Complaint Review: Etrade - Internet

I am writing this to inform you of my seething hatred for Etrade. I put $50,000 into Etrade accounts and since then my life has been a living nightmare. My account has been randomly and repeatedly placed on restricted access leaving me without money to eat, leaving me with bounced checks, and hundreds of dollars in fees. My account was placed on restricted access because the transfer I used to fund the account for some reason didn't go through yet Etrade still let me put tens of thousands of dollars into my checking and savings account even though they were restricted and I would have absolutely no way to access the money once it was in there. They never told me it was on restricted access either. No, in fact I called several times before writing a single check to make sure that the checks would go through and was told every time that my checks would be fine. So I started writing checks, the checks started bouncing, and only then do I discover that my account had been placed on restricted access. I had $50,000? No, I didn't have a penny because my bank refused giving me access to my own money. So I call up Etrade to solve this issue (my first call of a hundred) and after the usual waiting on hold, getting the wrong person, getting an incompetent person, consistently getting conflicting information, being hung on accidentally after waiting on hold for an hour, sending faxes, three way conference calls between Etrade and my regular bank, and answering security questions (like how old is your brother, which by the way Etrade doesn't even always have the correct answers to) I finally get my account placed rightfully restored to full access. Or did I? Well for the few days I went off writing checks I did. I did buy a car with an Etrade check. Well, actually I bought the car twice with Etrade checks. And actually they both bounced and I had to eventually pay the dealership in cash which only involved taking three days out of my life and driving across the state to the dealership. I mean, no big deal, I like to drive. Anyway, so the story goes on a lot like that. I go through the mind melting, life destroying, soul crushing process of getting my account restored to full access, and then write a couple checks and do a couple transfers and then out of nowhere Etrade throws my account into restricted access (for the exact same reason) leaving me with bounced checks, service fees, and the belief that I might as well go and talk to a psychic to find out which transactions failed and why. Cause I'll tell you what Etrade sure doesn't know. Anyway, so most recently I can see that I'm running out of cold hard cash so I initiate a transfer from my Etrade checking account to the savings account at my regular bank so I can get my hands on some cold hard cash. I would use that Etrade debit card I've heard so much about but it never came in the mail. Well, knowing Etrade it probably did come in the mail, my neighbors mail. Anyhow, so I initiate this transfer about ten days before I will need the money. I go on with life, I get a message from Etrade saying the transfer is in process and I patiently wait. A few days later I start getting concerned and so I initiate another transfer from my Etrade savings account to my external savings account. Same thing, I get the message telling me it's in progress but the funny thing is that I never received any type of message saying hey dude, this aint gonna go through because YOUR ACCOUNT IS ON RESTRICTED ACCESS! (huray). Nope, no such message. I only found that out when I called Etrades notoriously well qualified costumer service department to check on the status of my transfer. They had no clue why (as usual) but when I asked is this because my account is on restricted access? (a guess on my part) they were suddenly able to discover, yes, yes sir, your account IS on restricted access. So no big deal. By this point I pay the rent and have three dollars to my name. It wasn't really a big deal because I think this was on a Thursday and so I only had to go Friday, Saturday, and Sunday with only three dollars and my dwindling, nay gone, supply of food. Not to mention that that was the end of my semester and I needed to buy books for The next semester which started Monday. moving on, On Monday I was finally able, after four hours on the phone, able to get the restriction lifted off of my account so I could at least write some checks for food (precious food). I then began the process of wiring out money to my external account so I could get some actual CASH (you know, for gas) but alas, by the time the account was restored it was well past 2PM and so my books would have to wait another day. O did I also mention my gym membership ran out too? Can't buy that with a check! I guess that's just a personal thing that bothers me, though it would be nice to be able to work off some of this overwhelming rage. By the way, very wise choice not having any physical branches Etrade *wink. Anywho, so I set up the wire to be done the next day but guess what! It didn't work! So I called Etrade, asked them what their problem was this time and they said that instead of using the usual online wire form to wire money, I had to fax them a letter with a picture of my driver's license. So I was a little upset that after spending my entire day just getting access to my account restored that I would have to wake up the next morning and fax them a letter because I knew that just faxing wouldn't get the job done, they would f*** something up. And I was right. Because today I faxed them the letter at 12:07 but Etrade stops wiring from letters at 12pm! Which is pretty funny cause the service rep I talked to on the phone last night said I had until 2PM. So now, I sit here, no money, no gas, no books, nothing to do except wait until tomorrow when if God blesses me, Etrade will finally wire my money into my external account. Do you see how Etrade is ruining my life? My very life is on hold because of them. I can do nothing except sit and wait for them to get off their big stupid asses. And by the way, why do so many departments at Etrade take the weekend off and not work 24/7? I mean I understand it's a bank but it's 2008 and they're dealing on the internet. Get with the times or get left behind. So let me put a little more fury back into my argument to keep you, my beloved reader, from getting bored. Remember that car I bought? Remember how I wrote two checks and eventually had to pay in cash because the checks didn't go through? Well I was being very foolish because I only verified this by looking at the dealerships account online and having him call his bank with me. Because the first check bounced and the bank manager turned back the second check after it had been scanned. So the money was debited from my account and now is lost. It's just flat out lost because I have no clue where it's at. Is it at Etrade? Is it at the other bank? Did the dealership try and screw me (I think this option is unlikely). I have tried several times to resolve this issue with Etrade and they say they will do research on it but every single time their research ends at you can see the check on our website [and therefore it was deposited] yet I very clearly was told by the other bank that the check was not deposited (when I was at the dealership). I tried calling the other bank for their cooperation so that they could help prove to Etrade that the check wasn't deposited but they won't share any information about their customers. So I have four options. I can walk into the bank and hope that I will be able to convince them face to face. I can go back to the dealership and get their permission to let the bank verify that it wasn't deposited (though I think I have stressed out that dealership enough being as how I drove around in their car for 3 weeks and wrote them two bad checks before I even paid for it). I can try contacting Etrade again and hope that this time they will resolve the issue. Fourth and finally, I can hire a lawyer. But if I hire a lawyer I'm not paying for him (or her). No, Etrade's paying cause I'm taking their a*s to court. To Etrade, you need to be slapped in the face! WAKE UP! You are dealing with the most liquid part of peoples lives. Do you scoff when congress takes a vacation when something important is going on? Well you are no different, in fact you are worse because you're dealing with individual lives when you just go home and make it impossible for people to resolve their very serious issues that often times you caused. To readers outside of Etrade, I cannot stress to you enough, do NOT bank with Etrade. I tell you this from my own horrifying experience. It will cost you money. It will cost you time. It will stress you out. They have no physical branch to walk into when you have problems. They mess everything up. it should be illegal for them to even provide banking services. I hope my story has opened a few eyes. Etrade employee, I sure hope you don't drive home at night feeling good about yourself.

Sean Sandusky, Ohio
U.S.A.