ETrade and Ameritrade are both decent. Take a look at this list to see how others compare. posted by b1tr0t at 4:35 PM on November 27, 2006
I had horrible customer service problems with E-Trade, including a support rep lecturing me on how they couldn't do what I wanted because it was against security law "and did I really think I knew more than he did?" about security law?
(I did, as it turned out, and after getting three levels of escalation and burning about six hours, they finally did what I needed and sent me a lovely apology a week later. I still hate them.)
Ameritrade recommendation seconded. Better service, less bull. posted by rokusan at 4:44 PM on November 27, 2006
A good service to consider is Scottrade. No minimum account balances, low commissions ($7 a trade), and they have some pretty good resources. Naturally because their fees are so low you don't get as much advice and such as you would from other companies, but it's a good, low-cost alternative to most larger brokers. I've never had any problems with them, and their customer service was always prompt and courteous. posted by Aanidaani at 4:54 PM on November 27, 2006
Scottrade is wonderful. 7 dollar trades of stocks, a little bit more for other things, but the key is that they have a phone number which you call and you get connected immediately. No phone tree at all. I have a branch office down the street from me, and they are incredibly nice.
Don't expect advice on stock picks, but nobody will give that to you in this range. It's just a website to buy and sell.
The website has been revamped recently (within last 6 months), and is decent. It's fairly intuitive, and they can do cool things like link your accounts together into a single logon if you have several accounts with them. posted by cschneid at 5:29 PM on November 27, 2006
I used to work for E*Trade, though I left their employ in 2000. I still have brokerage and bank accounts with them. Draw your own conclusion about what that means.
I had a Datek account before working with E*Trade. Datek is now owned by Ameritrade (which is owned by TD Waterhouse, and branded as TD Ameritrade). I haven't closed that account, because there's no fees on it, and I'm not yet ready to sell the securities in it -- but I haven't traded with it in years.
Both are perfectly decent as brokers, and provide more or less the same set of research and other products. E*Trade is better for other financial services, and is a better bet if you're lucky enough to have an account worth more than about 50k (which will give you cheaper commissions, and put you in a different customer service queue).
Ameritrade is cheaper for pure stock trading, if you just want a place to place standard equity trades, and aren't going to be opening a mid 5-figure account.
If you're going to be in the market for a mortgage, or interested in a bank account or credit card, or buy a high-rate CD, or plan to trade mutual funds or options, then E*Trade might be a better bet -- they're more valuable as a combined "financial services" company than as a pure brokerage (and they offer extremely competitive products to people who already have one account with them that aren't offered to the general public). posted by toxic at 5:32 PM on November 27, 2006
E*Trade lost - yes, lost and they admitted it - a USD25k check I sent them and then "forgot" to send the promised payment for my bank's stopped payment charge. Don't think I'll be doing business with them any time soon. posted by TheRaven at 5:39 PM on November 27, 2006
E*TRADE is horrible, here's my latest rant originally written elsewhere:
My employer requires that we handle company stock transactions through E*TRADE, and since last December I've been blocked from trading.
At that point, opening the account resulted in a credit report discrepancy of some kind (I moved across the country, imagine that, I have a new address). I faxed in a driver's license as requested, and never heard back. I, dumbly, assumed that everything was OK after that simple fix. Of course it wasn't.. a year later, and I'm selling some stock, but I can't. I'm still blocked. OK, fine, I call and find out I need to fax another driver's license and utility bill. OK, I guess I'll do it again, since you have a large sum of my money and that's about the simplest way to get it back..
A week later and I've called every day, and I finally get word that my driver's license is "too dark". I have to re-fax it again. Did I mention I've lost about $100/day waiting to sell? It's going to take "uh, maybe, like, 48 hours?" to unblock it after they get the fax this time, which means calling every day until next week - when I find out they need a blood sample and family photo. Plus every time I call and rattle off what the verification they asked for last time, they add another piece - I'm up to 5 pieces of information - every time I call - by now. I guess that's better than nothing, but.. sigh.
So in a year, E*TRADE has not managed to 1) verify my address, 2) contact ME that there's a problem .. not after the initial setup, not after they failed to receive the first fax (how do you lose a fucking fax that has everything to do with my tens of thousands of dollars in your accounts? Fucking amateurs.), not after the second fax was "too dark". They have managed to lose quite a bit of my money, and considering the instrument I'm trading, this is about the only way I could lose money on it.
It was unblocked after a week and a half, but I had to call again because they "forgot to unblock the stock half of your account".. ... posted by kcm at 5:41 PM on November 27, 2006
I'm glad I'm not the only one who found E-Trade incompetent to the point of malice.
They seem to employ 19-year old support people who think they're Giovanni Ribisi in Boiler Room. I actually recorded some calls to demonstrate to a manager how awful they were. One of them actually had me laughing in shock at how he must have failed Customer Service 101.
I think I said "Dude, you can NOT say that to a customer, ever!"
It was kind of surreal. I also had six different instances of a support person flat-out LYING to me before I stopped counting. (No, you're NOT holding the letter I sent you, buddy, because it's right here in my hand, unopened and returned to sender.)
I very much wish I'd never wasted time or money on them. posted by rokusan at 6:28 PM on November 27, 2006
I have etrade and have no issues with them. They made one mistake once (they credited a Roth IRA contribution to the wrong month), but one call, and the CSR figured out how to fix it in about five minutes. (I had to fax a letter off, but I consider that reasonable for a tax fix.) posted by raf at 7:29 PM on November 27, 2006
E-Trade has always treated me well since I opened an account there in 2000. But I'm "Power E-Trade" qualified (which, along with five bucks, gets me a train ride downtown), so it's possible I am rewarded by a notch up the support crew when reporting problems.
Seriously, you're probably already aware that asking for recommendations about brokers, like cell-phone, package delivery, and other high-profile commodity service companies, will typically result in subjective stories about how well or badly the company treated the poster or the posters' friends/lovers/family. And people being people, they will be far more likely to bitch if they have had a really bad experience than to report positively if things worked out. Gives the feedback approach a negative skew. And I'm no better simply because I point this out -- if, for example, you asked about package delivery, I might post that I wouldn't use UPS to deliver a package even if they were one-third the price of FedEx because UPS is staffed by incompetent bastards who cost me money. Not that I'm bitter...ten years later.
Given that it is very easy to transition an account from one broker to another, and given that all online brokers keep a large majority of their thousands or millions of clients sufficiently happy enough to stay in business and thrive, I don't think you're going to glean much useful information asking about personal experiences with a broker here. Instead, choose an established well-known brokerage which has the best feature set match for your purposes.
And if you want more comprehensive rating feedback that may be helpful to your decision, try the search terms broker and rating in Google, and you'll have more reading material than you could possibly want in the first several hits (you want might use -forex to eliminate the current investing fad noise). Those articles will likely be more balanced and wider in breadth than any answer a single poster could give here. The SmartMoney one, for example, looks useful. posted by mdevore at 7:30 PM on November 27, 2006
I've been happy with Etrade as well. But I heard that BofA now does free trades... Oh here you go. posted by hammurderer at 7:36 PM on November 27, 2006
I have no personal experience with them, but Zecco offers up to 10 trades/day and 40 trades/month for free, and only charges $3.50/trade after that. posted by joshuaconner at 8:43 PM on November 27, 2006
I pay slightly higher commissions at Fidelity than at any of the places mentioned above. Their customer service is as good as you like and I'm happy to pay the premium for it. posted by ikkyu2 at 11:13 PM on November 27, 2006
I've had no problems with Ameritrade. I found the tools they offered useful, but I am a technical trader. They also paid a nice interest on the cash in my account when I wasn't trading. I traded frequently enough that I got premium service, but didn't have complaints with their normal level, either. posted by Goofyy at 11:51 PM on November 27, 2006
I've had a great experience with E*Trade.
Subjective
They bent over backwards to help me open an account with my paper stock certificates and followed up with me three times to make sure they were doing what I wanted them to do.
I had a customer service representative call me up out of the blue during a year-long period where I hadn't been investing in anything or paying attention to the account to point out I was racking up some maintenance fees. One can interpret that several ways, but the rep really came off as looking out for me.
Some things to note:
If you're not a Power user, you need to make at least one trade every quarter or you rack up some moderate fees. The broker fee for each transaction is also high if you're not dealing with a large volume of stock. posted by Captaintripps at 5:48 AM on November 28, 2006
I've been with Scottrade for years. Trades always occur properly. When I cash out the check arrives in the mail within days. Customer service has always been helpful. And they have quite a few brick and mortar offices around the US. I certainly recommend them. (FWIW I am not a day trader but make transactions only a few, if any, times a year.) posted by iurodivii at 9:35 AM on November 28, 2006
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posted by b1tr0t at 4:35 PM on November 27, 2006