Comments on: Sharebuilder Review

By: Adam

Adam — Sat, 15 Oct 2011 00:37:17 +0000

To add to this list of horrible experiences, my accounts were restricted as well. Because I transferred part of my Overdraft Line from my Electric Orange Account to Sharebuilder. I just started college and wanted to do a little investing, to learn things out, transferred $2000 to my Sharebuilder Account. After making some gains, they restricted my account too, with open Options positions that are expiring. They didn’t care that my Options were expiring. This bank has problems. HOWEVER, not 100% sure if it worked or not, but before they restricted my account, I printed out a Direct Deposit Form. I remembered this because what they did bothered me so much, so I wanted to see if I pay my credit card bill using the Sharebuilder routing number and account number (which was different than the number they give you when you sign on). The payment went through and my credit card company said that they received the funds. So I did another payment, this time a little larger.

Hopefully it goes through.

By: Abhishek

Abhishek — Thu, 21 Jul 2011 18:29:28 +0000

I had the worst experience with Sharebuilder. They have restricted my account because I had opened 2 accounts. They wanted the verification from the bank, the copy of my SSN and driver’s license.

The customer service sucks big time.

By: thunderthighs

thunderthighs — Tue, 05 Apr 2011 06:49:43 +0000

I have primarily been trading with free automatic and real-time credits I’ve racked up via promotional codes. Unfortunately, I’ve been having trouble finding codes on the usual blogs, forums, etc. around the Internet lately. It seems Sharebuilder has really scaled the promotions back. I’m interested in hearing others’ opinions on the $12-per-month Advantage plan, which includes 12 auto trades and real-time trades for $7.95 (versus $9.95 with Basic). Has anyone here tried out Advantage? Do you think the subscription fee is worth it?

By: Alicia

Alicia — Sat, 06 Nov 2010 08:50:56 +0000

Oh my God!!!! Thanks for writing this Post. I will Never dare to start investing with them again.

By: Alicia

Alicia — Sat, 06 Nov 2010 08:49:31 +0000

Well, I was getting ready to start investing with Sharebuilder; but after reading the nightmare, some people have had with Sharebuilder.com, I’ve decided to go Somewhere else.

By: cbecerril

cbecerril — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 22:43:57 +0000

We just went through a nightmare experience with sharebuilder & think everyone should look at this company a little closer. First, we bought 200000 shares of stock, over 186000.00 and were charged 6000.00 in commission fees by sharebuilder. We asked why after the 6000.00 was deducted from out account. We were told that it was a “over the limit” commission fee. we complained, contacted them directly by phone. A few days later we logged on to our account only find that it had been “restricted”. Contacted sharebuilder again, by phone to find out what was going on, they began to request proof of id. we faxed in copies of all they requested, drivers license & a bill with our address on it. 2 days later still no answer, called back & again was told to fax in copy of DL. They asked us this 2 more times, so the 4th time we had a copy of the DL notarized for verification. This went on for 3 weeks, at the end of the 3rd week we asked our Lawyer to call and find out what was going on. The day he called, Sharebuilder closed out account, sold our stock, without permission, resulting in a 10000.00 lose. We still could not get anyone on the phone to talk to us, they would not connect us to their legal department or upper management. 3 days later our money, minus what we losted, minus the another 6000.00 that they charged us for selling out stock as it was also consider “a large order sell, what was left of our money was returned to our bank. We are considering legal action as to this date, we have had not explanation for any of this. After receiving our money back we opened an account with etrade, purchased 196000 shares of the stock back, expecting to be charged somekind of “over the limit” charge by them as well, and guess what? Etrade only charged exactly what they said, no extra charge, no hidden fees after the stocks were bought, just a one time 9.95 fee. We are still just blown away by Sharebuilder and can’t understand what happened. We have had an account for our children for over 3 years with sharebuilder and never had any problems till now. Only after we invested our life savings. Our childrens account has also been closed and they also sold the stock in that account and it is still frozen. So far Sharebuilder has not even released the funds back into our daughters account. So please be careful with Sharebuilder. I know you will be getting charged a lot more than you are quoted & if you complain, you will loss. CBecerril

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Tue, 12 May 2009 11:12:59 +0000

PEr transaction is per trade is $10 total, $5 for each trade. not per share…only in some penny stock transactions with thousands of shares do you get a per share fee, and that is usually micro-cents on the dollar.

By: Cap

Cap — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 03:10:57 +0000

@Glenn: uh jim’s phrasing may make it more confusing but what jim means when he says “one for each company” is one transaction for each company you bought. so yeah, you’d owe the brokerage $10 – $5 for each transaction.

By: jim

jim — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 23:17:20 +0000

@Glenn: You’d owe them $10, one for each company.

By: Eric J. Nisall

Eric J. Nisall — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 18:30:40 +0000

I peronally feel that Sharebuilder is the biggest waste of time and money. Yes, it is easy and cheap, but purchasing stocks takes research and informed decision-making which cannot be done with the site on its own. If an investor happens to have access to other tools as well, that may be fine but the fact that trades only occur on certain days in order to take advantage of group purchases is ridiculous. When investing there should be clearly defined entry and exit points-established by each investor based on their own preferences or comfort levels-and that simply cannot be accomplished with this company. In order to do that, you would need to place real-time trades, which put the pricing level on par with most other discount brokers who have much more in-depth research which can be invaluable. And, if the investor is inexperienced and just trying to get a feel, most feature-full discount brokers do not charge anything for no-load no-transaction-fee mutual funds, which would beat Sharebuilder hands down. Plus, if you are only worried about Dollar Cost Averaging, then this Tuesday-only trading really is of no benefit, since there is literally no control over the price point. Just my opinion, but I would much rather pay a little more and go with an E*Trade or TD Ameritrade and get much more research and info (not to mention value) for my invested money.

By: Miss M

Miss M — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 18:08:05 +0000

Sharebuilder isn’t the best but they do offer sign up bonuses (like the one for costco members) and you can occassionally get free trade promotions. Between the two I’d say they are OK for the casual investor, someone who only buys/sells once or twice a year. I dollar cost average into no-load mutual funds, why pay any commission, especially when you are investing small amounts. Even $4 is a lot compared to the $50/month investments I make.

By: Scott

Scott — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 17:47:11 +0000

While Dollar-Cost Averaging is a part of the appeal, I find ShareBuilder to be best suited for the first-time investor interested in a buy-and-hold strategy. The site design is much more user friendly than TradeKing, Zecco, and OptionsXpress (the others I have used), and the lack of maintenance fees and minimum investment requirements reduce the risk of getting started.
Also, ShareBuilder can link to your ING Direct savings account. Having the accounts linked allows me to instantly transfer funds from my savings into my investment account so I don’t have to wait for the funds to arrive (as much as 3-4 days with my other accounts). This way, I can take advantage of the higher interest rates of my savings account without sacrificing the ability to capitalize on the buying opportunities that are so abundant right now.
As an update: ShareBuilder has just recently (in the past few days) added Real Time quotes to their website.

By: Donny Gamble

Donny Gamble — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 16:57:36 +0000

The best feature that I like about sharebuilder is the option to buy a stock with express funding. If you don’t have any money in your sharebuilder account, for an extra $5 you can purchase the stock any way and they will automatically take the money out of your checking account

By: Evan

Evan — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 16:01:20 +0000

Sogoinvest / Sogotrade used to have a better deal where it was 3 buck trades when you did it on your own OR 10/month for 10 auto trades and the auto trades were done on the day you chose. But I guess they found it unprofitable…cause they stopped it!

There has to be a better option than Sharebuilder?

By: Jillian

Jillian — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 15:52:16 +0000

Sharebuilder actually does do limit orders for “real time” trades (the ones that cost $9.95) – I set one up the other day!