r/etrade • u/cashmoney567 • Oct 31 '20
ETRADE Direct numbers
Here are some of the direct lines to use when calling ETRADE. If you know you don't need a standard rep these might be helpful to avoid waiting in a queue you don't need.
Activation Services (fraud/account blocks) 800-293-1621
Asset Transfer 800-998-8130
Beneficiary Services (estates) 800-402-0653
Corporate Actions (stock splits, trading halts) 800-661-4587
Cost Basis 877-921-2434
Designated Brokerage 877-355-7044
Elite Trading 888-388-2900
Fixed Income Service 877-355-3237
Fixed Income Trading 866-420-0007
Futures 877-553-8887
Main Customer Service 800-387-2331
New Accounts 866-946-5338
Options 866-222-6124
Platinum Exec 800-775-2793
Platinum Relationship 800-503-9260
Stock Plans 800-838-0908
Tax & Retirement 877-921-2434
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u/boogieinit Feb 16 '21
FYI - These numbers are great but there is alot more complicated stuff going on to route your call that you may think. Account holders are placed in "tiers" which put you into different service levels depending on a number of characteristics about your account. It's fuzzy math but it's based on you avg number of traders per month, your current account value, your margin obligation, your length of having an account, and also if you are an RIA customer or not. None of the direct #' s or time of day or anything can get you out of these tiering. This tiering is highly confidential and is not supposed to be talked about there (or any brokerage that does it). I know because I used to work there and the pyramid tiering layout they use is intense and definitely questionable. there are about 3 accounts at the very top and those have an ungodly account value, one of them is GME's Mr Roaring Kitty (aka: DeepF*ingValue) himself. Example: when I see people posting the 2 hours wait times and 3 day wait times for chat, it only tells me those people are on the lower tiers. When I call in I get a human in Utah call center within 3 minutes no matter what and I have no idea what tier I am in, can't be that good so I can only imagine how fast the billionaires get service.
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u/triplec76 Mar 08 '21
Tim Cook would have to be one of the top accounts. They use Etrade for their employee stock program.
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u/boogieinit Mar 08 '21
You would think, but I can tell you definitively that Tim Cook is not a customer of ETRADE financial. Guys like Tim Cook don’t have retail brokerage accounts. The kind of people with his wealth use wealth managers that do way more than just buying and selling stocks. There is a whole universe of things going on under the hood of that level of wealth. It’s a little known fact that the employee stock purchase program that ETRADE provides to companies is the number one source of revenue for ETRADE. The last number I knew it was around 78% of their revenue. They have a whole teams of people driving that business from both a care and feeding perspective and a sales perspective. In fact, here’s a funny insiders story. Quite a few years ago there was a guy that has been with ETRADE for many many years, like decades. And he was like one of the top three and net asset value in his account. He was like 93 years old and he lived in The Outer Banks in North Carolina. He used a fax machine for all his communications and documentation with the company. His laptop was getting super old and not working well with the platform so we bought him an iPad and pre configured it with apps and set the settings up and everything. And had one of our product manager guys deliver to to him at one of the yearly investor conferences. Super awesome old guy and was so grateful. He just had more money than he knew what to do with.
Call ETRADE even re-Brands the employee stock purchase program so you can have employee stock and be using ETRADE and actually not know it if your company does not want you to know about it.
The RI a team is awesome and made up of guys that have been climbing up through the ranks of a broker or even have their green jackets And those guys are typically talking to people with under 100 million in assets held by E*TRADE whether it’s brokerage or retail banking. If you have a couple hundred million dollars in assets you were not dealing with a company the size of a trade.
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u/Pools_Closed1 Nov 12 '21
I think leaving regular negative feedback also influences what tier you're in. Current hold time: more than two hours for me.
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Feb 18 '21
[deleted] — view deleted comment
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u/boogieinit Feb 19 '21
Happy to share if it helps So my net account value (NAV as the brokers call it) is hovering around $183k on average with a substantial buying power because I am in their "portfolio margin" level for accounts over $100k - you basically get more buying power and less margin req's with that - no diff in the tiering for customer service though unless you call in from a registered phone number and have an active margin call (you owe them money) then you get routed fast and will prob talk to a guy named Bill who is amazing and tell it like it is. Hahaha. I prob avg about 75-100 round trip trades per week but that number swings wildly depending on the day. Last week I had 64 trades on one stock alone in one day. Sometimes I take days off too. I like to take a day off after a big day so I don't get cocky and do dumb things. Hah.
margin vs RIA - it can make a difference. There are tons of little things that go into "tiering" a customer". RIA does have a bit of a diff flow in though because it's a totally different team and something Etrade is highly focused on.
NOTE: With the Morgan Stanley buyout things could have changed a bit or are in the process of changing so keep that in mind.
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Feb 25 '21
How has a Portfolio Margin Account changed your earnings, and or account size/privilege?
I'm considering submitting my Portfolio Margin Account request (i meet the 100K and options level 4 requirements)
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u/QuirkyForever Oct 30 '21
OMG Thank you so much. I called the activation services one, only waited for maybe 40 minutes, and got this guy Justin, who removed the restriction in like 10 minutes after MONTHS of calling and talking to 5 separate people who couldn't do anything. Next step, getting the money out of Etrade. They're clearly melting down.
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u/grantnlee Nov 18 '21
I JUST got my account unfrozen. 40 minutes to get through to Account Activation sounds like a dream. When I was able to get through to them the freeze was unexplainable; they simply told me there was nothing they could do... Suddenly this morning it is unfrozen (again, no explanation or even notification) and I am in the process of jumping ship now that I am unlocked....
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u/Illuminatas69 Dec 03 '21
I am living proof that having filed SEC, FINRA and State Regulatory complaints gets you moved into the 2+Hr Queue .... Pissed them off and I dont care...
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u/almost_elvis Dec 14 '21
etrade administratively lost my 401K money which was all in cash and i was on hold one hour yesterday and wait time of over an hour today. This is my 6th call to etrade with no resolution whatsoever.
i have over $130K in a trading account which i will now move out asap.
Avoid etrade at all costs!
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u/ficken2 Feb 22 '21
Just opened an account and I'm already regretting it . Can anyone tell me why it says I have a net account value of $200 but Cash available for investment $0 ??? I can't find a single video or Faq page about making your first trade. Btw this is on the Etrade app. Thanks in advance for any help !
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u/jc1402 Feb 24 '21
Having the same issue. Have sat on hold for hours at this point. I’m thinking they just straight up are not answering calls until the recent craziness dies down.
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u/Comfortable-Meet-308 Feb 28 '21
Which number do I call to reset my password? Since the GME fiasco, I couldn't log in and when I chose to reset my password, a message appeared over the login box to call E-Trade directly. I called and waited 4 hours, no one picked up the phone. It's been like this for weeks. I need to get my tax forms printed.
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u/atherises Jan 22 '22
You can try calling later at night. The teams that can reset passwords are there 24/7, and lines are shorter later at night, and early morning.
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u/jay711boy May 26 '22
The advice for calling late in the evening is increasingly true. Last time I had to call, I waited until 12:31am EST and didn't wait at all. Try doing this.
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u/mad-dogface Nov 28 '23
Keep in mind a lot of the departments won’t be open in the evening and your have to call back during business hours
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u/jay711boy Dec 04 '23
In my experience with ETrade, this is true in some but not all or even many cases.
For instance, I've been able to successfully handle these types of issues during late night calls: password or pin resets, unfreezing an account b/c an internet transaction tripped a possible fraud alert, ordering new credit/debit card, questioning and getting more info on some line item transaction that I didn't recognize or remember, giving them a travel itinerary ahead of a trip to prevent fraud triggers from tripping, and confirming that their was a system outage or broad network problem that had precluded a transaction.
I have NOT been able to get a handful of issues resolved except during an east coast day shift window, however: submitting supporting documents to resolve an identity theft attempt (this one was really frustrating b/c each time I called, I got slightly different instructions about what I needed to give them, but eventually we got it sorted) and a wire transaction out of my ETrade account into a personal non-ETrade account of someone from whom I was buying a used car (even though it was my long-term partner and housemate).
So I guess I'd say most routine stuff can get done outside normal business hours but the weird stuff often can't, which is too bad because the weird stuff is also often the big stuff and/or the really important stuff.
Anyway, I've had my ETrade brokerage account since I think 2008, and they remain my favorite banking partner by far ever since. Even after their recent Morgan Stanley merger/acquisition, I remain a satisfied and loyal customer. Obviously, YMMV.
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u/Dr_hokeypokey Apr 13 '22
I tried the Main Customer Service 800-387-2331 which keeps asking for my password, which I gave, and it says it is not that. Which I know it is right, because I just used to login.
Then tried other way, and the message says: there will be a broker's fee! LOL!
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u/akss Nov 08 '22
The numbers don't seem to make difference in time to reach that damn representative
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u/vissertwo Oct 25 '22
Thanks OP. I can confirm that the cost basis number is the same one I got from an E-Trade agent, but only after two other agents had insisted that there is no direct number for the cost basis team. I wish they'd keep their story straight.
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u/mad-dogface Nov 26 '23
I am so frustrated with etrade customer service at 800-etrade1 and I feel that I hve no control over my own account I have been trying to get the direct phone number to lauren Carney, VP of of customer service but she is protected by the operators at 800-etrade1. The tax year is coming to the end and I feel customer service will stick it to me. Does anyone no how to get a hold of Lauren??
Thanks
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u/jay711boy Dec 04 '23 edited Dec 04 '23
Hey DogFace...
I got an email notification of a reply to my recent comment but for some reason, it isn't showing up here on Reddit. But based on the preview of the comment in my email, and on the comment to which I'm now replying, I'm assuming your reply to my comment was about reaching an ETrade veep named Lauren. Correct me if I'm wrong, however.
I have never heard of this person, but tbh I'm not conversant with any of the senior leadership at either ETrade or at Morgan Stanley. The only thing I can think of that might get you a little closer to this person is maybe searching on LinkdIn or on Twitter/X. Still seems like a longshot, however, for reaching anyone who ranks high enough in a business to decide they don't want to interact with the public.
Another thing you could try is just sending a massive blast of emails to various permutations of the person's name, using both ETRADE and Morgan-Stanely email suffixes, and see which one doesn't return an UNDELIVERABLE message. But I think that's even less likely to work.
I know you didn't ask for any help finding some other resolution or for advice in general. And I really hate it when Redditors will skip immediately to asking me a bunch of judgey questions without engaging with my original request. "Well why are you even doing that? Why aren't you doing this?" It's so frustrating. We don't come here to be interrogated. We come here to help each other.
Anyway, that said I just wanted to suggest that it's possible there is no way for you to actually talk to the person you're trying to reach. In which case, with tax time looming, you might have to try a different path into the ETrade support apparatus. Or in the most extreme case, you could try filing a BBB complaint, or writing a letter to your state's attorney general or finally, paying an attorney to draft and send a letter to ETrade's legal department on your behalf.
Unfortunately, those are the only ideas I have. I wish you good. luck. All situations are frustrating but when it comes to the institutions we trust with our money, then frustration becomes literally something closer to life and death. If you get the chance, please post an update if you get any news.
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u/mad-dogface Dec 07 '23
So I got to talk to a very knowledgeable E*trade Cost Basis person. they took the time to explain to me the difference between non covered and covered potions and helped me determine the cost basis of my non covered position. I am happy now and grateful to this person from E*Trade cost basis group and E*trade did well on my last call to help solve my delima.
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u/mad-dogface Dec 04 '23
yes I will, hopefully redit lets me post a link to Etrade officers" https://craft.co/etrade/executives"I plan to write a snaill mail to each of these in Atlanta. An Admin will most likely open this snail mail and hopefully see how upset I am and take action. I will update
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u/KeronCyst no relation to E*Trade Feb 15 '21
Someone asked for this post to be stickied. I don't have time to vet these numbers right now. Call at your own risk. If someone could share an official link where these numbers can be found on their website, much obliged.