Merrill Lynch Financial Advisor John Gould

Jul 2024

By far on the worst experience of 401k banking In my life. I've delt with fidelity, charles schwab, and van guard. Merrill lynch is on the equivalence of a 1950s version of 401k managing. I would never feel safe with my money here. Not only are they systems outdated. They don't verify you unless you do a transaction. Don't know why I'm not verified from the jump. Then multiple representatives state add your bank takes 24 hours to process. Some how navy federal is just the one bank they need to send verification transactions to verify the bank. You verify the bank Merrill excepts the bank but then send me a withdrawal in standard mail after being told it would go direct deposit I mean are we in the fucking stone age ? Yall didn't even have the decency to send me my statement or something telling me I processed a withdrawal I had to wake up the day I was supposed to get it to see Merrill lynch sent it regular mail. Then had to take 30 mins of my day to call yall and get this incompetent bull shit taken care of. Yall couldn't even give a valid reason. Oh it was a system glitch. Sounds like code for Merrill lunch fuck up to me. On top of that. I had to wait for this silly agent to get permission just to waive a fee to send the check ups. When your company fucks up on that level and you still seek an approval is beyond the definition of insanity. Merrill lynch has been the biggest inconvenience for me in my 401k history. From shit communication, to shit process, to shit online operations, to shit online access. Overall just a shit experience. It's 2024 and I have to wait for a check to be mailed. If I receive any surveys for yall please expect an extremely shit review. It may have no been that bad had someone reached out or sent a transaction being processed notification instead I have to log in and see the incompetence unfold. I needed does funds TODAY now I gotta wait an additional 3 business day and on top of that have to call Merrill lynch back just to get a tracking number like this is fucking ridiculous and hilarious at this point. No courtesy to send it to you. Yet want you to take time out your day again just to get a tracking number when Merrill lynch had everything needed to send direct deposit. I can truly say Merrill lynch and shit

Apr 2023

Negative 2 stars! By far the worst place to put your retirement income. Their "wealth management" and "life services" department must hire the most incompetent, careless employees. My kids (and their 4 cousins) inherited an IRA from their grandfather and we have spent 4 months trying to get them to distribute the funds to the beneficiaries. Every time you call you get a different answer, they say everything in the paperwork is fine, and then 5-10 days later nothing happens (they don't call by the way). It is 100% on you to keep calling every other day to find out if they have made yet another mistake and you get a different person who assures you that everything is NOW in order. Another 10 days go by, no information or communication, we call and get another person and they tell us that they "forgot" to liquidate the funds before sending to the distribution department. This is after we have done the paperwork multiple times (since they updated forms), called more than 50 times and now they want to speak to the beneficiaries again by phone to "confirm" they want distributions. Are you ^&*ing kidding me? What part of the numerous stacks of paperwork (written distributions forms) from the beneficiaries is unclear that they want to take their money out of Merrill Lynch? They are literally holding our funds hostage and we are seeking legal recourse at this point. They are either completely incompetent or criminals. Not sure which at this point. I consider myself a very patient person but the level of ineptitude in the "life services" department of Merrill Lynch has pushed me to my limits. I am a professional in the financial services field and I know that there are far better options for your retirement savings. Don't put your family/beneficiaries through this agony - go to Fidelity or Morgan Stanley.

Mar 2016

If you care about your money/retirement savings then stay away from this branch. I transferred Roth 401K money into Merrill Lynch and after filling out their all theirs forms, to include what investment objective of "Income, Growth, Total Return" they took my money and stuck it in a cash account. After months of the money sitting there I logged in online to move the money into some investments, only to find I was not allowed and needed to submit a form to allow me to trade online. So I filled out the form, logged into Merrill and sent my advisor a secure message indicating I wanted to be able to make trades w/ my Roth IRA account. I was attempting to get this setup before an earning announcement of a large retail company but I got no response at all from my "advisor" and the day before the event I logged in to trade and found that I still had not been setup. I estimate that I have lost 10's of thousands of dollars while my account sat in a state I could do nothing with and because this branch, and my "financial advisor" there, total lack of customer service. I have initiated a transfer out of Merrill and taken my business to Vanguard instead.