- Report: #138663
Complaint Review: Morgan Stanley DW - Oakland California
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Morgan Stanley DW
One Kaiser Plaza, Suite 900 Oakland, 94612 California, U.S.A.
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510-839-8080
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Morgan Stanley DW Termination Fee When Closing Choice Account Ripoff Oakland California
In January 2005, when my broker left to go to another firm, I closed my brokerage account with Morgan Stanley and they socked me with a $1194 "Choice Account Termination Fee". The "Choice" account is one in which, instead of commissions for individual stock trades, they charge the client a flat fee of about 1.25% a year.
This $1194 "Termination Fee" represents the brokerage charges that I would have incurred for the fraction of the year before I closed the account if I had a regular commission account and not a flat-fee account. Neither my broker not anyone else in the firm every warned me about this Termination Fee and the new broker they temporarily assigned me never heard of it either. The Choice Termination Fee is buried in the fine print on p. 6 of Morgan's 13-page Client Services Agreement.
Had they advised me about this outrageous fee when I signed up or when I started to close the account, I could have taken steps to avoid it, such as closing the account on an anniversary.
When I complained to the branch manager about this fee, she sent me a copy of the agreement I signed, highlighting the fine-print termination fee.
David
San Francisco, California
U.S.A.
This $1194 "Termination Fee" represents the brokerage charges that I would have incurred for the fraction of the year before I closed the account if I had a regular commission account and not a flat-fee account. Neither my broker not anyone else in the firm every warned me about this Termination Fee and the new broker they temporarily assigned me never heard of it either. The Choice Termination Fee is buried in the fine print on p. 6 of Morgan's 13-page Client Services Agreement.
Had they advised me about this outrageous fee when I signed up or when I started to close the account, I could have taken steps to avoid it, such as closing the account on an anniversary.
When I complained to the branch manager about this fee, she sent me a copy of the agreement I signed, highlighting the fine-print termination fee.
David
San Francisco, California
U.S.A.
1 Updates & Rebuttals
Stan
Charleston,South Carolina,
U.S.A.
Not a fair complaint
#2UPDATE EX-employee responds
Wed, May 11, 2005
The section on closing fees isn't "fine print" by any stretch of the imagination. If you weren't going to read the agreement (the section on closing fees is next to a graphics box covering costs) at the very least your broker should have mentioned it when you opened the account and/or when he asked you to move it. That fee represents commissions you would have paid during the calendar year based on your personal transaction history, and that's after a 30% discount. You could avoid the closing fee by simply waiting until the end of that one year period. In essence what you're asking for is commission free trading for the prior year because you decided to move the account before that 12 months was up. That's hardly fair.
