Merrill Lynch Financial Advisor Jonathan B Black

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.