I would like to give a short account of recent experiences I had with my account at E*Trade.
After some research, I eventually went with E*Trade about 6 months ago and I am left with mixed impressions (to be charitable).
Generally the site is more or less responsive enough, but not during the first and last hour of trading.
Recently on three days in sequence for some time during the day: no trading at all!
Not the cheapest, but quite a few investor resources.
No instant updating of account balances; got to wait for next day.
Trade confirmations often very slow; one already bought or sold, but just doesn't find out about this until much later.
Another biggie:
Wrong information from E*Trade's system getting fed into the "open order" screen. This means, that as an investor you are looking at wrong information. As a result, you can make wrong decisions, enter wrong orders: which will then get executed. This cost me $1.000 last week.
No response by E*Trade to my 7 e-mails about this situation for more that a week, now. Adding URGENT to the subject line of my e-mail did make no difference at all. I also faxed: no response. The first e-mails on the day, this had happened, were returned as undeliverable to E*Trade, due to problems with their mail system, no less than 5 times, including mails sent one day later.
So here it is. E*Trade gives little thought indeed to customer service. This just does not seem to be a priority for them at all. They are not responsive. Due to the recent widespread problems even the SEC is now looking into this mess.
Their only concern seems to be to amass as many new accounts as possible. One thing they will do: they will constantly drown their clients in self-serving promotion about how great they are, how they are leading edge, the wave of the future and go on and on about the great plans they have.
I had reckoned that paying up to four times as much for trades when compared with ultra-cheap online brokers like Datek I would get quality support, service and executions. It's simple: I was WRONG. |
