My acct. transfer with ETRADE has been my worst nightmare. I transferred my acct. in late December and it took them until the third week in Feb to get my acct active, but my option positions were nowhere to be found.
They said I had to be approved for level three options trading before they would place them in my account. I filled out the forms and was told I was approved for level three on January 30 and that it would be approx. five to seven days to complete the transfer into my account.
When that didn't happen, I called and asked what was going on?
After being given the runaround for weeks being told that they would be in the acct any day now every time I called, I was finally told that they were received on Feb 28 and that I would be able to trade them within 3 to 5 days at the latest.
This was only after approximately ten more calls to client support. Each time their time window had passed, I called back only to be told that it should be in my acct by the end of the day and that the options dept. was on top of it.
I let them know that I had positions that expire in March and that I was trying to get out of these positions for weeks and was told not to worry and to give them another day to sort things out.
On Monday, I was told they have custody of the options even though they weren't showing up on my acct. screen and that I could trade them through a broker, but not online.
This morning I called to check the status and was given the runaround all over again. First, they disconnected me after putting me on hold for 20 minutes. When I called back, they said "yes, we've really messed up here and you should be angry about the way we've handled your acct. Our supervisors are personally working on this."
Twenty minutes later they call back to tell me that they do not have custody of my options even though they've been telling me that they've had them since the end of Feb. They blame it on miscommunication between their various departments.
I ask why they've been telling me they had them if they didn't and they said they do not know, but their supervisors are working on it. That's just great. Meanwhile, these options have eroded considerably since they've been frozen all this time. Obviously, I am outraged by this debacle and am out thousands of dollars on these expiring options.
Any advice on legal recourse would be greatly appreciated.
Henry |
