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!