Common Complaints Against Charles Schwab

A common customer complaint arises from how their investment accounts are managed. Some who opt to use Charles Schwab’s advisory services may be shocked to see high management fees, as well as high fees for trading and investment activity. In other cases, customers report delays and system outages when they try to purchase or sell stocks online. Given the volatility of stock prices, delays can end up costing customers of Charles Schwab bank thousands of dollars. Other customers complain that they experience similar delays when they call customer service for help with making trades.

Customers have reported that their brokerage accounts have been closed due to their credit scores. In other cases, they may receive no explanation other than it was a “business decision.”

Many times, these are new accounts that are closed within a few weeks of being opened. When customers go online, they can easily open up an account at Charles Schwab and are given instructions as to how to transfer funds into their new brokerage account. Customers take them up on this and often transfer in several thousand dollars to their accounts started.

Yet, within a few days, they find out that their funds are frozen and they cannot access them. Frustrated customers claim that they were never informed that their credit score played a role in their ability to have an account with Charles Schwab bank and that the credit checks should be completed before they were given instructions as to how to transfer funds into their brokerage account. Further, customers claim that it can take weeks, even months, to get their money back after their accounts have been closed.

Charles Schwab bank receives numerous complaints about their poor service. Customers claim that they call in for help only to be put on hold for several minutes. They are often transferred to multiple banking representatives and have to explain their situation to every new person that they are talking to.

In one case, “I attempted several times to contact a representative of Schwab to inquire to what the issue is. The customer service was horrendous. The 1-800 numbers were not working “all carrier lines were busy”. If you called the office for Canonsburg, PA, you ended up with a representative from Houston,TX. I had a few representatives blow me off, they pretended they pulled my account up but never asked me any information including my name. The one representative that actually asked for my information and legitimately looked at my account, told me that their system doesn’t show a pending transaction. I told the representative that on my summary page for my accounts on Schwab’s website showed that my transaction and account were pending for approval as previous stated in this review. The only solution that was offered by Schwab was to put another deposit request in. Why would I trust you with more of my money if you couldn’t manage to handle an initial deposit? “

Other customers claim that they are put on hold for an excessive period of time as the service representatives are unable to help them and need to get the of a supervisor. Customers also complain that service representatives are uninformed, unhelpful, and in some cases, rude.

As one customer noted: “Poor customer support…meaning that you’ll spend hours waiting for a rep to solve your issues.”