Morgan Stanley Smith Barney review: Endless fees 14

I rolled over a small 401k from a part-time job. I intended to later add a larger 401k from my full-time employment. I was told there would be no fees; however, they started charging me right away. When I inquired, they told me that was because Morgan Stanley had bought Smith Barney from Citigroup; however, the companies were already combined when I opened the account. When I pointed out that their statements still said Citigroup, they said that was because they were still using up old forms; however, the "old" forms also said Morgan Stanley Smith Barney. I worked for Citigroup at one time and we printed forms and letterheads as we needed them so there were no old forms, and we were able to adjust documents quite quickly as needed. I was also told I would have to pay an additional $50 just to close the account. After going through all of this with "Daniel, " I sent back the required forms and waited for my money to arrive. When it didn't, I called and talked to a "David Jayson, " who told me that one of my forms had been received but not the other. This was not possible; the forms were mailed together in the same envelope at (obviously) the same time. He told me I needed to print the form and fax it to him with a copy of my driver's license, since they seem to have also lost my original application. Since I live in a rural area, this required a 60-mile round trip and charges of $2.50 just for doing this. Then I received an application form in the mail that was sent before I talked to him, apparently from whoever had my previous documents, whoever that was because he didn't bother to add a name to the form letter. Anyway, "David" had told me he would mail the check on Monday if I faxed the form and driver's license to him. This is Saturday night and I am still waiting. I suspect they are going to keep losing or saying they didn't receive things until they suck all the money out of my small account.

Morgan Stanley Sticks it to the Little Guy... Pirates in Disguise...
From Enon, Ohio, December 28, 2010. I had an existing IRA with Smith-Barney before they became a part of Morgan Stanley at the beginning of 2010. I just found out that when Morgan Stanley took over, they began hitting accounts less than $25, 000 with a quarterly fee of $35 in addition to a $75 annual fee. My annual fee used to be $40 with Smith-Barney and there was no quarterly fee. Clear notice was not given by Morgan Stanley of these changes and my Morgan-Stanley/Smith-Barney financial advisor failed to warn me so I could do something different with my account. As a result, the fees ate up my gains for the year and I have less money in my IRA now than I did at the end of 2009 (before Morgan Stanley). If there is a class action suit against Morgan Stanley for ripping off investors' retirement accounts, I'd like to know so I can join the suit.

I have a roth IRA that was totally mismanaged by Smith Barney. After dozens of calls, with no one that could ever really help me and my account transfer numerous times to different divisions, I have coome to face the fact that I had lost thousands of dollars! I told my original agent I was not an agressive investor, but they made reccomendations that took my account from 50, 000 to right below 10, 000! They charge huge fees and now came up with this quarterly fee of 50.00 because the balance is below 10, 000. The company should be disolved! The jerks even had the nerve to charge me a 95.00 rollover fee and a 50.00 low balance fee when I said to roll the money to Scott Trade. I will always have negative things to say about them! I love Fidelity, MetLife, and now Scott Trade!

Moving my account to Morgan Stanley Smith Barney was the biggest mistake I have made in quite a long time. When I initially met with my financial advisor she made MSSB out to be the best thing since sliced bread, and even stated that they would save me a lot of money compared to Edward Jones. That was the farthest thing from the truth I have heard in a long time. It has been mistake after mistake, and fee after fee. In three months they have charged me well over $500 in fees alone. I am working on moving my accounts and they are charging huge fees. By the time it is all said and done I am sure they will charge in excess of $1000 in fees.

Hows that for three months of pure dissatisfaction?

I agree with all the above. I got rid of my accounts with MSSB years ago because of the fees, then I found they had purchased a fund that I had tucked away. The fund was great prior to that but now MSSB started with $50 annual fee, $35 low balance fee which was difficult to find on their confusinf statements. Then to sell the fund they charged another $240 for who knows what. It useless to talk to them. Any smart investor should stay far, far, away from these bandits.

MSSB is the worst sort of financial pirate. I just finished "closing out" my account ...not that there was anything left in it once they finished racking up their BS fees.
IS THERE A LOW-BALANCE INVESTOR CLASS ACTION SUIT I CAN JOIN?

I submitted a complaint to MSSB with a detailed description of my dissatisfaction and they reinbursed some of my fees.

The next issue to combat is the fact that they are stealing money from people. When making trades they take excess money for about a week and then "correct" the account. They are also monkeying with trades; I have trade confirmations from the day of trade and then a couple days later showing a lesser amount of shares and so forth.

Is anybody suing them for losing their money? I had a friend that lost almost 200k in money loss. Is anybody filing suit?

There are no guarentees for investing in the stock market. You can sue for misrepresentation of services, but not for loss in the stock market.

SAME story here - Ive had the account for only 6 months. First it was the 75 dollar “2011 CUSTODIAL FEE” – now I just got hit with another 2011 TERMINATION FEE for $95 dollars when trying to move my money to Fidelity! That’s a total of $170 in less that 6 months for an extremely loaded bank that hasn’t done a damn thing for me on an IRA that’s meant for my retirement. Ive been trying to move my money over to Fidelity but "effin" MSSB has tied up my money for months! My Financial advisor never warned me about any of these fees. I wish i would have seen this discussion board before giving those leeches a dime of my money!

We are having the same trouble with a $12, 500 account at MS which is in a money market. We were told that MS doesn't want to handle small amounts under $25, 000 and the financial advisor said Morgan Stanley suggest that any account under that be moved to Schwab, etc. Well, since Feb we have requested that this account be transferred and so far (May 7) it hasn't. They rejected original transfer paperwork because they didn't like the wording on one of the pages and suggested another form be used. Still no reply. This account has had almost $500 in fees taken out. We put in a complaint with Morgan Stanley requesting that the fees be put back into the account because our financial advisor never contacted us advising us to move this account elsewhere and that MS doesn't want to handle small accounts like this. So far, no response on that either. Our next move will be to contact FINRA (Financial Industry Regulatory Authority). I understand that MS has had many complaints like this and I bet they will not be happy when they hear from FINRA. I would suggest anyone in this situation contact FINRA. Look them up on the Internet.

i was moved from smith barney to morgan..I keep bleeding money. They seperated my accounts so they can charge fees on the checking. I am moving it this month..If anyone is interested in getting a lawyer together..please leave a message on the board..thanks

When my father died (in 2002), I took over my mother's finances. My mother and I went to her lawyer and I was given power of attorney over her finances and health care. My father's retirement account was with Smith Barney and he had had a good long-term relationship with, "Jeff, " his financial advisor there. After transferring everything into my mother's name, Jeff called me regularly to remind me about the mandatory withdrawals and to offer advice on her investments, etc. When Morgan Stanley took over, Jeff was suddenly gone and we received a letter stating that our new advisor was a Mr. George Rouch.

I had to explain to George that my mother knows NOTHING about finances and I would be the one to handle her accounts. George said that although MSSB does not honor powers of attorney, he would speak to me as a courtesy. Although George did not provide the service that Jeff did, I didn't have any real problems with him or MSSB until last year (2012).

I made the mistake of going "paperless" and not receiving the quarterly statements. When MSSB was making their merger (or whatever it's called), I was unable to log on and see my mother's statements for a time. As it turned out, I hadn't monitored her account in about six months. It was then that I noticed all the fees. MSSB had started charging my mother's account $60 a month. When I called George to ask about this, he had a rehearsed answer and told me to read the letter they sent regarding this change. I dug up the letter amongst the other 14 letters and crap they send every year. This 16-page letter written in tiny print did mention the change on about page 13 or so. It stated that any fund under $50, 000 would be charged a $60 service fee monthly (on top of their regular fees). My 83-year-old mother was supposed to read this letter and know what to do? What 83-year-old is going to read this 16-page "Information Regarding Your Account" letter and know what it all means? How many other retirees with less than $50, 000 in their account is MSSB fleecing? After that, we decided to close her accounts and be done with it. Unfortunately, they were not done with us.

A couple of months after we closed the accounts, my mother received a letter stating that she owed MSSB close to $2, 500 for an electronic transfer they had done on her behalf back in 2011. I filed the letter away thinking it was an error because her account was closed. Then she received another letter saying that she better pay up. I called George and he had his secretary (or whatever her job title is), Rebecca, call me back. Rebecca said that my mother owed this money because Smith Barney had forgotten to withdraw it from my mother's account back in February 2011. They didn't catch it until about August of this year (2013). I asked Rebecca to send proof of this payment and she said that she didn't have access at that moment to the old statements. She called back later and said that the amount matched two possible payments. One was to my mother's apartment complex and the other was to Onebank. Rebecca asked me to call and ask the apartment manager about the payment. I called and was told that they do not do electronic transfers of any kind. Rebecca then told me to call the credit card company. After having problems accessing my mother's account, Onecard found the old statement and faxed it to me. Unfortunately, the statement only showed that the amount had been paid but not by whom. I, again, asked Rebecca to send me some kind of documentation for proof and then I would send a check.

After about a month had passed and no documentation had been sent, Rebecca called. She rudely asked if I remembered our conversation and I told her that I did. She then asked why I didn't send the check. I told her that I had never received the proof. She then told me that the account would be sent to collections and that she may not even be able to stop it from going to collections. I told her, AGAIN, that I needed proof. She said that she could email me proof but she would have to ask my mother for permission. I explained to her that I must first call my mother and explain what Rebecca is calling for. I told Rebecca to JUST ask for permission. I called my mom on her cell at almost the same time that her house phone rings and it's Rebecca. My mother called me back after speaking with Rebecca and was very upset. She said Rebecca was not very nice and started going on and on about how if my mother didn't pay this right away, it would go to collections! Rebecca kept asking my mother why I never told her (my mother) about this payment that was due. I did tell my mother about the error when I spoke to Rebecca the first time. My mother just didn't remember it at the time. My mother was so distraught from the treatment she received by Rebecca that she was over at my brother's house at nine o'clock that night crying on his shoulder.

Rebecca should be ashamed of herself. I doubt she is, though. She's probably making oodles of money making the elderly cry! God protect her soul (if she has one).

By the way, I just dumped a mutual fund from my own 401k account that listed Morgan Stanley as one of its largest holdings.

I have similar complaint. I started with MSSB 2 years ago and in that time I've lost almost 10% of my money. I don't know much about investments and allowed the Financial Advisor to handle and manage my money. I constantly monitored my accounts and see only red numbers. I contacted the advisor and there is not clear explanation on why my money is desapearing. What he tells me is that certain funds pay at maturity and that's when I'll see the amount go up; in the mean time I only see FEES everywhere.
I started with over 52500 and have lost almost 10%. There are FEES for Financial Advisory, inception FEES first quarter FEES 2, 3, 4th quarters FEES. Over 700 dollars in FEES per year.
I don't know what to do at this point. I think I am going to try to talk to another bank to see if they can explain to me why my funds never go up ( not gaining any money).
I hope we could do something to at least get out money back. MSSB is robbing our retirement funds with so many FEES.