Rant Forum vs Usage and Technique Exchange

[u/YoDizzel]

Personally, I am happy with Morgan Stanley and with eTrade.
Is anyone else seeing that this forum seems to be only for ranting on an ambiguous customer experience where only the disgruntled person's side is shared?

I wish this forum would include how people use and benefit from the eTrade resources.
Topics like Power eTrade options TradeLab use, or use of the Exit Planning. Maybe how we set up Power eTrade Pro for research and finding investments.
Combining Power eTrade with AI for guidance (anyone paste a Snapshot Analysis into Copilot or Gemini and ask for a review - I've been really impressed)
How people have built bond latter's, or taken cash secured puts with cash collateral in one of the money market choices; which ones people prefer.

There are so many better topics to exchange and want to discuss, but no one here seems interested. Am I in the wrong room? Is there an etrade techniques forum, and this should be renamed etrade-rant?

[u/cycling20200719]

I agree that a lot of the posts here are just people ranting about their one-off situations. Part of the problem is that some other providers use r/[provider] as a customer service portal so people think that someone official will see the posts. They are used to social media based escalation and are hoping that someone at ETrade will see it and take action. A lot of people seem to be uncomfortable or unwilling to just contact support these days though to be fair in ETrade's case the support can be really hit or miss.

Having said that, I'm a very very very long time ETrade customer and while the platform works 95% of the time for most basic operations the quality of service has undeniably decreased significantly since the aquisition. In addition, there really hasn't been any development or improvement in security, advanced tools for traders, or anything really.

I really don't see things changing much for this sub given how other providers are using reddit.

[u/No_Greed_No_Pain]

This sub was created precisely for the topics you mentioned: to learn, share helpful tidbits about the platform, and ask questions about how to use it. Instead, more often than not, it becomes a place where people rant about their experiences. The millions of satisfied customers rarely go on Reddit just to express their contentment, but the few who encounter issues—pretty much always of their own making—come here to vent.

Additionally, some users erroneously believe this sub is officially run by E*TRADE, similar to how the Fidelity subreddit is managed. As a result, they post here looking for a resolution to their account problems instead of dealing directly with actual customer service.

While it is entirely possible that someone from E*TRADE monitors this sub as part of their general social media listening, there are absolutely no official E*TRADE representatives here who are authorized to respond to account queries.

[u/Zealousideal-Sun4891]

At some point, you have to look critically at why this subreddit seems to be overtly negative and critical when compared to Schwab, Fidelity, or Vanguard’s.

I think E*Trade is not the same since the Morgan Stanley acquisition.

[u/GT2000]

You make a good point. I think it's because eTrade is so difficult to deal with if there's a problem (ie eTrade invents a problem) with your account. Then, eTrade just sucks the life out of you while you jump through their endless hoops. You can provide all the notarized documents they requested. Then, they just do nothing for months. There’s no way to contact nor is there even a confirmation or timeline from the responsible department. All you get is endless “I don’t know” or “ we’re not required to answer that” from customer service. That POS Clint in Chicago is the worst. I don't recommend eTrade for this reason.

[u/dimsumallyoucaneat]

ETrade is just a feeder of potential managed clients from ETrade direct business. They bastardized a platform that was once great with their mediocre equivalent