Possible Etrade Fraud

[etradevictim]

alanm: "We know that the owner of the account is not you. The more important question is, was the name on the bank account the same as yours? If not, and it is E*Trade's policy not to transfer money to an account that does not have the same name and title (as is now required by the industry's AML regs I think - can someone verify?), then you would seem to have a good case for them to make you whole again."

Yes - the name on the bank account is not the same as ours as we came to know directly from the bank and their security department. Since hackers put my name under the account number, e-Trade assumed that the account is mine - without checking our record. Any ideas?

 

[PuffyGums]

Why can't you go to the bank holding your account in trust and get the money from them since they honored a payment demand from someone who was not you.

Why should you need etrade's cooperation? These are the sorts of things that the service of legal papers can help clear up. You are going to have to sue them as the company is not going to do the honorable thing.

 

[limitdown]

Quote from brewmiester:

According to this site: http://www2.fdic.gov/idasp/main.asp

E*Trade is regulated by the "Office of Thrift Supervision", I would get in touch with someone there, they should be able to apply pressure to the folks at E*Trade to get the missing funds back..

HTH!!

OTS, huh?

you'll never get any substantive answer or support from those guys....

they are notoriously lax in enforcement and could care less about any complaints....

they have been further weakened financially in their budgets and hence do significantly less than nothing, even more so now...

sorry!

 

[tradingbug]

Quote from etradevictim:

mktup writes:
"I don't understand. Were all these losses originated over the net. as wire transfers? A wire transfer can only go to the bank name, bank account #, ABA and the owners name of that bank account that is on file at E-Trade. The bank account owners name has to be the same as the E-Trade account owners name."

This is exactly what we have been arguing. According to the e-Trade, the hackers gave the bank name, account no., ABA and stated that the owners are us although in reality the owner of the account is not us (as we learnt from the Bank). The question then is how could e-Trade transfer funds without checking + we never had an account with that bank and also we never got a penny wired out of this e-Trade account since it was opened 8 years ago !!!
Looks like e-Trade employee made a big goof and we are paying for it, or it is an inside job but they are not admitting and are not giving our money back + they keep sending the monthly statement as if no fraud occurred on this account !!!!!!
It will be nice to hear from folks who had problems with e-Trade so that we can collectively go after them.
Looking forward to hearing from you all.

Here is my update regarding my ongoing horrible experience with ETRADE. I sent them a certified letter in June documenting exactly what happened and requesting the illegally withdrawn funds. I called them in the beginning of September(2 months later) asking about my letter since I requested that they send me a confirmation letter.

When I first called, they intially gave me the runaround and said they did not recieve my certified letter!!!!!!!!!!!!
I told them i had sent it 2 months ago and wanted to talk to the person respnisble for my account. I also said that i have a return reciept showing they recieved it in the mail( I included the guys' name on the mail return receipt). Once I told them I had recieved the return receipt with a name, they immediately transferred me to someone who was in the know. Anyway, they recieved my email and never replied. They then promised to send a reply. 3 weeks later, I received a certified letter from etrade acknowledging they recieved my letter and to bring the case to arbitration.

SO NOW WHAT? What are the options.
A given when pondering over the options is that their is a given $1250 arbitration cost.

Since my account lost around 5 grand, its not really worth it at this point to bring it to arbitration. I am sure thats what etrade wants to hear.

5 grand is a minimal loss compared to your losses. I wish we could all collaborate our stories and go to the news agencies. I was thinking of going to the NYC etrade office and making such a stink that I get arrested. LOL. Currently, that seems like a good way get the news agencies involved.

anybody thinking of going with etrade, stay far far away. Anybody with an etrade account, make sure you tell etrade not to transfer any funds unless its to your one and only bank(especially russia like they sent my funds).

 

[mhashe]

I'm not sure why E*trade is the only firm that seems to be vulnerable to hacking fraud. I read recently some guys lawsuit got settled out of court after he got cleaned out of over $100K.
I'd run for the hills if I were an E*trade customer

 

[tradingbug]

Quote from mhashe:

I'm not sure why E*trade is the only firm that seems to be vulnerable to hacking fraud. I read recently some guys lawsuit got settled out of court after he got cleaned out of over $100K.
I'd run for the hills if I were an E*trade customer

My current situation is to give Etrade warranted bad publicity and help other fellow traders avoid the situation that I ended up in. Their really are much better brokers and banks than Etrade.

Especially now that we see that Etrade does not take responsiblity for bank fraud.

 

[winter]

Quote from tradingbug:

My current situation is to give Etrade warranted bad publicity and help other fellow traders avoid the situation that I ended up in. Their really are much better brokers and banks than Etrade.

Especially now that we see that Etrade does not take responsiblity for bank fraud.

I think Etrade's behavior in this matter sucks bigtime but one question I have is if ETrade is able to prove during arbitration that the hackers got access to your account via your own PC (trojan, keylogger, whatever) and not through their fault (hacking into their systems) do you think that would make a difference in who would prevail? I agree that they should have never transferred the money regardless but if the hackers got your account id/password from your negligence then perhaps the blame for this must be shared?

In any case I found this old story on Google where some guy went against ETrade and won : http://wired-vig.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,20595,00.html but more importantly they referred to a firm called Investor Recovery Service which represented this guy during arbitration against ETrade (and won). They seem to still be in business and claim to offer a free case review, maybe they can help you or at least let you know if its worth going to arbitration : http://www.investorsrecoveryservice.com/

 

[zdreg]

Quote from spike500:

I never understood why brokers are so careless. The solution to these kind of problems is so easy that even i understand it: if brokers put in the client's file 1 bank account number and agree with the client that ALL transfers have to go to this number, the problem is solved; the only place that the money can go is to that specific bank account. And take that bank account at a respectable bank. But that's probably too simple.

too restrictive to have "ALL transfers" go to one account. incidents like this are rare.

 

[zdreg]

good advice and true in other areas QUOTE]Quote from murty:

Hi
Because $4k loss is really hurting you, I figure you are not a multimillionaire. So I thought you might benefit from my experiences.

I tried Etrade, Ameritrade, BrownCo, Datek (now Ameritrade) and Discover (now MorganStanley) and Schwab

Each of these experiences taught me a valuable lesson. Never to do business with them. I am very observant and act when I see smoke and dont wait for the fire.

Etrade: I logged in once and I saw somebody else's positions. Not even my account. I immediately closed the account. Paid them cancellation fee.

Ameritrade: They never gave me free trades that they promised. Red Flag!. Cancelled the account.

I really liked Datek better than others although they were not perfect but Ameritrade bought Datek and made it worse.

BrownCo: I noticed realtime quotes are actually 5 minute delayed. Account reps dont know the difference between closing account and account close-out fees. They still send me junk mail. One hell of an incompetency under 'Chase' umbrella!

Discover/MorganStanley: These people are completely indifferent to the fact that customers risk their money and want to have correct info before trading. MorganStanley thinks customers want to just lose money and thats why they trade.

CharlesSchwab: Seems to provide best fills but their online research is useless. Oh ya, and their customer service is crap too. All of that will change, so they say, if you open a wealth management account with them for a mil or so.

Sometime in the future, I expect Schwab and MorganStanley to just close doors on retail business. Others will hang around a little because their prices are low atleast.

One important thing: Almost all of these big guys will tell you "Stock market is risky, its not fit for everyone" if you complain why you lost $$$ in your account, why they charged wrong commission or why you dont even see realtime quotes!

Like any industry, you are better of doing business with small and mid-scale companies. Not the big ones. Honestly,people, dont open accounts with Etrade and Morgan simply because you fell in love with their TV commercials! Give your business to those who value it really.

Common sense and logic skills are usually missing at big brand names, although they go through rigorous 3-day $5000 customer service training.

I hope this information helps somebody. And I am truly sorry about your financial loss. [/QUOTE]:

 

[tradingbug]

Quote from zdreg:

too restrictive to have "ALL transfers" go to one account. incidents like this are rare.

How specifically is this a rare case? just curious where you got your rare information. I would be interested to read your source. thanks.