TD Ameritrade

TD Ameritrade seems to forget that they are dealing with your most valuable asset. I rolled over a 401K a little over a year ago and really didn’t need any «service» until recently. Due to my job and a family emergency, I needed a distribution from the account. I explained to them it was urgent. This was on a Tuesday and they explained that the funds should be showing «pending» in my bank account by the next morning. I didn’t see anything Wednesday nor Thursday. So Thursday, I went into my bank (*insert shameless plug for the wonderful service at CAPITAL ONE). I wondered if they could see something I couldn’t. They didn’t but they sat with me until we got someone from TD Ameritrade on the phone. It took 2 transfers and a second call but we finally got someone who said they needed some additional verification and they had contacted me and not heard back. They did NOT contact me; all they did was put some message on my account and I had no reason to think I needed to go back online and do anything because I had done the whole transaction IN PERSON with an agent who should have been able to verify anything he needed to. Finally (this after about 40 minutes), we got it straightened out and they agreed to wire the money so it would get into my account that evening or no later than the next morning (Friday). Guess what? Friday afternoon — still no money! And Friday was my deadline! So, once again, back to Capital One and back on the phone with TD Ameritrade. Again, about 30 minutes later, we find that they wired the money to some bank in Louisiana (I’m in Texas)! Once again, we got it straightened out and got the wire transfer sent to the right bank. I finally did get my money on Monday, almost a week late and it would’ve cost me quite a bit of money had Capital One not helped me out.
Bottom line, TD Ameritrade is too incompetent to handle your money. They don’t have any respect for you nor for the problems that their bumbling employees or their convoluted system might cause. I got a half-​hearted apology and nothing else. This could have cost me several hundred dollars. The only acceptable solution in my mind is for TD Ameritrade to pay me what they would’ve cost me. Never mind, I’m small potatoes to them so their refusal to recognize how serious their mistakes were and adequately compensate me for what it cost me is going to cost them $ 35,000. Their loss, Capital One or eTrade’s gain!

Not customer service oriented. You wait 20 — 30 minutes on the phone que, and basic requests like having a document mailed, take much to long to get sent out.

Glad to get all the positive feedback (20 usefuls, a few more positives).
A whistleblower in the company tells me they still have major security problems. They still haven’t passed a public IT security audit.

After the death of my mother-​in-​law, my husband was appointed personal representative for her estate. She had an account at TD Ameritrade which we wanted to transfer to my husband. He completed the necessary paperwork after talking with someone in the Estate Department. When they received the packet, they contacted us and requested the original letter from the Court appointing my husband as personal representative because the seal was not visible on the copy we sent them. We sent the original to them, and they promptly closed the old account and transferred the money to my husband. Until then, everything was fine. However, we needed the original letter back so that we could send it to another investment company. When it didn’t arrive after a week or so, we called TDA to inquire about it. They said that it could take up to six weeks for them to return it. When my husband indicated they he needed it by June 30 in order to meet another investment company’s deadline, TDA said that they had not control over when it would be sent out and could do nothing to expedite the process. My husband asked why they couldn’t just put the letter in an envelope and return it to him. They replied that it wasn’t that simple and that he just didn’t understand. Now we will have to drive to the probate court in Boston and get another original letter (for $ 25) because TDA has no intention of doing anything to help. You would think when someone’s mother had died, they might be more compassionate and helpful. I guess we will be transferring the money one more time to a company that actually cares about its customers.

Can’t file taxes because TDAmeritrade won’t send out a 1099 on the inherited IRA because they claim no distribution was made yet a check was received for 18,000 plus in August 2014. And worse yet, almost 26,000 is missing from the account, almost 8,000 more than was received. Why is there no record of the distribution that was made and where is the missing 8,000 dollars?
After many phone calls and emails, they finally sent out a 1099. Also accounted for the missing money which they said was sent to the IRS in late December which should not have been done according to paperwork.

BEWARE of TD Ameritrade and its brokers. This company appears to be «too big to regulate» and their brokers engage in Prohibited Conduct including unauthorized discretionary trading in customer accounts, and co-​mingling of customer funds with the firm’s.
I lost my life’s savings and retirement funds as a result of an Ameritrade broker engaging in illegal discretionary trading in my supposedly self-​directed accounts. To cover-​up the wrongdoing, Ameritrade hired expensive criminal defense attorneys, concealed evidence, altered telephone recordings, and fabricated stories of «trying to help» me in order to get FINRA to dismiss my complaint, even though FINRA had determined that the broker VIOLATED FEDERAL LAW.
Look through FINRA’s records. Lots of complaints, nearly zero recoveries by individuals. My advice is to keep your money out of danger.

I counted six one star rating in a row an then six more in the first page, I didn’t continue with the second page. However I can say that my experience with the Branch of San Francisco has been pleasant and informative. Maybe is because I lucked out with my representative: Adam Powell, he is considered of the clients need and his aim is to cause a win win situation for the Brokerage and for the client. Best of all he is straight forward, although he is very polite and pleasant, he doesn’t give any lip service or give you a wrong answer, he is prompt to advise you to the right department and the right approach, this is important when talking about a gigantic organization such as TD Ameritrade. Today I opened my third TD Ameritrade account.
I am giving it five stars since the only person that I have contacted in the San Francisco Branch deserves five stars, in all honesty I have to say that I don’t know the other people.

Sleazy broker. They opened a margin account without my authorization and began charging me interest. Be very careful with these people. Stick to a honest discount broker.

On Aug 6, 2014, TD Ameritrade forced me out of $ 20,000 of naked short-​term call options because they thought the underlying ETF may rise 60% in a single day and wipe me out. The ETF has never moved more than 40% in a single day and they refuse to tell me how they came up with this 60% threshold. They didn’t even give me a few days to gradually average out of my positions. I also had some August options that were expiring the following week freeing up buying power but they didn’t care. They brutally forced me to close out nearly all of my positions right then. That day the ETF was trading at 36 and the market was flat. They forced me to close out $ 20k of September and December call options at strike prices of 70, 80 and 90. The ETF would have to move over 100%, a nearly impossible short term move.
As you can guess, the ETF did NOT go to 70, 80 or 90. In fact it dropped to 24. I lost $ 20,000 thanks to TD Ameritrade.
Don’t do business with these stupid people.

I’ve used 4 different platforms in the last 2 years and although this could have been quite good it became by far the worst through endless glitches. Using the ThinkOrSwim iPad app, I’ve suffered many margin calls due to software errors, system crawl at busy times, bad quotes, bad fills, irritating errors pretty much every day. What they are good at is sending you 30 useless emails a week telling you how great they are.

Before getting involved with a discount brokerage please set your expectations accordingly. This is not a nice, kind service that can be ranked similarly to a yoga studio. This is a company that makes it easy for you to expose yourself to the raw bloodbath that is global financial markets and they do it at a big discount.
The website works, the web services work, the agents – for what you’re paying – are attentive and professional.
Honkeys, please.

TDAmeritrade is TERRIBLE TERRIBLE TERRIBLE! You lose on-​line access to your account, and then can NEVER get back into the account. No matter what you do– No matter who you talk to, access is GONE. If this did not happen to me, I would NOT have believed it was possible.
And talking to TDAmeritrade is like «talking to a wall.» You call the phone number they provide to resolve the issue, and no one is ever available to talk to. You are asked to leave a voice mail message for a call back, and no one ever calls you back… Worse yet, even TDAmeritrade customer service cannot get you access to your account, because some idiot at TDAmeritrade accidentally «locked» your account — and no one can override the lock. What — Are you kidding me??? I spent days trying to get back access to my account, and I still do NOT have access — No Exaggeration! TDAmeritrade is a nightmare! I’ve dealt with MANY MANY brokerage firms, and every other brokerage firm is great (except TDAmeritrade). Stay away… Go with Schwab or Fidelity instead. Trust me on this. TDAmeritrade is unbelievably incompetent, and I will NEVER put money in TDAmeritrade again…

I want to give negative rating! Their mistake costed me to lose half of my SALE (note, not revenue, but the total money I deposit myself) to IRA withholding for a whole year. The brand manager is way to rude and arrogant, no respects to customer. Not mention to think him as a sales or customer service person. Totally done business there.

The software… looks so good… until hi volume… locks it up.
yup in the middle of trading…
what’s worse. are the stingy policies…$ 500 loss… they offered me cost of trade…$ 7
Hello David:
Thanks for the follow up.
I can credit you the commission that you paid: $ 7, but that is the best I can do — out of courtesy.
But, nothing improper was done. (their user agreement covers them… for anything.
Buyer or seller BEWARE!

parking is difficult for this area.
i’ve been here whenever i need to be. i get my email or a call from whomever is working with me and they give me accurate and helpful service.
they just redesigned their offices… its really much more private now than it used to be. they have their own offices instead of everything out in the open.
the waiting area is so far, non existent. but i’m sure they’ll have a decent one soon.
TD Ameritrade is the sister company of TD Canada Bank.

I’ve used this service for quite some time, but I’m learning more and more about hidden fees and through actual investing, some strange peculiarities.
If you are investing in stocks with no margin, then it is a great service to use. The customer service is great. They’re very friendly and invite you to various seminars. There is also a good plethora of training materials through their website. Also, the thinkorswim platform is awesome, though it’s been crashing frequently on linux lately.
If you trade forex, options, or futures, or anything that involves opening a margin account, every trade you make takes money out of the margin account first before pulling money out of your cash account. At first, I didn’t think much of this, but I just found out from a customer rep that they charge an interest rate each day you use the margin account. I don’t know how much in fees I’ve paid in interest rate since it’s not very well recorded. I’m not even sure at all if I’ve been charged a fee… either the customer rep is wrong, or the margin fees are un-​recorded.
If you trade forex, they will trade against you within the hour. I constantly find that after placing an order, the active trade made is actually against the order I’ve made. If I place an order to short, the actual order placed is to buy. You can watch ThinkOrSwim’s Active Trader tab and see that after placing a forex order, the actual order placed is typically against yours. I am pretty certain the brokerage is playing against your order within a few hours of your order to pressure you into closing your order at a loss.
Finally, forex trades go unreported. TD Ameritrade does not provide you access to any trade records (except through the ThinkOrSwim interface), and they DO NOT provide you with any tax forms near tax day for your forex trades. This makes it extremely difficult to report earnings/​losses. I suspect I will get audited by the IRS since no actual tax forms were provided and I claimed a loss.
Don’t open a margin account, and don’t do any options, future, or forex trade. Stick to basic stocks, and this is a great service.
If you plan on investing in ETFs or mutual funds, I suggest looking elsewhere. TD Ameritrade’s cost is just way too expensive.

BEWARE!!! Stay away…
Check-​out TD Ameritrade and your TD Ameritrade broker via

They have a lot of complaints through FINRA. And, have SEC violations, like this one:

Advice?!? Please… Don’t kid yourself. You have to have lived under a rock the past decade, to «buy their turd,» and not read about them on the news. They literally try to sell you their proprietary products (turd) left and right. These guys don’t know the difference between preferred stock and livestock.
Their business model is to have people open up an account. This creates their «leads-​list,» from which the branch uses to call on clients or prospects. They only sell their asset-​allocation products and ETFs, and they never assist you on picking out what to buy or sell from your portfolio. If no business is developed, they sell your name to marketing firms and you get spam email.
Ask them about futures/​forwards/​options/​commodities or how to handle this volatility, and they’ll tell you to buy oil at $ 100 and/​or gold is risky at $ 900…LOL!!! Really?!?
How do you make a million dollars? You start with two million.
How do you make a small fortune? You start with a big one.
If you like the answers to the questions above, this is your shop. For all others, you just might wanna try somewhere else.
Those of you that have bought their «turd» and lost a lot of money, you might wanna seek legal assistance. You have a good chance of winning your case. Good luck investing!!! You’ll need it at this place… Hahaha!!!

I’m amazed to see such negative reviews on here!
My experience with this branch has been nothing but positive. I’ve been working with John McNertny, and he’s been really responsive. He’s invited me to some interesting presentations, been helpful and forthcoming when I’ve asked for advice, been prompt, & courteous. He’s also a super nice guy, in general.
Beyond the SF office, I really like TD Ameritrade. I also have an E*Trade account, and I much prefer the TD trading and account tools to the ones offered at E*Trade.

I rarely write low reviews, and believe me, i want to give more stars. but… simply, i bought a fair amount of stock, and due to a pathetic interface, and even more pathetic customer service, i lost out on what would have been a very nice payout.
If you are ever wondering, go elsewhere. I’ve been with TD for 5 years, and honestly, they are the worst. People in this office are nice enough, but have no idea what is going on with your finance.

I had two bad experiences here in one day.
First, a rep on the phone told me quite clearly that I could just drop by any time and ask one of the staffmembers there questions about my account. But the woman I spoke to was hurried and brusque, saying I should have made an appointment — oh, and wouldn’t I rather pay $$$ for an in-​depth portfolio analysis?
The second bad thing was, she looked up my account based on a statement that I had just pulled out from my purse. At no time did anyone there ask to see my ID. Not good, people!