Firstrade: Invest & Trade

So I’ve used almost every reputable trading app out there from E*Trade, Fidelity, Schwab, and others. Jan 2021 last year I decided to open an account with this company and downloaded the app. Soon after, I transferred over a few thousand dollars to try it out and see how I like it. After about a month or so I decided to transfer money back to my bank account, and that’s where the trouble starts!!! Giving them my DOB, SS#, Drivers License, and other identifying info from the beginning wasn’t good enough to be considered as a “verified customer” and Firstrade refused to give me my money back and blocked the ability to transfer back to the same bank account it came from !!! Firstrade then began to ask me for very personal and sensitive info like copies of my bank statements and other items!! FYI…. I’ve been trading for over 25 years and NEVER has any company ever asked me for those types of sensitive documents EVER !!! At that point, that’s when I figured out that this was “deliberate by design” to keep customers money longer. I ended up having to contact SEC, FINRA, Attorney General, and my local congressman for help !! Which I should’ve NEVER have had to do to begin with 😡 Only then did Firstrade fold and immediately contact me to return my money!! These people belong in jail !! 🤬🤬 You’ve ALL been warned!!!

I wanted to open a small account and practice a new options strategy w/o incurring a bunch of fees. That is what started me on Firstrade. I was willing to learn a new UI to do this. After opening and easily funding my account, I ran into the issue of not being cleared for the strategy (credit spreads). I called their customer service to find out why, because my TDA account lets me sell credit spreads. While the customer rep wasn’t outright rude, he was very abrupt and sounded angry. It was an easily solved issue (they did eventually approve me) but their customer service felt so off, I just decided to do this strategy in my TDA account. I initiated an ACH request to get my funds transferred back to my bank account. I figured it would take 5-10 business days and kinda forgot about it. Well, 3 weeks later I realized they hadn’t transferred my money and actually rejected the ACH. Why? Because they wanted a copy of my identification AND bank statement to release my money. The same bank account that the funds came from. They didn’t need these items to take my money, but they need them to give me my money back?? After talking to their customer service, and being told someone would contact me, I just decided to send them these things to get my money. Now, yes I sent them my ID and only the front page of my bank statement but I was told by their customer service rep that that would be fine. Apparently not. They need to see my whole bank statement to send me MY money. Ridiculous. It’s been 2 months and I’m still trying to get my money transferred back. This company is a scam.

I like this app a lot but there are a few things that make it unusable for me. First, whenever I open the app 50% of the time it actually lets me login and 50% of the time it says network connection error even after multiple attempts. Second, is in the recent update they took away the option to see how much I’ve made all time from a stock which is something that I really liked about the app before. Another thing I wish they didn't change in the update was the overall layout. I liked the layout before and now it seems like its less user friendly. Unless it gets some kind of new update I'm just going to switch over to E*TRADE. UPDATE* After a couple updates this app has gotten ALOT better and I really like it now. It runs perfect now and I no longer have any problems. Changing my rating from 3 stars to 5 :)