Firstrade Securities Whitestone Expy, Queens

Very bad they don’t understand English and they don’t call you back?they never give you a last name?Very Unprofessional and are uncommunicative and you should stay away from this bad organization.

Firstrade refuses to allow withdrawal of account funds. I requested that funds be transferred to my bank from Firstrade. First, they asked for my drivers license, for security reasons. Fine. Then they asked for a copy of my bank account statement, also for security. Fine. I sent it. Still, no transfer. No funds. Meanwhile I'm waiting for funds that I desperately need to pay bills. Apparently, Firstrade was trying to call me to verify that, again, it was me who was requesting the transfer. (Of course it's me, since I made the request through my secure online account and provided my drivers license and bank statement!) Since my phone number had changed they were unable to contact me. So I updated my phone number on my account. I was told first that the changed phone number would take 2-3 days to process(!) Then I was told that the request for new phone contact information would be rejected because I had just established the account a few months ago(!) But meanwhile, I got a message from Firstrade by email that suggested that I could call them in order to verify the account and the transfer. So I called them. They asked me some security questions in order to confirm that in fact I wanted to withdraw some funds from my account. Finally, I thought I was making progress. But, unfortunately, after asking these security questions, Firstrade informed me that my requested transfer was cancelled and that I would have to start from scratch! So now I am starting over. I have substantial sums with Firstrade. Who knows when they will let me see my money. Very disappointed.

I have been using this brokerage for about 15 years. They pioneered low cost trades. I was satisfied with their simple online services up until the day I needed to speak to someone on the phone. The employees can barely communicate in English. They are completely unprofesional and unhelpful. Now that I am trying to leave, they are refusing to transfer my account to a new brokerage in direct violation of SEC rules. I will be filing complaints with the SEC, FINRA, and the NYS Attorney General about this company. Save yourselves the headache and invest your money with someone else.

Overall a terrible experience with Firstrade. Find their procedures and customer service archaic. Their website is very difficult to navigate and is not intuitive. The website itself looks like it’s not been updated since the late 90s. Opened An Account Based On Low Trading Costs But Clear You Get What You Pay For. Main issues: - Booked 3 trades that were rejected because the fund was not opened to new investors. NO EMAIL NOTIFICATION ADVISING OF TRADE REJECTION. There was nothing on the site preventing trading with all trades appearing to have been placed. it is reasonable to expected email notification of trade rejection but were obliged to go onto the site to see why the trades were rejected. Calling customer servicers were told log into the site to confirm trades have been successfully placed - Did not act on instruction to withdraw cash from our Firstrade account back to our external funding account. Instead DELAYED REPAYMENT wanting us to inform if there are any issues we experienced relating to their trading platform. - Wanted to change our external funding account to a joint account but were told we could not do thins until we had out account open for 3 months

Poor customer service. Email response is always slow or even ignored. I asked a question about withdrawal with international wire but I got no response. Being unable to withdraw fund is the most serious issue for investors but they don't care about it at all. If the firm does not concern about the fund withdrawal seriously, no commission or no account fee is meaningless to customer. No confidence in putting money there!

Extremely unresponsive with even simple requests. They don’t pick up the phone when you call and take over two weeks to respond to emails. Don’t waste your time with them if you anticipate ever wanting to make any changes to your account.

Customer Service seems helpful but back office is terrible. There is a 30 business day hold periods to take out funds even when the funds were wired-in for new accounts. Extra identification documents not specified originally are asked for every request.They will also ask you to explain if you wired-in funds from bank account A and get it transferred to bank account B (in your ACH profile).If that was the case, you shouldn't accept transfers in from bank accounts not in in ACH profile.Why take the money gleefully and then ask for explanation when customer wants to withdraw? Almost seems that they think every customer is a criminal or money launderer. I don't want to entrust them with my money as I am sure they will create even more "rules and regulations" to prevent me from withdrawing my own funds. UPDATE 2/11/2019 They quietly charged me 5.00 as paper statement fee for an account which they confirmed they had closed. I had to call to get it refunded.I honestly don't even know in which part of the application i was given a choice of paper vs electronic statement. I just want to close all my accounts with them but I am not even sure whether they closed my account even though their customer service says account has been closed.

I have used Firstrade for 15 yrs. Got a big surprise today. They charge me $75 for moving to another company, $55 for moving part of retirement account. Otherwise, they would hijack $500 of my money from my Firstrade account. WHAT?! Never signed a contract showing these high fees before. Could not even find some of them online. I withdrew before without so much fee. Customer service lied and said every company charges these fees. Vanguard and TIAA-CREF do not. Very disappointed. Very bad business practices. Stay away from Firstrade!

The most incompetent broker you will ever do business with. Everytime I have to speak with customer service, I end the conversation in disbelief that I have trusted these people with custodianship of my money. And yet, I'm still a customer, because of the low fees, and because I hope and pray everytime that I can just trade on the automated system and not have to interact with anyone who works here. Seriously, if you don't want to deal with constant glitches, poor trade execution, and totally clueless customer service representatives, save yourself and go elsewhere.

SCAM ARTISTS - I signed up for an account, made a few referrals, went to make a deposit and made a few referrals within a few days, and they disabled my account. Calling gets you an hour worth of "hold music", having them answer then hang up, or getting voicemail after waiting on hold for an hour. Waste your time, and STILL end up with a disabled account.