now 0 and the 3200 dollars is just gone

Etrade stole my money. Do not let this happen to you. Stay clear of these clowns. It is nothing more than a scam and what they are doing now is fraud.

when you hear the name Etrade run.

Bill Stanley

Etrade does not deserve one star unfortunately negative is not an option. WARNING! DO NOT USE ETRADE. They're customer service is a joke. I wrote a rather large check to the state of Arkansas for sales tax on an automobile. I saw an insufficient funds charge on my account which was unusual considering there was at well more than enough to cover the check. In fact the bank statement from Etrade proves this. They agreed to refund the charge and said nothing was wrong with the transaction. A very short time after this they quietly put the charge back on which I did not notice for awhile. Weeks later I get a letter from the State threatening to prosecute me over a HOT check. The money left my account yet the state of Arkansas was refused payment because of insufficient funds. Etrade refused to reimburse me for this even though everything points to them including the state with my check stamped insufficient funds. I have already had to pay my attorney $150 to keep me from being prosecuted by the state of Arkansas who would not believe a word I said until I hired an attorney. Now I'm still paying the attorney in hopes off getting my money back from Etrade.

The people at Etrade seem to enjoy telling me how they WILL NOT reimburse me because it's not their fault. Is not not their fault they denied payment for insufficient funds when the statements shows there was plenty of money in the account? Is it not their fault that after they denied payment that exact amount of money left my account and they will not even try to find out where it went? Also to add insult to injury they charged me another $25 for stop payment on the check they say cleared with no problems. They not only refuse to return my money back to my account but they REFUSE to refund these ridiculous charges. I'm confident that if I hadn't taken the money out more erroneous charges would have eventually popped up.

This is real and as far as I am concerned they are criminals. If you are using Etrade get out while you can! It is so frustrating because the people at Etrade actually enjoy this. They will do it to you too if you give it enough time.

Not only is ETrade a crappy brokerage -- they are even worse when you try to leave them. After they froze my account because I moved to Canada I transferred the assets to Fidelity. It took about a month, but with Fidelity's help we got it all resolved. Well that was back in September of 2006. Now they have started sending me bill saying I have a negative balance. Apparently the $60 service fee I paid them for transferring my assets wasn't enough -- they decided that they wanted more. What a miserable greedy company. They are impossible to work with and when you try to get away from them they hound for more money.

There are a number of comments on the platform, so I won't add to this. However, their Customer Service is the most appalling I've ever experienced. They 'lost' a 6 figure dollar amount for 3 weeks in transfer, then took over 3 weeks to change an individual account to a joing account, and finally prevented me placing a stop loss order (or any order for that matter) for a compliance issue which they had already resolved, and placed me at risk of losing a significant amount. I will be moving as quickly as I can to a platform that actually has customer service. (Note that at the time of writing, the e*trade website is actually also down!)

Company from Hell. Applied for Roth IRA by Mail (they can't do it online since I'm a non-citizen), they typed my SSN wrong, and the procedure to fix my SSN is a pain. Moved to Fidelity, got everything I wanted *ONLINE* (that's include applying for Roth IRA) and been happy since then.

Terrible company. Screwed me on an options trade by past posting a supposedly real-time quote costing me thousands....then...they Allowed my personal account
to be hacked in to and then would not cooperate with me or the police in telling
me what specific personal information was violated. Rude people in their "customer service"
and especially Tim Olman in the security dept. Terrible company in all
ways avoid at all costs.

I'm a long time customer of what is now E-trade. I went through DLJ Direct, CFSB Direst, and Harris. I avoided them at all cost in the mid 90's because of bad reviews... Can anyone recommend a decent service to switch to? Ditching Marketspeed is enough for me to find another broker. That software was wonderful. I plan to do alot of trading over the next few months and need a reliable, fast service that offers Level II streaming quote info. Thanks.

Dave

An update: They screwed up my drip again for the FOURTH month in a row. Really, is there no one to report them to and is there no recourse? How STUPID can Etrade be?!

I lost my original post...asking if there is any way to avoid paying these crooks the fee to transfer OUT.

I transferred all of my assets (about $100K total) to another broker and paid the piper the usual fees, globally there is a $60 Transfer of Assets fee. However after several months there was about $25 that they just would not or could not transfer. After multiple attempts to get this resolved Etrade finally transferred the remaining $25 balance, but then charged $60 .. again. The difference they subtracted from my new brokerage account, meaning their mistake in not transferring all of my assets actually cost me another $35. Multiple phone calls to the customer "service" line utterly failed to get this resolved. What a terrible excuse for a broker, I will never ever let myself or any of my family members use them again.

I wish there was an option of 0 star because I don't think ETrade even deserves a 1 star. I've been their customer for a few years and their website is often slow and interface has always been overly complex. It also has the most bugs, more than any other major websites I've used. It seems every time I make a change, my account would have problems. It's amazing to me how their quality has stayed this bad and never improved over the years. Also their maintenance fees are much higher than other online brokerage. I'm finally fed up with them and I just closed my account.

I was sold to etrade via Harris Direct, Harris promised there would be no change in service. Boy were they wrong. I don,t think I ever had to
call Harris for help in doing things I wanted to do. HARRIS DIRECT
DONALDSON LUFKIN JENRETTE and some other name, that is how long I was there! From day one at etrade the bottom fell out. I moved my big acct
out, left the small one for 0ptions and stuff. But it just keep getting
worse. I was a trader making money everyday. Ive been in the hole since. They took our trading platform called MARKET SPEED a thing of beauty, canned it and gave us Tons of ridicolous clutter with names like
ETRADE PRO AND STUFF. HARRIS people begged LET US KEEP MARKETSPEED.
They told me it would cost them money to blend it in. No concern
for the money of customers. And tax time, they say etrade works directly with turbotax, just import into schedule D, done. They dont
tell you it only does sells and not cost basis. So you're a trader, you're screwed . Then they sell you a $150 subscription to GAINSKEEPER
TO TRACK something already in their system, and you'er screwed again
IT'S JUNK!

Etrade does not even deserve one star. Imagine the worst customer service in the world. Etrade are a thousand times worse than that. They have STOLEN nearly 3 grand of my money. AVOID THEM LIKE THE HIV VIRUS!

Poor customer service, high service fees. I have been trying to close my account for weeks, with hours of phone calls and emails. I comply with their requirements, only to find out from the next person that they require something different. After 3 traders, and approximately 7 financial service reps I still do not have a closed account and am upcoming on new quarterly fees for not trading. The customer service staff is friendly and nice, but I would not recommend Etrade.