[quote=CA renter]We’ve heard a lot of positive comments about Schwab on this site. I’d love to hear your comments after you’ve been with them awhile.
Please let us know how you feel about them in a few months (I’ll repost this thread).
Same goes for anyone else here. Are there any negative comments about Schwab?[/quote]
I can’t fall asleep so I will answer.
I haven’t used Schwab’s banking services yet. BUT, I’ve been with Schwab brokerage side for over 20 years.(I had an account with them since I was a teenie…My parents let me start trading at an when I in high school…By the time was in college, I was a junkie well involved in those heyday flyers.)
I’ve generally been happy with Schwab. When I started with them, my gripe was very high commision ($49.95 per 100 share) via telebroker. Things got really bad at Schwab when David Pottruck became CEO, and started to do really annoying stuff to CS that really rubbed me the wrong way. Fees this, fees that, misleading offers,etc. During that time, they were probably as bad as I would say Chase/BofA and for a brief time, my activity came to a halt, and I moved over to Ameritrade because it was cheap, no fees, and they pretty much left me alone the way I wanted it.
After “Chuck” took over again, things got better really fast and turned things around. Under his management, all the B.S. fees/etc were eliminated..and the direction that he was going was an interesting hybrid approach. Schwab started to be competitive with low-balling discount brokers such as Ameritrade and Etrade(which I hate too), BUT in addition Schwab offered some of the services in local offices that full service brokerages do, but not with all the full service overhead (I hate morgan stanley too…). Trading became $11.95 ($9.95 if you were a platinum account member, with blocks of free trade). Option trading commision was drastically reduced and was lower than Ameritrade. Then, at a time when other institutions were raising fees to make up lost revenue, Schwab kept cutting fees. Currently, their commission rates are $9.95 for everyone, and a lot of side services are free.
They also started get involved with managing restricted stock, company options, other company okabs, and unlike other companies *cough* SmithBarneyMorganStanley, you call one number (your manager’s office), and they take care of everything across every all the plans, rather than you hunting down manager after manager after manager to do 1 transaction at one company..
Most importantly, they leave you alone if you ask them to leave you alone, and if you need them to do something, they do it for you without too much fee this fee that. .Great customer service too.
I think some of my relatives like them because they have special ethnic focus teams too. So per request, if you want to conduct your business in Cantonese, they have a dedicated team to do that. If you want to do your business in Mandarin, they have a team dedicated for that. (Me, English please thank you). Call it superficial ass kissing, but I think it works, because it makes some people feel that they are more catering to what you want versus trying to get you to fit into their model.
I have not used their banking services yet to see how that side of the house works, but my experience with them on everything else has been positive. They probably aren’t a good platform for day professional-like day traders. I’m not, so it works for me alright. One added bonus I think was Schwab’s relative small exposure to MBS during the RE meltdown…Unlike …heh…eTrade.
