I've had absolutely the worst customer service experience with Ameritrade. In early December I tried to withdraw money from my account to pay my college tuition. I spent an hour on the phone with them trying to figure out the best way to transfer money. They finally decided to expedite a check to the nearest branch, which is 40 minutes away. When I got to the branch the check was written to both me and my dad, who was supposed to have been taken off the account the previous year when I turned 21. Since the check was in two names my Dad, who lives 4 hours away, also needed to be there to pick it up and deposit it. My tuition was due the following day, but they said that they would expedite processing the form to take my dad off the account and send a new check within 2 business days. They also said that this check could be sent to the billing address on the account (for some reason they couldn't mail it to the address I actually live at) but we said this would be alright since my parents could deposit it into my account. I don't know why they insisted that they could only send checks to branch locations and then changed their mind for the second check. I was very clear on the phone that in addition to needing to expedite the process for my tuition, I was also leaving the country in a few days, so I would not be able to call in or deal with anything after the following Monday.
After two days the check still hadn't arrived and my tuition bill was already past due and I was getting ready to leave. I called customer support and they said that the new check had been sent to the branch instead of my parent's address, but that they could wire the money into my Wells Fargo account so that I could get the money while overseas and they promised that they would comp the wire fee. Once again, I don't know why we hadn't done this in the first place. The wire never went through, so I called back and sat on the phone with customer service as the money was wired, and it finally went through. When I got home from my trip a check was delivered to my parents house (two weeks later) along with a form to authorize the wire (which I had already filled out online).
I then found not one but two charges for wires on my Wells Fargo account. I called and they said they would refund it, but the money never showed up. I called a second time and the person said that he would refund the money and it still never showed up. After a third call the person refunded my money, but said that it could only be refunded to my TD Ameritrade account- even though they had taken the money from my Wells Fargo account. When I asked if they could deposit it to Wells Fargo, since that is where it was charged from and I never ever want to deal with transferring money from TD Ameritrade again, he said that they had no ability to interact with my Wells Fargo account. He then said I could set up online transfers and I asked why we hadn't just done that for my tuition money? He said he had no idea, but that it was free.
This has been the most nightmarish customer service experience of my life. Ameritrade has a great online system, but their customer support and live people are awful. The whole time they were acting like it was my problem, and every support agent had a different idea of what their policy for transferring money was. At the same time I went through a similar process of withdrawing money from an Oppenheimer Account. I called once and the money was sent- no repeat calls or incorrect charges. I am seriously looking forward to withdrawing the remainder of my balance from Ameritrade and transferring it to someone who actually cares about their customers.
vs.