Merrill Lynch
reviews and complaints

Re trust acct for James W McGill. I've been on hold Over 3 hrs over last 2 days 3/3 & 3/4/2022 trying to return a call to Eric Cortez (sp) in the Jacksonville office. I have no extension nor email address to access him.

i had my direct deposit set up i was told it would be wed. 23 didnt come. i called back they it was directed deposited. lie #2the 24th... called lied 3 times about deposit money. it is recorded, i can prove the calls... now i will contacted laywer for mental destress. financal destress.,.. ethics about lying to customer

I am trying to resolve my recently deceased mother's account with Merrill since 1/10/22. When calling the Life Services Team I am on hold for up to three hours without getting thru (the most recent date 2/22/22) even though I know the seven digit extension of my case manager.

Why can't Merrill have a call back process?

hi , im being harrased by an employee of merrill lynches through an alternate company owned by members of the colombo crime family and financial advisor martine pate of palm beach merrill lynch. i have been harrased and had been financiall sabotaged by these peopl eand am in the middle of a civil court proceeding with these people. on top of the ongoing harrasement by her company patedevelopement llc and employees i am also enduring severe online security problems from all of my information popping up online when her name is googled. My personal information doews not show up when i google my name but when her name is googled all my personal onfo shows up online and is conducive with all the other libel / slander / and theft ive received from members of her family and her along with their neo nazi business associates the lafortes and the spitalis all from staten island all conning peopl etogether. its very bad what this employee of your company is doing to me and I hope you at merrill lynch can at minimum pursuade this senseless [censored] to remove my information when her name is googled and practice normal internet practices in regards to peoples security online and in finance. Its another coincidence that happens to look like sabotage again. So in hopes of me not having to file a suit against merril lynch im hoping that your internet team removes any mention of the name john pate when martine pate of the colombo crime family is mentioned online. I am tired of being sabotaged by these criminals and im tired of institutions like this employing people like this so they can continue harrasing ex partners like myself. these are very bad people involved in a lot of crime.

I finished my job in New York in 2018 and returned to Scotland.

My account for my 401k worked perfectly for a time and then I was locked out and system wouldn't let me reset password. So I called the Helpline and got my access reinstated but the phone call cost me more than $50. Now I have same issues again. User ID can't be reset as they send link to the original email address used when registering - of course its the work email I no longer have access to! It now doesn't even recognise my SSN and I'm locked out. How can an organisation be allowed to operate with NO email box for clients outside the US and also NO physical contact address so I can write a letter? Its disgraceful they have my money and I'm locked out!

My old employer was using ML as an administrator of their stock purchase plan. I left them more than 5 years ago and I transferred all my assets. But my account is still there.. There is no "close this account" menu item in their online portal. I called the phone number and they had a 50 minute wait. They don't list their address to send mail to. An inactive account is just a security hole and I'd like to close this account. They are making it very difficult.
I will try to write to the address shown in this complaint board. Thanks.

I had to move funds from my 401k with Merrill Lynch to a different account. I called the bank I was moving funds to and got the correct information of where Merrill needed to send the check. I then called Merrill, waited on hold for over 40 minutes and got some young man who kept misunderstanding how the check needed to be written out.
By the end of the call, after correcting him repeatedly (and no, I do not have a speech impediment, and English is my native language), I thought he'd finally understood how the check needed to be written out.
Two months later, the check, made out improperly, has been floating around in the mail, been stapled three times, turned down by two financial institutions (at this point) - all because the Merrill Lynch intern (or new CSR) could not for the life of him transcribe what I was telling him.
So two months later, here I am back on hold with Merrill and this time it will be for an hour (per the automated service). I am beyond irritated as this is such a waste of time. I will never, ever do business with this company again, as incompetent as they have proven themselves to be. Like others, I wonder how they stay in business.

Please resume the Co. wide Administrative practice of '3-hole punching' of all client requested monthly paper statements, ASAP!
You're creating a mountain of unbindable / unstorageable /untenable paperwork for your Clients. This resumption of this Co. practice would go along way toward bolstering ML Customer Service repoore /relations.
Best,
Gerry Eline

I am extremely frustrated that I cannot find any way to reach someone at Merryll to resolve my issue. There is literally no place on their website to chat with support, another page directs to an automated IVR with insufficient options, and their regular phone keeps you on hold indefinitely without a call back option.

I have money I want to access and it is literally impossible to resolve this unless someone on their end is available. There is no current automation for this service.

The possibilities to contact Merrill are limited to an overly exhausting hotline. Every 3rd call they kick one out for no reason. For international customers this is beyond ridiculous. Even though you call the international line it offers to call you back if you are from USA or Canada. How does that make sense?

The hotline itself is lacking common sense. One waiting loop after the other, constant senseless automated questions that are never understood by the machine to follow up random transmissions which only get frustrations to maximum level. After 10 minutes of an excruciating automated hotline you wait another 10, 15 minutes (the more often you call the longer the waiting time) and when you finally get to a service associate you get kicked out by them. It is against policies to call back the customer. The only option is calling yet again. They make it incredibly difficult to get rid of an account as they charge high prices for the maintainance of said account. I was forced to get one account in my old company, once you leave the company you are stuck with this useless account and have to pay for it on top.

Again like BofA refuse to release my funds. Will not answer phone on hold 3 different days for 15+ minutes.

Made appointment local Merrill officer in BofA Bank, signed off on Affidavit of Domicle form, notarized . A week goes by no communication email etc.
on Vet. Day they send me a blank Affidavit form and ask me to complete, it notariz etc...everything all over again.
I'm a Vet, my Dad who is Vet just passed with funds that are now mine not Merrill's or BofA.

I have been trying to get ahold of a representative at Merrill Lynch to find out information about an account that I inherited on several different occassions today being the most recent. After being on hold for at least 10 minutes I get to talk to a human that sends the call over to the 401 K department. At this point the computerized system takes me in circles and finally tells me to call back during business hours. Why didn't the human know that? Why isn't there an email to contact a human? I tried to create an on-line account. I can't because the system doesn't have my phone number.

After speaking on the phone with Cheryl Mansfield, at the Boston Merrill Lynch location, I would like to report her unprofessional tone of voice and conduct over emails. We were working together to resolve an issue and I was not treated respectfully. Being a corporate client of this bank, I would not expect this treatment from anyone. Especially an employee of Merrill Lynch.

I always encourage my contacts to allow Bank of America to serve them whether with regular savings/checking accounts or Merrill Lynch investment account for which I am a satisfied customer of both. Now that I encouraged my twins to open their Roth IRA account, one twin's application that was done Sunday 9/26/2021 showed submitted but was still pending, the other was completed and approved on Monday 9/27/2021 so I figure maybe because they are twins the info is confusing the system. Please note my twins transactions are done through my email address and my cell phone number. One Advisor/representative dialed my cell number on Monday 9/27/2021 to speak with my son whose application was still pending. I briefly asked if it was regarding Merrill Lynch she said yes. I explained that he was at work and I would arrange for him to return call at some point (as I wanted to guide what he was doing).
I am pleased to inform that on Tuesday 9/28/2021, on a recorded line with the Advisor Shelby Pecar and my son, application #[protected] was unsuccessful in completing telephone review of his pending self directed application. As questions were directed to the applicant, I made my presence known with an introduction in the background which is my norm. My son was asked for his email address which I stated I would write mine so he can read aloud to proceed. Eventually, she mentioned my son is not a good fit for the account; very embarrassing, discriminating and unprofessional remarks. She could have been more polite and firm at the same time. She is not a good fit to market a business; she lacks customer service ethics. She advised that we go back to the Advisor who opened my first twin's account. I am aware she will cover her assets but proof is in the pudding. I placed another call explaining the situation to another of Merrill's representative, and was advised to visit a Bank of America Branch. Alyssa Saavedra, Financial solutions advisor assisted in walking us through to ensure that my son would be able to accomplish the opening of his investment account. I also explained the reason we visited the branch and we were lucky to meet with a professional. I feel relieved at writing and submitting my own complaint, due to words that someone else had to verbalize to my son.

In February 2021 I contacted my father's Meryll Lynch Adviser in regard to significant Ira and Cash Management accounts that my sister and I are beneficiaries of. It is now almost July and we have been given the run around from our dads Advisor, his associates others who promised to help us cash out the accounts. Our dad never missed a day of work in his life and had a modest income. Over many years he put money into the Meryll Lynch accounts so my sister and I would not have to struggle. This lack of professionalism on the part of Meryll Lynch has caused us a great deal of stress on top of mourning for our father. We now have to get a lawyer involved and spend money we do not have as two single parents to try and get what is rightfully ours.

My employer set up a SEP IRA account in my name and funded it.
I ordered my Merrill Lynch consultant to transfer my funds to my existing Bank of America (ML parent company) IRA account.
My consultant says that nobody at Merrill Lynch can access the account until it is "activated" by me entering into a contract with Merrill Lynch that is 100+ pages including terms for brokerage accounts, margins, fees, sections in foreign languages, etc. I do not want to enter into such an over-arching contract just to close the account.
The consultant says I cannot get MY funds without agreeing to ALL their terms. The consultant told me that I will have to wait 180 days from when the account was funded when ML will automatically close the account. The consultant says ML cannot close the account any sooner on my order.

Submitted transfer of 27000USD from Merrill Lynch account to different bank and there are already 30 days passed and the amount has not either arrived in the bank nor back in the ML account. Calling daily support teams from ML and the only answer i get is to wait more time. Have already received verbal confirmation from the ML manager that the amount recall was not executed by the ML support team when requested, so it had to be requested again.

I originally opened a retail investment account with Merrill Lynch at a Bank of America Branch. Because of changes at another financial services company I was going to move an account I had there over to Merrill in order to consolidate my investments.

What a nightmare this has been. First I called an Investment Rep who used to call me so often it became annoying. He told me he no longer did that type of work and referred me to an "associate of his". This guy never called me. I finally had to follow up with the first guy and he eventually prompted the other person to call. I then was told I had to change the titling of my account from a personal to a trust account. The person who handled this paperwork was reasonably competent but the problem was one form needed to be notarized.

What a nightmare that was. I hoped to have the form notarized at a BofA branch staffed by a Merrill representative. This was virtually impossible to do. It's nearly impossible to get through BofA's extremely unfriendly automated phone system. Living people and branches staffed with notaries are non-existent. At the one branch where I was able to talk with a live person I found out that the Merrill rep is not a notary. The Investment Rep; meanwhile was unreachable and appeared disinterested.

Finally I gave up. This investment account had a balance that was not inconsequential. I had also intended on eventually moving a very large 401K account over. Now, given the godawful customer service I experienced with BofA/Merrill I wouldn't dream of doing this.

I decided to leave my other account where it was. The accounts at the other financial services firm are moving to LPL Financial. I'm not sure what level of service I can expect from this firm but it has got to be better than what I've received from Merrill Lynch.

The bar has been set pretty low.

John Klimick

I am a compliance officer of a broker-dealer seeking duplicate statements in order to comply with the SEC requirements. You don't answer the phone and put me through an endless set of options that lead to another endless set of options. I actually have an account with you and am so upset that I am considering moving it. Is there someone who actually answers the phone. I even tried opening a new account and you pointed me to your website.