T D Ameritrade TD Ameritrade Shut Us Out of Our Accounts and then Threw Our Money Out Omaha Nebraska

In November of 2013, T D Ameritrade upgraded their website.

 In so doing, they shut us out of online access to our accounts.

 Our local Encino, CA branch could not help.  TDA's Tech department suggested we try a browser so outdated it would give us all sorts of additional problems.    The Tech Supervisor also told us that the company had received thousands of calls from aggrieved customers across the country who were facing the same issue. 

We called the Omaha, Nebraska HQ, where we patiently explained our problem to the operator and asked to speak to someone who could help.  We were transferred to the Office of the President, specifically a woman named Betsy Myers.  She did not provide a title.    She also said TDA was not obliged to provide online access to its customers.  And then she hung up on us.

We called back, and despite telling the operator we needed to speak to someone else, got put back to Ms Myers again, who repeated exactly what she had said previously.  We politely told her we no longer wanted to talk to her, and to connect us with a superior.  She refused.  Everytime we called back, there she was.  

We wrote an email to the investor relations department, and copied corporate affairs.  A few hours later, we received a phone call from a Mr Daniel Pilmaier, from the Office of the President, saying if we continued to try and contact the company, TDA would be forced to reevaluate its relationship with us.

Two days later, we received a letter stating that the company no longer wanted our money and we had 30 days to take it out and we would be responsible for any fees, penalties and charges.  We had been abruptly terminated.  

We wrote to the head of retail, Mr Tom Bradley, but that email was forwarded back to Mr Pilmaier, who called and said, basically, "don't waste your time."

We have filed a complaint with FINRA against these two individuals and the company.

Our money is out, and now with companies like Vanguard and Fidelity where the executives are knowledgeable, polite and seem to care more about their customers than the unethical TD Ameritrade.  

I would caution everyone about doing business with them: they are arrogant, ineffectual and, as just proven, do not care for your business.   Their web upgrade has effectively shut out thousands of people, most of whom probably figure there is nothing they can do.

Our attempts to resolve this matter were met by TDA simply terminating us, and they put on the case two employees of indeterminate ranking who circled the wagons, prevented any further access and figured the best way to hide their poor and crass behaviour was to throw our money out.  

A company to stay away from.