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Charles Schwab & Co.101 Montgomery Street, San Francisco, CA |
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Charles of Bakersfield CA (04/26/08) A year later my father had a heart problem that resulted in brain damage and he has slipped further and further into dementia which has required having him placed in a facility for the mentally impared. During all this my mother had another heart attack and a slight stroke that has left her in very poor physical condition. Tristen of Star ID (11/08/07) I feel that schwab should do a little house cleaning in their vice president positions. this has given me cause to believe that if your high and mighty in the corporate world that you can just step on others. NOT this one. However, Fidelity Investments has stepped in and i now have the brokerage and checking that i need.
Just to let everyone know, Fidelity is rated higher and the list than Schwab is and their customer service is without question the best for a brokerage firm.
D. of Redlands CA (08/09/06) Dave of Oshkosh WI (06/25/06) I opened an account with $50,000 and told Schwab to put it in a Money Market fund yielding about 4.5%. Instead they put the money in their Scwhab bank at slightly over 1% interest. I believe they put my money in a money market fund and pocketed the other 3%. This is truly a scam and they did it without my permission. I would imagine they are screwing thousands of people this way. Only a greedy, sleazy company would do this to customers. I've had an account with Fidelity for many years and have never been treated this way. Schwab insisted that I open a Margin Account even though I didn't want it. Margin accounts charge you exhorbitant interest on your money and rip you off. Schwab also promised my 50 free trades for opening a new account and failed to deliver. You need to read the fine print. I didn't do any trades for the first 45 days because the market went straight down. The fine print said the free trades were only good for 45 days. I argued the point and they were really nasty. Accused me of being a inept at market trading, and badgered me for not making trades. Threatened to cancel my trading software. Schwabs attitude was really amazing and obnoxious. They cancelled my account. I've been a broker and have been involved in investments for many years. Schwab is the biggest scam I have ever come across.
I'm going back to Fidelity. They are great.
I also lost 50 free stock trades. And I lost the opportunity to make other money in investments during the two weeks it took me to get my money from Schwab and move it to another brokerage firm. Don't let Schwab steal your money. Mike of Highland Park IL (04/13/06)
Despite filling out their forms 3 times and hand carrying them to the Scwab office it took 6 months till they made the change. They still have not gotten us a checkbook in my wife's name so we can access the funds to pay this years taxes on the trust. Marilyn of Covina CA (02/25/06) This has been their practice for years and they refuse to supply the state tax info with their 1099 forms, causing an unwarranted delay in being able to file state income tax returns.
According to the California State Franchise Tax Board, they are required to provide the info by 1/31. This year I talked to 3 different people, the first 2 of whom denied that they even furnished the info, while the 3rd stated that they were not required to provide it by 1/31. Joel of Centennial CO (02/13/06) I started down the road with Charles Schwab Bank only to find out that the mortgages are handled by Cendant while using the Schwab name. It became only too obvious that I wasn't dealing with Charles Schwab directly. The loan officer, David Daniels, that I worked with on the Good faith Estimate made plenty of claims how they could meet or beat any other companies' rates. When it finally came time to finish the application he asked for a credit card. I asked why and he mentioned that they charge $350 for the application if I don't close with Schwab. I hesitated and told him that I wasn't comfortable with a fee since no other lenders charge for the application. He told me about their Best-Price Guarantee which insured me that I would get the best rate or Schwab would send me a check for $500. This seemed reasonalble so I proceeded with Schwab. After completing the application, David gave me the name and number of his processor. I left no less than five calls with David after the application was complete and never once got a return call. I was so disgusted with this level of service that I felt compelled to get competing bids. Sure enough, I found two companies that had better rates. I decided to proceed with another company and made sure that I followed Schwab's policy and rules on the Best-Price Guarantee. The day that I was ready to lock I sent the competing Good Faith Estimate to Schwab to see if they would like to honor the quote and they declined and told me it was okay to proceed with the other company. All that I needed to do was send them the HUD Settlement Statement after closing and they would send me a check for $500. I followed their procedure and now they are reneging on their deal. Since starting down the road with Charles Scwab Bank I have left approximately 17 voice messages and have only received 5 returned calls. I guess batting .294 % is pretty good by their books.
2/2/06 Hai Ramirez, a manager at Schwab said that my check would be mailed immediately. He asked me to follow up with him on 2/8/06 if I hadn't received the check. I left him a message on 2/9 letting him know that I hadn't received a check...no returned call. On 2/11 I received a letter from Diana Allain (Office of the President) stating why they can't honor their Best-Price Guarantee. Susan of Ceres CA (11/03/05) In the meantime, I'm writing checks and buying a car, as I think the problem has been taken care of. Again, I called a Schwab broker, who said he would send a check and not charge me a wiring service. How kind! As my checks starting bouncing all over, the insufficient fund fees piled up while the Schwab company assumed no responsibility. Johnathon Ramer offered me $60.00, as he said all of my charges (the charges I would not have had in the first place) had been waiived. I am finished with this company. When they're using your money, they're great. Otherwise, they'll leave you hanging. William of Huntsville AL (01/06/05) Jess of Castle Rock CO (07/06/04) I just received another monthly statement (ending My31, 2004) from Schwab. I called to inquire; the account was never close, shares were never transferred and yes, the monthly fee is legit. Gordon of Santa Clarita CA (05/29/04) I have three accounts, IRA, checking and a dormant account from years ago. I asked them if they would close the dormant account, they said they would. But..it didn't work out. They closed my active checking account and transferred the balance to the dormant account. I called to complain and got a name of a person that could help me. When I called her, she said that my account was really better the new way. At this point my only gripe was that I could not reconcile my checking account. I have two direct deposits into my checking account. When the usual date for those deposits came and went without either of them, I called again. They said NOTHING COULD BE DONE but they would be happy to send me a form to forward to the depositors so they could change the account for the direct deposit. Botton line, now I have a real financial delima on my hands since I cannot pay my bills! Again I called and again NOTHING COULD BE DONE. And, in addition, I can't use my old ATM card and if I use the new one they sent, there are fees. Reviewing the new account setup, there will be a lot of new costs for me to do business with Schwab.
It has been a month from the start of this and I still do not have the physical checks so I am still in financial crisis.
I am, of course, in the process of transferring to another brokerage. Unfortuneately, that takes time. Owen of San Francisco CA (04/08/04) It's basically a sneaky way for them to skim money off people's accounts and discourage people from moving their business elsewhere. I spoke with a manager at their complaint office and there is no recourse for the individual once the fee has been charged. They can get away with this because it's a small amount of money for each individual, but it undoubtedly adds up to huge profits for Charles Schwab. Chris of Eden Prairie MN (03/02/04) Karen of San Diego CA (07/10/03) As you might expect the tax consequences of this would have been substantial particularly since one of the accounts was a retirement account. We contacted the Executive Offices but they refused to help us or provide us with the information they have about us or our accounts. The only justification they gave is that we were unhappy with Schwab's service. Apparently, Schwab reserves the right to unilaterally terminate accounts at any time in their account agreements. Please note that this all occurred over the Holiday season so you can imagine how much difficult it was to complete this in the time allotted. Thankfully, Fidelity was extremely helpful with the transfer. To literally add insult to injury, Schwab charged us termination fees for closing our accounts. We wanted to make sure you all knew about this so you can consider it in making your investment decisions and will not be as surprised as we were if you are subjected to the same treatment.
Brad of Watchung NJ (07/06/03) Kevin of Dayton OH (10/26/02) Karen of San Diego writes (7/10/03):
As you might expect the tax consequences of this would have been substantial particularly since one of the accounts was a retirement account. We contacted the Executive Offices but they refused to help us or provide us with the information they have about us or our accounts. The only justification they gave is that we were unhappy with Schwab's service. Apparently, Schwab reserves the right to unilaterally terminate accounts at any time in their account agreements. Please note that this all occurred over the Holiday season so you can imagine how much difficult it was to complete this in the time allotted. Thankfully, Fidelity was extremely helpful with the transfer. To literally add insult to injury, Schwab charged us termination fees for closing our accounts. Brad of Watchung NJ (7/6/03):
Damage: Loss of $1200 upfront lender credit. Increase of $44 a month in my monthly mortgage payment. Kevin of Dayton OH (10/26/02):
Douglas of Ventura CA (6/6/00):
Kathleen at the Oxnard, CA branch took this paperwork and sent me a confirmatory letter stating that the transfer request had (in theory) been sent on to the transfer department. Three weeks after I opened the Roth IRA, April 11, 2000, and after the transfer should have been completed the Korean market had a nice but short upturn and I decided it was time to sell all shares in the fund. On April 12, 2000 I sent in an order for my trust account to sell all MAKOX. However, I could not sell the shares in my Roth IRA because the transfer had not been completed. The following day I called Charles Schwab to see when they had sent out the transfer request and learned there was no record of the transfer request ever making it to the transfer office. In other works they lost it. I called the Matthew's Fund Company again to see if they had a money market fund I could park the money in temporally, but they did not offer any such fund. The fund shares were posted to my account on April 28, 2000 when I sold the total drop in value based on the April 12, 2000 price of $5.50 for MAKOX was $2,812.00=[(6.02-5.50)X5407.910]. I was able to purchase 19000 shares of Thai Farmer's Bank-F shares at about 0.9% less [($1.06-1.05)X19000]=190 due to this delay Charles Schwab's loss of my first transfer request has caused my Roth IRA to lose a net of about $2622.00 in value ($2,812-$190) from the date I wished to sell it. This highly negligent mistake was clearly the fault of Charles Schwab yet they refuse to credit my account for the amount lost. I find this especially shocking because of the amount of business I have given them and the amount of total assets on deposit with them. Seems to me only a fool would be willing to lose my amount of business over that amount of money. Report Your Experience
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