E*TRADE Warning
 

Just want to warn you that E*TRADE had made promises to their customers to give you promotional frequent flyer miles (5000) if you open up an E*TRADE account via the web, and they said through their customer service dpet that they would post them after 60 days. When you go back to them to collect on this, they tell you that if you didn't get the miles immediately, you cannot get them. It is obviously set up as a scam, but if they cut your promotional promises, imagine what they might do with your money.

My suggestion is to stay away from E*TRADE and to pass this info on to anyone thinking about using them as a trading company.

I opened my e-trade account and the 5000 miles posted to my United account within 2 weeks. Very good experience.

I have had nothing but problems http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/frown.gif with E*TRADE posting miles. My miles posted after 6 months. That too after calling them at least 10 times. I referred two of my friends to them and I should have received 5k miles for each account. E*TRADE flat out refused to credit my account, stating that they had no indication that the accounts were referred by me. I had no paper trail since I had done this on the web (BTW you can only do this on the web). This is surely a scam. They charge exorbitant rates per trade and their service sucks..

See the previous posts on E*Trade, they pretty much back up what Debbie said. It is pretty much hit and miss with them. I am still waiting (over 6 months and 25 emails, letters, and phone calls) for a 5000 mile UA referral bonus to post. Someone needs to take them to court, I don't think promotions like this fall under thier binding arbitration rules.

I also had a positive experience with E*Trade. My wife and I both opened accounts and received the promised bonus miles. I also received the referal bonus when a friend opened an account. All bonuses posted within about 45 days.

Add my name to the "seriously disappointed with e*trade" camp. Nothing but hassles; I'll be moving my accounts elsewhere soon.

I had problems with Etrade as well. It was not on FF but on a deal to receive 2 Tina turner tickets. When I called about not receiving them they had me down for the $100 of AOL credit and I am not even an AOL user. I did get it straightened out thru about 10 calls to customer service.
They also spelled my name wrong when they rekeyed the info I had input on the web.
I ahve closed the account because I lost confidence.

I just called etrade yesterday about my 5,000 miles from 6 months ago http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/frown.gif

I forwarded this posting to etrade at [email protected]. I don't think they will read it but I tried.

Maybe we should start swamping this service email address with our complaints.

[This message has been edited by wingless4 (edited 07-20-2000).]

I also had very mixed results with E-Trade. Got my first couple of Mileage Plus posting quickly and expected a handful more for additional accounts (which was totally legit based on their own FAQ) and was denied the miles after speaking to supervisor after supervisor. I finally decided life is too short to deal with E-Trade.

I had no problem receiving Delta Skymiles for an account I opened. I also had no problem getting free 6 months of AOL back in March for openeing an IRA with E*trade.

Very positive results. (But my stock picks were lousy.)

Opened three accounts for self, spouse and family trust. All points posted within three weeks.

Then opened five trustee accounts for grand-kids and all posted promptly. Referred son-in-law who opened three accounts...WE BOTH GOT THE BONUS plus the opening account points. Without checkng the statement thnk that's about 60,000 between the two of us.

Sorry for those who had bad experences but think both sides should be heard.

I've had mixed results w/E*Trade. I got my miles posted after 1 phone call and 2/3 of my referral miles posted after about 6 phone calls. One more referral bonus needs to post, but because of all the calls I've had to make, I now have several "in's" with E*Trade staff, so if anyone wants a referral that is likely to post with minimum hassles, just let me know.


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Time..... is on my side.

I opened an account as part of the HHonors promotion. Was due 25'000 points. Got only 7500 posted after 2 months. Took me another 4 months and several calls & e-mails to get the issue resolved.

[This message has been edited by cesco.g (edited 07-20-2000).]

I opened an account about 18 months ago with E*Trade. The promised signup bonus of 5000 miles took 9 months. A referral bonus of 5000 miles never posted inspite of repeated correspondence for one year!

In disgust, I cancelled my account and took my money elsewhere.

I have to say that E*trade makes MCI look like a well run company and that takes some doing!

E*trade are a nightmare and I think programs offering their miles might like to consider the continued participation as they bring their schemes into disrepute.

Markie is on to something here.

It reminds me of how we got AT&T to give us the points we were due in a Sherton Preferred Guest promotion - essentially we made it Sheraton's problem. Very quickly things started to get done.

So, I suggest that if you are a frequent flier that you call their service center and get them to help us fix the problems of MCI, E*Trade, AT&T, etc. - after all it is our loyalty to the airlines that is supposed to be generating all these points !!

Does anyone have the BEST email address for E-Trade?

Thanks in advance for your reply

*trade is evil. I got the 5000 miles only after a couple months of wasted calls/unanswered e-mails and only with intervention from Clickrewards customer service. Come to think of it, the six months are up and I can close the account now.

I signed up for E*Trade six weeks ago... and received my 5,000 miles last week.

No problems whatsoever.

William

I posted on this on 8-28. I now have my full 25,000 promised miles from ETrade, and I am sitting on a $800 small claims court judgment which I intend to collect.

Finally got the last of my miles 3 weeks ago. Overall, it was a frustrating, but worthwhile experience for the number of miles I received vs. the effort required to collect them. I think E*Trade needs to improve its customer service and promptly post what was promised. At least I got everything I was due, which is more than I can say for 1-800-FLOWERS.

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Time..... is on my side.

I had a Etrade/MicroCenter deal where buying something worth of $400 or more and open an account and get the $400 back in your Etrade account.
I shopped at MicroCenter for $400 and opened the account and within 1 week I got the $400 back. Good experience.
Howerver, when I try to put more money into the account, the money never showed up, called Etrade, was put on hold for 45 mins and then they told me that they have never received the check. I immediately canceled the check, and stopped giving money to etrade. Right now I just have a little with Etrade, will transfer it out to my main brokerage account in the near future.
Though I got my money quick this time, but I dont' really trust them fully.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/articl...19/BU86960.DTL

I just recently opened a DL account with E Trade and the miles were posted in under 3 weeks. http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif The secret is to call them up and let them walk you through the registration process. The online form is misleading in it's instructions. THe phone representative told me that they have had many complaints because of that issue and that is why miles aren't being posted. I guess it is asking too much, to just correct the registration form.

I signed up online and got my miles after a couple of weeks.
E*Trade is slow but O.K.

Does anyone have the best email to use for E-Trade?

mailto:[email protected][email protected]</A>
I find my referrals post quickly, but E*Trade takes forever to fund the accounts and give the miles for opening the account. All in all, it's worth the effort IMHO. I have netted 50,000 miles, so I can't complain.

When I sent this thread to Etrade several months ago to [email protected] I received a personalized letter regarding the problems I was having with getting my miles and they thanked me for sending them this link.

I still needed to make a call or two before I received my miles.

[This message has been edited by wingless (edited 09-20-2000).]

While I did not participate in any of the E-Trade mileage promos I do have a horror story. I have had a small E-Trade account for about two years. I use Quicken and they had a promo that if you opened/transferred an IRA account you would get Q2000 Deluxe for free.

So, I opened two accounts, one for me and one for my wife. Well, they sent TurboTax, not Q2K! When I called they said that was the promo. Since I didn't have the paper backup I had to take my lumps. OK, no problem, right? Wrong!

When I opened the account I told them to use the proceeds from my soon-to-be-closed PBHG Growth Fund accounts. I had been unhappy with the direction of the fund and this would be a perfect opportunity for me to get into some equities that I wanted to own. Well, they didn't close my PBHG but merely transferred the Growth Fund from PBHG's trustee to their own. So, when I went to purchase the equities not only did I have no available cash, but I then was socked with a $24.95 trading fee to liquidate the fund, followed by their $19.95 commissions to buy.

Well, what a dummy I am. Should have, could have, would have went to Ameritrade, etc. because I knew what I wanted to buy. I let the offer of the Quicken cloud my judgement, then to ONLY receive Turbo Tax!!! When I complained about the way my Growth Fund was handled as a transfer and not a liquidation I was basically blown off by E-Trade. I told them I wanted to handle it internally but that I would not hesitate to file a complaint with NASD and the Dept of Justice. Their CS rep's response was, "So what. Go ahead." This pissed me off and I asked to speak to his supervisor. His supervisor had the same 'do not care' attitude.

Well, I have filed the formal complaints and after reading this thread think I will file a small claims suit as well! I am in the process of moving my non-IRA stocks to buyANDhold.com and looking where I want to move the IRA accounts!

I wouldn't waste my time with small claims court, you signed a binding arbitration agreement when you opened up the account. The brokerages carefully guard these binding arb agreements becuase they protect them from otherwise unlimited litigation. If you do take it to small claims they will probably not show up, then appeal the verdict so it will go to a real court. You will then have to pay for a lawyer and the whole thing becomes more trouble then its worth.
Also, although I dislike E*Trade as much as you, what they did in your case is not even wrong. The industry standard when you ask to transfer an account is to transfer the stock or funds, not to automatically liquidate. Unless you specifically told them to liquidate prior to the transfer, they did the right thing by just transfering the fund. Although in your case it was adventageous to liquidate, most people are sitting on potential capitol gains that they don't want to have to pay just because they transfer brokers.

hey CG, I can't say whether or not ETrade has an enforceable arbitration clause. In my small claims action they never bothered to appear, so I got a default judgment. They cannot appeal that, and I will eventually collect. I doubt that they could enforce an arbitration clause if you allege fraud or misrepresentation. http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif

To the contrary, E*Trade can appeal a default judgement. In California, they have 30 days in which to act, then the judgement stands, the requirements vary by state. See http://www.nolo.com/encyclopedia/articles/cm/cm31.html Nolo puts out a very good book on small claims cases for the layman and in it they specifically say that even a default judgement can be appealed. They also talk about the difficulty of collection, please keep us informed of how/when you finally collect. They say in some cases you can have a deputy actually go into the place of business and take the money out of the till. If you could do that to E*Trade and get a video it would make my day to watch it.