Comments on: Scottrade Review

By: Fenix

Fenix — Mon, 10 Oct 2011 18:47:40 +0000

I have liked scottrade so far, but no dividend reinvesting is a deal breaker for me. I am most likely going to transfer my account out.

By: Doug

Doug — Tue, 16 Aug 2011 17:50:46 +0000

I too left Scott Trade. Their trading platform was clumsy. Timed out way too often. The final straw was when I tried to get some money from my IRA account. I had to submit a written form and then they rejected it saying the signatures didn’t match what they had in the file. I admit I do have arthritis in my hands and I told them this. They still refused. I transferred my accounts immediately and got my money. I’ve read these lame Scott Trade PR responses. They asked for my business back. Toooo Bad!! STAY AWAY FROM SCOTT TRADE OR BEWARE.

By: Chris

Chris — Mon, 15 Aug 2011 17:29:11 +0000

I’ve been a long-time Scottrade customer, but as of today I will no longer be one. They refuse to accept any responsibility for software problems in their products, and are perfectly willing to leave their customers holding the proverbial bag.

Recently, I decided to move funds into my Scottrade account to take advantage of recent sell-offs, and build good positions in stable stocks. I used Scottrade’s “Money Direct” program to make ACH transfers from my bank account to my Scottrade account. Unfortunately, Money Direct didn’t correctly validate the account, and began attempting to transfer money from an account that didn’t exist. As a result the transfers bounced from the bank, and that resulted in a negative balance. No one at Scottrade decided to tell me anything about any of this until I called them to find out why parts of my account were locked out. Only then did they decide to tell me about the bounced transfers, negative balance, AND that if I didn’t wire them money THAT day, that they would be liquidating my account. All of this has resulted in my having been assessed nearly $200 in fees (not a small thing, to a small investor), and all because their software didn’t work like it was supposed to.

If Scottrade is going to offer a product, they need to stand behind it when it fails to work. They didn’t for me, and can only apologetically insist that they’re “simply passing along their costs.” As a result, I’m unapologetically moving my investments to another brokerage who is willing to stand behind their products and software, especially when it doesn’t work as expected.

My advice: stay away from Scottrade.

By: Jose

Jose — Tue, 12 Apr 2011 20:05:41 +0000

I have been using scottrade for about 2 months now and i have made about 3000 dollars! which is about 1500 a month, its kind of like a part time job for me. However, thiers this new thing they have called scottrade smarttext and what it does is analyze stock charts for you and interprets them so you can understand them easily, which has helped me make money.

Thanks, and Happy Trading!

By: notgiven

notgiven — Thu, 03 Mar 2011 14:57:18 +0000

I like to trade using the Scottrade elite platform. The only thing I have trouble with sometimes is trying to sell my positions when the market turns against me. Their whole platform freezes up for some odd reason and it ends up costing me big bucks. Other than that the platform works perfectly when I’m not holding any positions. Yes, I know…I should probably just go somewhere else where these problems can be avoided altogether.

By: Demetre

Demetre — Wed, 02 Feb 2011 03:43:18 +0000

There ok but I use googlefinance.com for viewing live charts and reading stock news. I am starting to like sharebuilder.com since you can view everything easier and actually cash out to your account easy. You can also reinvest your dividends or cash them out.

By: Gail

Gail — Tue, 25 Jan 2011 02:31:48 +0000

I have used Scottrade for about 4 years but am currently looking for another online broker that I like. I’ve become dissatisfied with them since they “upgraded” their website at the start of 2011. I call it a downgrade. Since then the charts have not worked properly. I havn’t really been able to use it as I would like for 3 weeks now. It has been frustrating and I’ve had to find other sites to view the charts. A real pain. They will keep telling you that they are working on it but that has become hard to believe. Either they are not telling the truth or they are not very competent.

That is really the only issue I have with them.
I don’t have lots of money to trade with and don’t do anything but basic stock buys and sells.

When I first opened the account I really liked the layout of the site and it was great to use.
Then they changed it so the charts timed out after about 20 minutes of inactivity saying it was for security. I wasn’t logged out just the charts were gone and had to be reset. Over and over again. Hmmmmm. Security?

What they have done now it too much for me to want to deal with. Besides the site not working properly it loads too slowly on my computer and it’s not as easy to navigate. Lots of constant clicking around. It is not nice looking any longer and I can’t seem to do anything fast on it.

They do have the streaming quotes that are nice. They are great when you want streaming qoutes but that is not usually what I need. Maybe they are not thinking of those of us who want easy to access and easy to read charts to do research and monitor out stocks.

Also, I found a site called Glassdoor. com where employee’s leave reviews and after reading some of them I’ve lost even more confidence in Scottrade.

By: Anita

Anita — Sat, 06 Nov 2010 01:49:03 +0000

I opened an account with Scottrade in July 2010. Everything seemed to be fine until I relied on some information in their research area regarding a particular ADR stock issuing a special dividend. I placed a trade prior to the ex-dividend date (as published on Scottrade’s site, and in agreement with the date on the stock’s actual company site). The stock shot up a couple days later and I sold the stock.

Dividend payment date rolls around (about a month later) and no payment appears in my account. I check Scottrade’s research area again and the company’s website and nothing’s changed. I called my Scottrade branch, wondering where my dividend was. THEY WENT TO THE NASDAQ SITE and responded to me that THE INFORMATION ON THEIR SITE was INCORRECT. (According to the NASDAQ site the ex-dividend was changed to a couple days AFTER I had sold the stock.)

Lesson #1: Poor and inaccurate information through Scottrade’s website. Do your research elsewhere…or even on NASDAQ, where it appears Scottrade does their’s.

After two days of phone calls between the branch office and Scottrade’s “Compliance” Department, with many flippant responses, I negotiated 10 “free” trades. That was about three weeks ago. (The story gets better….)

So, yesterday I made a trade on an order I had had open for over a month. One would think things generally work in a first-in-first-out manner, with executed trades taking precedence over unexecuted orders. NOT with Scottrade. When the order processed with a commission charge, I ended up going through the branch and the “compliance” department for another round of excuses and subpar resolutions. According to Scottrade, the “free” trades are “attached” to orders. Because I had placed the open order before receiving the “free” trades, the order executed with a commission charge. Essentially Scottrade’s response was “too bad, so sad.”

So, I cancelled all my open orders, so that it would appear that I was starting with a fresh page, right? Today, I placed a sell order on a stock to liquidate the entire position. Scottrade splits the sell order on execution
and charges me TWO of my “free” trades. Then I placed a buy order good for the day. The order expired at the end of the day unexecuted. I GOT CHARGED ONE OF MY FREE TRADES.

All I can say is that I will be using whatever “free” trades I have left (if they don’t just disappear), and even fully commissioned trades to get out of Scottrade as fast as possible. Their system and excuse for “customer service” is a joke.

BEWARE!!!! Look elsewhere for a PROFESSIONAL brokerage service.

By: Jessica

Jessica — Mon, 25 Oct 2010 18:00:09 +0000

Hello David,

We’re sorry to see you go. I see that you might have an unresolved issue and we would like to look further into your situation. Please contact us at (800) 619-7283.

Jessica
Social Media Specialist, Scottrade Inc.

By: David

David — Sat, 23 Oct 2010 07:35:51 +0000

Scottrade is a joke..BUYER BEWARE. Was with them for 4 years until Scottrade could not execute a market order placed end of day and sold me out of my position first thing the next moring at a $1300 loss! I told them that this is unacceptable because I never received a warning and figured that the order expired end of the trading session but those scumbags carried it over to the next day. SCOTTRADE HAS A PROBLEM WITH THEIR TECHNOLOGY AND LATENCY CAN COST YOU $$$$$$. You get what you pay for so don’t think you are saving money with $7 trades because Scottrade can cost investors in the end.

By: Kris

Kris — Tue, 17 Aug 2010 15:42:45 +0000

Original Reply: 08/16/2010 at 10:31 am

Good morning, Joe. I’m sorry to hear that you are having issues with trading in your account.

If a stock that is held in a Scottrade margin account experiences a significant intraday decrease in share price, the account may reflect inflated buying power. When this occurs, it may have to be temporarily restricted online only. These restrictions are temporary, apply to all accounts (not just margin accounts), and they don’t prevent you from selling these securities online or purchasing them at the Internet commission rate through your local Scottrade branch office.

We would like to hear more about your issues related to the branch so they can be addressed. Would you e-mail more information to mediarelations (at) scottrade (dot) com?

We would also be happy to troubleshoot any issues you are having with the website or Streaming Quotes (800.619.7283) with Tech Support.

Sincerely,

Kris
Chat and Social Media Specialist, Scottrade

By: Jessica

Jessica — Mon, 16 Aug 2010 14:13:26 +0000

Hi Simeon,
I am sorry to hear that you are not happy with your experience at your local branch. I understand that you have spoken with us and will be moving to a new branch office. I hope you will have a better experience at that branch and that we can work through any unresolved issues you might have. We value your business and want to provide you with quality customer service, online and in-person. Should you have any additional feedback, don’t hesitate to contact us at 800-619-7283.

Best,
Jessica
Social Media Specialist, Scottrade

By: Joe Pack

Joe Pack — Sat, 14 Aug 2010 12:37:57 +0000

Several items observed with Scottrade;
When they decide a stock falls in price to a certain percentage, you must call the local branch office to place a limit order. This gives select gang members time to buy the stock at a lower price than you.
There is usually a 10-15 minute hold on the call to the office? You can then speak to a nasty local branch office broker.
When you finally get the limit order in your online streaming account window, the site will lock up.
The Scottrade branch office managers talk to their customers with less than $1 million in account value as peons. It is not their fault, they were born that way..
I wonder if the branch manager’ attitude would change when a smitten customer followed them and used an “on the way home” 36″ Hickory wood attitude adjuster?

By: Simeon

Simeon — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 19:03:17 +0000

Terrible customer service. The online part of the brokerage works OK, not great (slow) but OK. I do not ever want to deal with their people at the Towson, MD office. Every time I’ve had to deal with them it’s been a bad experience!

By: Louie

Louie — Thu, 22 Apr 2010 11:11:21 +0000

I will never use scottrade again. If there is ever a class action suit filed for scottrade freezing up at critical moments…I want in. I would advise anyone to steer clear of scottrade. I would love to see the readout of all the customers who were locked out at those times and those who werent. I wonder if a pattern would emerge? PR REP… dont bother, as Ive told the orangatan down at the local office….there is nothing you can say or do to keep me from telling everyone I can………
DONT USE SCOTTRADE!