E*TRADE Reviews and Complaints (2024)

Review:  how is this a legitimate business? They don't have customer service!!!!

Review:  They continually take re-org fee of $38 even though I only had $40 worth of the stock. That's 98% of the stock sale taken in fees. How is it a re-organization if they sold my stick and took a the proceeds. They will re-organize your money from your account to their pocket book. NEVER EVER use this gif awful platform. estrade......you suck!

Review:  Ultimately, I moved all of my assets away from E*trade because of their terrible support. As so many other reviews already say, but it can't be stated enough. The value of a firm isn't how it operates when you are doing everything yourself, it's how it supports you when you need customer service. Their account management was terrible with constant personnel turnover. They could never actually answer a question and instead would just defer and deflect. Look, if you think you will never need a second of support with your assets, your transactions, etc., then I would still avoid E*trade. But if you have ever needed support then look elsewhere.

Review:  Trying to set up an account with ETrade today. They wanted copy of drivers license. Didn't like that Texas has black and white photo and agent suggested that I CHANGE a government issued document by adding pixels and color to it, just in order to open the account! Sorry, nope, not committing fraud for you guys. Fix your software!

Review:  I've been with E*Trade before they were ever "cool". I started trading with them in late 1995, and each time I consider leaving, I find reasons to stay. They seem to appreciate my loyalty, and the managers of the few branches I've visited (yes, E*Trade has a few physical branches), they are very welcoming and highly respectful of my loyalty. Yeah the trading fees are of the most expensive on the Internet, but they are now giving us more incentives to stay, and attempting to correct their prices to more competitive levels.

Review:  Used Etrade for over 15 years. Tax return goes direct to Etrade for more than 5 years. This year they randomly froze my account afterwards, no explanation, no help, say they will "research it".
My identify is confirmed, basically they are unlawfully withholding my funds. Getting all my money out immediately, as soon as I get access to it!

Review:  ETrade is a horrible site for trading, if your an investor you can use it ok. However, for actually trading stock options the website and etrade pro java client are full of buggy issues. Their customer service for pension 401k is awful, I have a 401k plan where I am the administrator and the borrower. I have call them five plus times a year to get things correctly entered into their system.
In addition they can't seem to explain how their margin accounts work for some accounts and have all kinds of major issues. I would suggest using another broker!

Review:  I've been an etrade customer for over ten years and given then countless trading fees but suddenly the margine department has decided the short side of every option spread within 2% is a risk and they will close them all and charge you $25 for each one. Customer service really doesn't care they are well aware of the ridiculousness of the situation but come right out and tell you they have no control and can't help you. Now that it's going to Morgan Stanley they just don't care, try and trade option spreads with them and they will close them before they make money and charge you on top of it.

Review:  If you are a trader, Etrade has a lot to offer. You have a couple of platforms to play with. Decent screeners. Customer service is there and it's helpful (not always the case at other brokers).

Pricing could be better: Webull and Robinhood eliminated options contract fees.

Review:  I have been with Etrade since 2002. It offers a lot and tries to please everyone. It mostly succeeds in this. Some tools, like order entry on the website tries to be so smart it's silly. You can't even enter an extended hours order if it's not extended hours right now.

Review:  If you want to trade ctypto, go with Webull or tasty. But for funds, stocks and bonds, ETRADE gets job done.

Review:  We use E*TRADE to buy and sell securities and other commercial paper for companies based in the United States and around the world. The business problem it immediately addressed was to allow us to enter markets around the world from one portal. We are able to invest or divest in a variety of markets with little or no difficulty.

Review:  Horrible service and no care in the world for a 14 year customer. I've been unable to wire funds from my savings account since early this year. Before this time, no issues. This last time I asked to speak with a supervisor to enquire to the reason why I was having trouble wiring funds. His response, money transfers are not guaranteed. What in the world does that mean you ask, he couldn't give me any further details. Needless to say, I have begun pulling my funds and will no longer do business with Etrade.

Review:  Etrade is terrible. Their customer service is awful. You have to wait on hold 30-60 minutes just to talk to someone (and that's if you're lucky). I've been trying to get my account activated so I can withdraw my money. Once you're able to talk to someone they just keep saying I have to have more and more things. There is always something else. They never actually activate your account even though you've given them everything they ask for. And when you ask to speak to a manager, they say they'll have to call you back. I already fell for that trick once when they didn't call me back anywhere near when they said they would. They are just a bunch of disreputable people. I hope I can get MY MONEY out of MY ACCOUNT and never have to deal with this company and these people ever again.
Update: So, I just made the changes they required and called back about half an hour later. Guess what? They require me to make more changes. This is unbelievable. Morgan Stanley owns Etrade. So, guess what Morgan Stanley? Now I'm shorting you. Your stock dropped over 5% today. Let's hope it keeps dropping!

Review:  E-Trade has become horrible since Morgan Stanley took over. It takes over 30 minutes to get customer service on the phone, if you're lucky.
My debit card has been compromised three times within the last three months. Each time I have to wait 7 to 14 days to receive a new one.
I cannot edit bill pay!
Their entire online system and phone system does not function properly more than half of the time I attempt to use them.
They used to be great, it seems Morgan Stanley ruined it.
Switching over to SoFI after many years as an E-trade customer.

Review:  I use E*TRADE to buy and sell stocks primarily. Their research tools and reports are very helpful in evaluating various companies and making good decisions about when to buy or sell.

Review:  Etrade pretty much offers everything an average investor might want. The pricing is good. There are plenty of tools and education.

Review:  Opened account added a bank account and did not enter it properly and set it to verify which of course it would fail...

Get back response of failure...ok np...call bank see what is up...ok got my acct# slightly off as its different than customer# so now I want to edit my account and correct it so my funds transfer can work...

Nope...cannot edit anything....OK so I will delete the funding and redo it OH HELL NO! You are a new customer you need to sit your happy ass down for 60 days before we will let you do anything like that.

So........I cannot edit my own bank account information and I cannot redo my bank account information and you have ZERO email ability to talk your stupid chat program is UNAVAILABLE and I am on the phone now listening to your retarded elevator music already 33 minutes and possibly still another 90 mins minimum to go? WTF is wrong with this company?

Review:  WORST. CUSTOMER. SERVICE. EVER EVER EVER!!!! Avoid like the dang plague. Maybe if you have close to a million $$ you will get good service but nothing short of that apparently matters.

Can't reach humans online or off. Can't even send emails anymore through the customer section in your account. these people HATE their customers with an indifference and level of snobbery that is disgusting, classist, and stinks of wall-street elite attitudes.

We would give it a zero if possible. F- Morgan Stanley & Etrade are the WORST.

Review:  Etrade's chat reps have no clue about new changes that concern to close brokerage accounts for customers living outside the US. There are new winds blowing in the company.

After merging with Morgan Stanley Etrade seems to be in mess. They have let know about closing brokerage accounts but they have not provided any guidelines how to maintain other accounts that are linked to brokerage accounts. Accounts such as stock plan accounts cannot be used for cash or money transfers. Where to transfer dividends from stocks (account is for) and balances from stock trades,no idea. No any options to open such account in the US that could be used for this purpose.

When asked advises from Etrade's chat reps,answers are anything between the earth and heaven but never the correct ones. Clearly the company has hired boys and girls from the street just to type "hello,how are you doing?" on the keyboard.

Review:  Gave up and moved a $2 mil IRA, banking and brokerage account tonFidelity today. Submitted a routine account service request 3+ mos ago…still not processed. Many apologies and “ 3-5 day processing time” responses but no action. Stay away.

Review:  Beneficiary Services 14 days with out a call back - 1.5 PLUS on hold - CONSISTENTLY DISCONNECTED
no anwsers from them - uploaded documents I found on my own on-line. I STILL HAVE NOT EVEN RECEIVED A CASE NUMBER - WEEKS !! for transferring the deceased IRA to his spouse.

MY DADs IRA to MY MOM IRA all in house in E-TRADE !
The elder lawyer needs statements and they wont give me access to even looking at the IRA now - I was the POA for him now in-charge of the TRUST and I'M MY MOMS POA !

I was Removed from ACCESS and seeing the ACCOUNT in questions for 14 days so far 595,000 K
HOW CAN THEY DO THIS ??

170K total in ETRADE and the service is so poor! Right now I'm still on hold to speak with someone 135 MINUTES!

I had to move his brokerage account eventually - while he was in ICU on a respirator - when i got someone to help me with the POA access - ETRADE kept asking to SPEAK TO HIM !!! even with my POA ??

DO NOT USE THEIR SERVICES !!! WHATEVER THGE COST IT ENDS UP T BE YOUR COST! OF TIME AND EFFORT FOR A COMPANY WHO CARES VERY LITTLE !!!

Review:  My authenticator token's battery died and as a result I cannot access my accounts. I tried every way imaginable online, but I keep being told by the webpage to 'call customer service" I have been trying to call for over two days now and each time I give up because the wait time is over three hours. This morning, while at work, I stayed on the line for over three hours and still no one answered. As soon as I can access my accounts I will be transferring all of my accounts/$$ to a different brokerage firm -- this is completely unprofessional -- COVID or no COVID.....

Review:  A few giant red flags when dealing with this company, in order of biggest red flag to least big red flag:

1) I have over $4000 in my etrade account, and only about $1000 (initial purchases) tied up in stocks. The other approx $3000 hasn't been used to purchase any stocks. That means that $3000 that should be able to be withdrawn at any time, under federal law. However, Etrade has refused to allow me to withdraw ANYTHING!- Even $20! I tried withdrawing $20 and even $1, and it refused. This reminds me of one of those online scams, where they let you put your money in but refuse to let you take it out. HUGE RED FLAG. This is like "under the table, illegal casino scam" status of sketch. What's the point of winning in stocks (and I am currently winning, my $1000 I invested was up to $1008 at time of this) if they don't allow you to withdraw?

Note: I only withdrew as a TEST, because I wanted to see if the hundreds of other bad reviews for Etrade were actually true. THEY WERE. Etrade wouldn't let me withdraw even a single dollar.

Again: Over $3000 in available cash that hadn't even been touched... yet, they won't let me withdraw $1 single dollar.

2) They make it very difficult to link a bank account. Even though I had a very large amount in my bank, and good credit (760), and my bank approved adding the account, Etrade made it extremely difficult to link the account. Even when one rep promised to link it, he then didn't.

3) They said they were recording me on a recorded line (totally fine), but when I calmly said that I was also recording on a recorded line, the representative refused to speak with me unless I promised to stop recording. Extremely sketchy. Etrade is based out of a state with a 1-party consent rule, as is my state, so this doesn't even make sense. His approval isn't even needed to record, it's my right.

2)

Review:  I have been calling for 2 weeks every time I call I get the same message saying that my wait time is greater than 2 hours I have stayed on the phone and never got to speak with anyone also their online chat does not work and there is no way to leave a message this is a terrible company

Review:  No priority to fix the existing issues, even after reviewing issues during screen share and agreed by the tech team. A recent change made on website for reviewing G-L has no solution to review daily gain, monthly or year to date gain by symbol after downloading in CVS format and review the trade by purchase date/price and sold date/price.

Review:  My family has also been dealing with E*Trades’s beneficiary services trying to get them to close out my Dad’s account for three years now. Just like the commenter above, received conflicting information about what forms were needed, several times over the course of months. Lack of any communication unless you repeatedly send them an email and demand action/a manager. The manager was no better than the frontline agents but actually made some headway. Problem is they refuse to provide an extension so you’re stuck going through the hoops to reach them. I am STILL waiting on a resolution. Nearly three weeks to a month after reaching the manager.

Review:  I have been trying all year to open an account and found that it is impossible because of customer service. It is not worth your time.

Review:  Copy of my complaint sent to Etrade "Customer Service":

Since Wednesday, April 21, I have been trying to get money out of my Etrade Brokerage account. I can't get money out of my account through ACH because when I tried to set up ACH, I was sent a message saying, 'We couldn't locate your account.' Whatever that means; never had a problem establishing an ACH link with that account before. I then called you people to schedule a wire transfer out. I sent a copy of my license and a copy of a bank statement. I saw my Etrade balance decrease by the amount of my wire transfer, but the money never showed in my external bank account. Now today, the money shows in my Etrade balance again. Two different people have told me they'd call me back and they never did. When I click on 'Balances, Transactions, Banking,' etc., I'm brought to a page that says 'This feature requires an E*TRADE Brokerage, Retirement, or Managed Account.' I *HAVE* and am signed into my Etrade Brokerage account. What are you people doing? Where is my money? If this issue is not resolved by Tuesday, April 27, I will be contacting my attorney to commence with filing a complaint against you.

Review:  As the executor of an estate they have been a nightmare.
First they want various paperwork, then other paperwork, then have you fill out confusing forms, then tell you the forms are wrong, then want original death certificates and original letters of court for executor then they split the money (Oh, we didn’t know both account holders had passed, even though your gave us both death certificates) up and are having difficulty getting that fixed....oh, you want checks, please fill out this online form which crashes every time you try to order checks.....on and on and on.
Worst customer service ever and they are just trying to keep the cash in thier hands as long as possible.....now going on for four months.

Review:  they have the worst customer service ever , they don't respect any one or any request . i don't recommend it

Review:  I signed up for this s#*$ and I should have read reviews first. Anyway, after depositing my money, I was not able to successfully buy or trade at all as I keep getting an error and sent email and called customer services way too many times. Email - no reply. Customer service, waiting time more than 30 mins and getting disconnected. I just want my money back!!!!!!

Review:  My mother died in November and left my two brothers, my sister, and me the assets in her Etrade accounts. We've been trying for four months to get them to give us our beneficiary distribution. The first three months they wanted more paperwork from us or corrections to what we already sent. For the past month they've told us our paper work was first under review and then finally approved. Still no distribution. Not once did they ever call us to tell us what the paperwork issues were. We found out the issues ourselves whenever we called to find out where our distribution was, THEN they told us there was a problem. My mother also had assets through Fidelity. By comparison, it took Fidelity one week to give us our distribution.

Review:  Been trying since I opened account (10 days ago) to reach any sort of person to resolve trading issue, both chat and phone service non-existent. I can can execute trades on my desktop but not on my iPhone.

We should seriously pursue legal action against this company. They are a borderline scam and have to be under breach of contract with holding ones funds yet not allowing one to trade.

Review:  Have been trying to customer service on phone and chat for three days. several pages do not work website. Alerts, stock info do not work. Cannot get any info about stock I may be interested in buying. No longer trust them with my account. Will move to another brokerage on Tuesday. They use to be a good company now they are at the bottom.

Review:  If a mediocre web interface and absolute crap customer service is your jam, this is the place for you. I'm stuck for now until I'm in the green, after that I'll be off to another platform. The customer service is ABYSMAL. 300+ minute waits on phone calls and the chat isn't any better. It's amazing they're still in business since this has been going on for over a year now.

Review:  For no reason, froze numerous accounts. Despite having money on deposit, the firm bounced customer's checks. Customer service denies all of it. Margin accounts cannot have invisible phantoms playing games with deposited funds.

Review:  I'm locked out of my online account and customer service (chat/phone) wait is measured in hours, not minutes. Based on the other reviewers, I'm afraid it will be painfully difficult to transfer out of ETRADE.

Review:  Never thought I'd see customer support worse than Comcast however eTrade has them beat and in a negative way. Hold times in hours for both chat and phone. Excessive fees even for high balances. I'll be moving my 3 accts else where.

Review:  I have been trying to reach customer service for 2 days now. I called this morning and have been on hold close to 4 hours now and still counting. This company gives the impression they don't care about there customers. Find another broker to make your trades.

Review:  The firm has astonishingly long hold times. I heard we are hiring people excuse months ago. Hold time to speak with a person is measured in hours not minutes. I called Fidelity and Schwab earlier today and got through right away. Will be transferring accounts.

Review:  They charged a 40 dollar fee for reorganization when a company did a split. They didn't email, and they took my account into the red. Etrades app is awful, customer service is awful, there is nothing good I can say about them. I'd rather be crucified than have to deal with this company again. By no means should anyone ever open an account with them. Or invest in their stock. Awful firm.

Review:  Everyone better hope they don't have a stock do any kind of split. Etrade is perfectly happy charging $38 reorganization fee, even if you have only $1 of that stock. I have had 3 of those to date along with some other fees as well. Tried repeatedly to contact customer service by phone. Hour and a half on hold and had to hang up from dead phone. Called later in the week. 45 minutes in and gave up and emailed. Guess what, 3-5 day wait for a response. Finally get a response and the short version is read the fine print and too bad for me I guess. The absolute worst trading experience by far. My advice is, avoid etrade at all costs. way better platforms available at this point.

Review:  They are impossible to contact. I need assistance resetting my password, can't do it online and am unable to access my account. Have tried calling numerous times at different times of the day. Each time the battery in my cordless phone died after being on hold for 1-1/2 hours plus! Now they're closed for the holiday weekend and I still can't access my account to trade. Will be moving my account to another broker first thing next week.

Review:  Did not wire $ after made request. Call them. No one picks up, even after an hour. Another call went into the black hole. Finally made it thru several days later. Too much static to even hear. Lady did call back. Still static. Will be cancelling my account and moving to Ameritrade.

Review:  Placing a trade on this app is a painful experience compared to Ameritrade Think-Or-Swim or some of the newest players in mobile trading, like WeBull. The charts are too basic and overall UI is slow and clunky.

A major issue is that it that this app doesn’t place your trades in the account you are working on when you have multiple accounts!! Say you have accounts A and B, and are working in account B, you sell some securities x, y, then you go to buy z, the app will pre-select account A unless you remember to specify account B at the top of the trade screen, which is easy to forget if you have been working in account B for a while.

Please fix this!! If I have pre-selected account B and view portfolio it gives me the correct portfolio- why do you switch accounts when I pre-selected account B and choose trade?!?!

Review:  Horrible. Do not sign up for E trade E*Trade E-Trade. Make you do allllllllllllllllllllll sort of time wasting things. Sells your stock without your permission after the market goes down! Customer service is a nightmare. Had to verify it was me by calling customer service for hours and hours and hours. Locked out of my own account. Worst thing is that once you sign up you are trapped. You cannot cancel!!! So DO NOT SIGN UP with E rade. You have been warned.

Review:  The old app was my favorite financial app! The new app has more features, but I like the look and simplicity of the previous one. I applaud the advanced options of the new, however the font and icons are thin and light, with no contrast or borders of separation. I also prefer having more options on the main page - you used to be able to transfer money directly from the homepage and see the markets. Now there are several clicks and different tabs. The portfolio page is buggy and sensitive. Since things have been moved around, there are now multiple clicks which is inconvenient. What’s improved - is you can view and sell individual tax lots and fractional shares from the app which you couldn’t do before. Overall, I give it a 4 because of the increased capabilities on the portfolio and order page.

Review:  I’m happy with E*TRADE and agree the previous app needed a redesign. However I feel the new design is clunky and not intuitive at all, making it even more difficult to find what you need. I don’t mind looking for what I need and expect a learning curve knowing it’s going to be for the better. Unfortunately, the Menu tab doesn’t even have a section for FAQs, a Help section or even a link to a simple Forum where I could ask questions. This is the one app I use where seconds actually matter. I spend too much time using a search field that doesn’t return useful results and in the end I find myself waiting until I can use my desktop to access their web site. In my experience, the worst part of the redesigned app is several important tabs like Orders or Account Overview just show spinning circles where charts, data, news and other crucial information used to be found.

Review:  Ironically, this is my 3rd time trying to post a review about the terrible updated app E*TRADE forced us to use and to no avail i can’t get my review to post. So here i am trying again!!

So many issues i don’t know where to start. First off, alerts take hours to come through. In portfolios, when you click on a position, it now has an additional step to chose from before you get to Quote View. A me u appears with the choice of: Quote View, Buy, Sell etc, in the old app, if you click on a position you went straight to quote view, if you wanted the additional menu in the old app you would simply hold down on the position for a second or two and it would appear. Quite annoying that they added a step. The worst of the worst, in the new app in Orders it no longer defaults to Open Orders w/ the dates of 3-months ago & today’s date (date range), it stays in the last view parameters (after opening the app & using it), now the stupid part, if an order executed day today, if you check today’s executed orders it’s NOT there. Why?? Because they have it that it shows up on the date the order was entered. So if you have a lot of pending orders from some time ago and one order executes, you better remember the day you entered or you will spend an hour looking for it. How stupid is that!!

Review:  Etrade block my account for any activiry. For over 2 months i been calling. Each call 30 - 45 minutes got no answer. Can't transfer money out, they only allow to transfer in.

Review:  The update is terrible. The previous version of the app was the reason I have been with E*TRADE for years. This new version is not intuitive, gives more information than is needed and generally is overdesigned. The simplicity of the pre ious app was its genius. This new one falls on its face. I’ll be looking for a new service now. BTW, this is the first app I have ever taken the time to review...it’s that bad.

UPDATE: after using it a few days and trying to navigate through the changes I am getting better at it and still not impressed. A BIGGER ISSUE however is the constantly INCORRECT account value and daily gain displayed in my portfolio and for individual positions. I have had to resort to switching between the desktop site and the app to see what my positions are doing in real time. I hope something is done soon or I will be taking my business elsewhere. BTW I have a platinum account because of all the fees I pay to E*TRADE each year. This app is not worth it.

Review:  They had a perfectly wonderful app until about a month ago, and then they updated it. There are a number of problems

- positions only load 5-6 at a time. So if you want to scroll through 25 in your portfolio you have to scroll and wait repeatedly. If you resort (say from alphabetical to closing price) start all over

- they have something called “day’s change” in the default view which during the trading day tells you how you’re doing. But after market close it resets to zero, and then it only measures changes after the market close, which are usually minute and only effect a few securities. So if you want to see how you did after market close, good luck. I’d be willing to bet that more people want to see how their positions did at market close than want to see any post close random price fluctuations.

- the default portfolio view also involves scrolling left/right (phones are narrow) However doing so will also scroll from accounts to trades/transfers/etc, losing your place. Since portfolio takes so long to load and sort (see point 1 above) this is a problem.

- the functions glitch. I’ve transferred and gotten error messages that it timed out, I’ve tried trading and gotten an error that they “cannot confirm this trade”. Both errors occur randomly and when I retry the transactions will usually work. But it’s not reliable.

Again, these are all new issues that were not present in the old app. Please bring it back.

Review:  I was thinking about getting an ap to trade with and a bank account to get a little better interest in. They offer 1.75% right now for a savings which is great and free trading as well so I decided to go with E*TRADE. What really pushed me over the edge to start an account is the recent drop in the market due to coronavirus. The issue is that I have deposited money into the account but it still isn’t available. I have checked the account I transferred from and the money has come out but it still is not available. This is day 5 now and while I see they have the money they will not make it available.

While I get there are security concerns, this is making it impossible to act on current drops. Very frustrating. Some stocks I wanted to invest in went up about 4% yesterday and I missed it.

I hope this is just with the initial investment and it gets better. My review may go up if the ap is great and future deposits are faster.

Review:  They release the new app days before the largest market moves we have ever seen. This app is not smooth/jerky, freezes continually, will close itself randomly, occasionally gives you incorrect live bid/asks. I cant access my watchlist either which I built for the last 10 years. Very frustrating to say the least. So many bugs its not funny.

All my other apps run perfectly smooth and flawless. Im running an iphone 11 which is currently best phone on market. Whoever is the boss behind launching this application and giving it the final ok should be fired. Im extremely upset about this and Im thinking of moving my accounts elsewhere. I really don't think people even spend much time on quality control and or using the products they create. Im disappointed I have even had to put up with this. Someone on Etrade’s end has been majorly slacking and or not good at their job! Etrade must have the 3rd string tech team creating their software. What a joke. Very upset about this.

Review:  The new app is terrible. The old version was great, both user friendly and accurate. The new version shows gain/loss performance as 0.0 after market close. The app is buggy, does not update data, and is inaccurate in real time. It is unreliable for trading. The home page shows a “market movers” tab which is interesting, but I am more concerned with my own portfolio watch list and the index chart that showed when you opened the old app. Now, it is a jumbled mess to move between accounts and view positions. You can’t do it without moving between pages that take forever to load. Never-mind trading in or out with real time data. Don’t do it. The update was obviously an effort to create a “sleek” look with absolutely no regard for usefulness or accuracy, which is ironic since this is people’s money. I have looked all over for options to customize certain screens to no avail. Please just go back to what works. I doubt too many people left the brokerage because the old app wasn’t stunning in appearance, but people will go if their money continues to be impacted by a poor performing platform.

Review:  Have tried and tried to transfer my money OUT of e trade to another Brokerage firm as I didn't like their platform. They keep telling me I cancelled the transfer?? Stay away from this company as the left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing!

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