E*TRADE

Monies were illegally transferred out of my account and into an "unknown" entity. It was later discovered to be human error at their processing facility. Only problem was they froze my assets for 11 months, yes eleven. It took an act of god, legal action and some 44 calls and 40 hours of billable legal hours courtesy of my attorney for them to admit they had even made a mistake. To add insult to injury they wanted to charge $125 for closing my account. They froze more $220,000 for 11 months. I still cannot believe the ordeal I went through.

Horrible, $40 quarterly fee for nothing on the first day I opened account. Don't be fooled discount broker is not worthwhile.

Slimy, bad customer service and on top of that (maybe the most) EXPENSIVE service! Now they have started account inactivity fee of $40 a quarter! With the S&P losing ground since the begining of the year, etrade is essentially make u pick a loss - either the $40 for doing nothing or do somehting and sell some of ur stocks at a loss!

What kind of brokerage is this? Making money by forcing customers to take a loss???

I just regret having opened this account...and try calling their cust service...i had to hold for 40mins wihtout answer...long enough for my battery to die out..

Etrade just sucks big time....

Etrade is a company that is full of hidden charges. I'd recommend never opening an account with them, you don't know what charge they will hit you with next.

In addition, their customer service people are not helpful and illogical. Plus the company policies do not allow them to apply common sense.

Try any bank over this one...

Etrade is the absolute worst trading platform that I have used.

1) Inefficient trading platform for cash accounts
2) Information required via mail has not arrived after 1 month
3) Account information was inaccurate and 4 business days later changed to correct info.
4) THERE IS A REASON THEY ARE THE 3RD LARGEST TRADING WEBSITE - THEY ARE AWFUL!

I have never had more frustrating experience as with E*Trade. And most importantly when all i am trying to do is Wire transfer out my OWN money to another bank.

They never keep you posted on the status of request. And when i call them or write to them, then they will respond saying the Fax message was not clear - can you please re fax it. All the while their agents gave me one number (703-236-4799) to fax the wire transfer request - on which i had sent a request on 29th of Feb. I did not hear from them - hence on 4th i wrote to them asking what happened. After a days gap - a reply comes saying that we have not received the fax, could you please send it --- TO ANOTHER NUMBER --. And i am expending money on fax, calls, for them to give me MY MONEY -- on top of that they want to charge $25 for wire transfer.

I will strongly recommend to anyone planning/thinking of using E*Trade - to reconsider or even not think of it.

Anupam Sinha

Pros: Online trading is convenient
Cons: Poor customer service; too many errors transferring money

When I first joined e-trade almost 10 years ago, there were few options for online trading. The customer service was good and the online interface was good. I was happy.

Now,ten years later, I am leaving E-trade and setting up an account elsewhere. I had problems setting up and transferring money to an IRA last year. Their system had problems transferring money from one account to another. It took several repeated e-mails until I got a non-form letter response from them. Ever try calling them? Good luck getting through.

Just recently I checked my account and they had sold some of my stock WITHOUT MY CONSENT. Apparently they made an error again when transferring money between my accounts (non-IRA to IRA) at E-trade and instead of correcting the error, they sold some stock to cover the deficit. Even worse, they had sent a confirmation letter that the transfer had gone through properly and it wasn't until A WEEK AFTER the letter that they sold my stock and charged me TWICE for the deficit which was THEIR error in the first place.

Had a horrific experience cashing a large CD this month. Even with normal trades, eTrade delays everything "for processing". When check didn't arrive in a week I was told I must wait 10 days for US mails to deliver! After the 10 days were up and still no check, I went through service reps telling me they would track and call back - never did. I had them tell me that they were canceling the check and sending me out a new one via FedEx and would call to confirm - never did. It took threatening legal action and sitting through the whole process - 2 hrs phone time to finally get it wire transfered to my bank account. Now I can hum every bar of their repetitive new age phone muzak. Argh!

I suspect they were skimming the float on our funds during the 22 day delay. We'll never deal with them again. I've closed all accounts with them

When I look at my account, I expect that the numbers bear close resemblance to reality.

My balance online is OFF by over $5,000!

Numerous complaints and requests have not remedied this.

I can't even imagine this is legal.

I was about to open an online savings account with E*TRADE, despite recent negative reviews of the company until I read the fine print for the $25 credit for opening a new account. The offer expired 8/31/07 even though the page was copyrighted 2008! That's worse than receiving an expired coupon in the mail. It's either gross oversight on the part of their web manager or deception on the part of the bank. Bad business either way.

My employer uses E*TRADE for our Employee Stock Purchase Plan, and I happen to already have a broker. So naturally, I wanted to either transfer my shares to my preferred broker, or sell them with a trailing stop order and transfer the money.

Turns out that none of these operations are possible. (I called customer support to make sure).

The online interface does not have a page for submitting a securities transfer request, and not even a form that you could download, print, fill in and fax (silly, but at least that would work). Nope. You have to write a "letter of request".

Also, you cannot sell the shares from the ESPP account with a Trailing Stop order. You can only sell them at Market or Limit, and to use a Trailing Stop order you must transfer the shares to the "regular stock account", an operation which takes 2 to 3 business days.

Why there is a separate "regular stock" account, and why it takes 2 to 3 business days to transfer from one of your own E*TRADE accounts to another, tells quite a bit about E*TRADE.

Pros: There are none anymore. Used to be the fees for the little guy.
Cons: Fees for the little guy.

They went from $0 to $25 per 1/4 inactive fee. Now I just got an email saying it was going to $40. Less than a week before the fee hits. Then I find out it is $60 to close the account?! So they will likely get $100 out of me!

I guess they only want active traders there. Or an account with more than $10k in bal/equity.

No fee if I have one transaction. I guess I will sell and then close and only get hit with $60.

I guess they are still trying to pay for thier CEO's outrages salaries and weekly flights to England and back to further his education. What a PR scandal that was...

Started out as the average mans alternative to rip off trading. Now, at $160 per year to hold it is a rip off. If everyone that had less than $10k in bal/equity left E*trade they would likely find out that we are more important than they think.

I just went to Scott trade. $7 trades limit or Market, no inactivity fees. Ameritrade looks a little more expensive but could suggest them also.

Pros: I have nothing good to say about E-trade. Avoid them if possible.
Cons: No customer support, poor interface, high fees, low interest, company lock-in. Consistently horrible.

I have dealt with 4 or 5 online brokerages, and E-Trade is by far the worst. Here are just a few reasons why:

1) Poor customer support. Their phone support is only open on weekdays (Hello, I have to work at that time!). They have one email link for contacting them through their website, and when you send to it, they simply write back and say they can't support you via email.

2) Poor interface. I just spent 30 minutes trying to figure out how to transfer funds out of my account to my bank account. I have done this very easily through other brokerages. Not E-Trade. Additionally, their statement layouts and web navigation are extremely non-intuitive.

3) Fees. They charge you an arm and a leg just to write a check to you with your money. Give me a break!

4) Low interest: Earn 0.2% interest on balances >$2,500. Jeez.

5) Company relationships. They hijack your money by partnering with your employer, who does not give you an option to have your options or ESPP deposited elsewhere.

Pros: They have a website.
Cons: They steal from you and don't respond to questions.

After 10 years with Etrade enduring mysterious fees, unresponsive, unhelpful(nonexistent really), service, I got tired of dealing with these broker/bandits and closed my account. They had the nerve to charge me an "account closing fee" of $50. This fee had never been mentioned in any of the literature I got when I opened the account. Etrade arbitrarily invents fees to charge you and then completely ignores your complaints about being thus screwed. Avoid this company at all costs. I went to Scottrade where I haven't had any of the kind of BS that was a regular feature of dealing with Etrade.

Pros: Makes you appreciate Vanguard.
Cons: Terrible records, awful optionsLink integration, no learning curve.

I've been required to use eTrade because it was the lowball bidder for my employer's busy.

In the past three years I've suffered through their malfunctioning web site, their incompetent integration between the brokerage and OptionsLink site, their consolidated statements that are both unreadable and unusable. I've been flabbergasted by the inability to obtain a reasonable longitudinal transaction record and their pathetic transaction query service.

It is astounding that an "e" vendor has made such incompetent use of eCommerce, and has managed to make no progress at all in the past 5 years.

Please, use Vanguard's discount brokerage instead.