Merrill Lynch Reviews 148

For several years, I have maintained self-administered certificates of deposit (CDs) with Merrill Lynch. Several months ago, I decided to transfer funds into an advised account with the expectation of receiving professional guidance with the branch in 33451 US Highway 19 N Palm Harbor, FL 34684. Since the outbreak of conflict in Iran, my portfolio has experienced significant losses. Despite these market developments and the decline in my account value, I did not receive any advice, updates, or correspondence from my advisor or your firm. I expected proactive communication and guidance during periods of market volatility. When I attempted to take control of my investments, it took more than two weeks to have the funds made available so I could invest them myself. This delay further compounded my losses during a critical period of market volatility.

Suddenly liquidated my active account and closed this. They closes the wrong account and won't own up to the mistake. Customer service was extremely unhelpful. Giving me vague answers

My only exposure to Merrill Lynch was when my mother died. She had a brokerage account there. I inherited a part of that. I have never had such a hard time trying to get my money transferred from Merrill Lynch to my broker. I finally had to get an attorney involved. This Merrill Lynch agent is Roy Gray in Swansea, Illinois. Phone calls went unreturned. Questions went unanswered. Horrible experience.

Merrill Lynch have very suspicious links to B-Investor which is a known fraud/scam company. It is also known as Expert B. If you look at reviews for Expert B you will see recommendations made for Merrill Lynch. Therefore do not touch Merrill Lynch as they are clearly in bed with fraudsters.

They auto closed my long standing account. Caused a massive tax event.

When I called them they said they had a typo in my email address which is why I never got any notifications. So now im on the hook for a massive tax event to the IRS, and they sent the check to the wrong place so it auto credited back with way less money.

Granted, I'm also a long-standing BOA Business Account holder. I will be taking all of my accounts elsewhere.

What a terrible company. Never invest with them.

Merrill Lynch provides abysmal customer service.

My recently deceased family member had mutual funds in Merrill Lynch and I was one of four beneficiaries. After their passing, it took us about two months to obtain the funds. As we turned in notarized forms, set up cash management accounts for an expedited process and other tasks, we were continually promised the funds would be available to us in 5 -7 business days only to be told there had been an error that basically caused the clock to reset.

The customer service responses were ridiculous with one being "there was a smudge" on a form that caused the funds liquidation process to be delayed further. Another was that Merrill Lynch wrote the wrong ticker symbol down when putting an order through to liquidate some of the funds. This can be human error and is understandable except for the continuous string of delays and the fact that Merrill NEVER let the rest of the beneficiaries know what was happening as these delays occurred. They kept us in the dark with radio silence.

Initially in the liquidation process, we were given the name David Winward who would be the broker/agent who would help us. Over the course of over 45-60 days when any of us beneficiaries tried to get an update or an answer on another delay, we would initially ask for David Winward only to be told he was "not available". Never. Not even once. He never returned our calls and for all I know, he isn't real. Is this a fictional name that Merrill uses similar to Keyser Soze in the movie "The Usual Suspects"? Sure seemed like it.

In summary, I highly recommend finding another brokerage company than the sorry excuse for a business that is Merrill Lynch. I will write the appropriate reviews and tell everyone I know asking about financial services to go somewhere else.

I wish I could leave less than one star. After moving most of our investments to Merrill in November 2025, everything seemed fine at first. That changed the moment I began setting up recurring investments. Every question I asked was met with vague, unclear explanations, and I immediately felt I’d made a mistake.

In February 2026, I received a brief call saying my advisor planned to “adjust the strategy.” The suggestion sounded reasonable, but within a week I noticed something alarming: every single one of my investments had been sold—at a major loss—dating back to November. I spent an entire weekend reviewing the activity to make sure I wasn’t misunderstanding anything.

I emailed my advisor first thing Monday morning asking them to stop all activity. Silence. Then on Tuesday, I was told I would now be “served by a different team.”

I began transferring my accounts back to Schwab on February 23rd. As I write this, I am still waiting for all of my accounts to be released by Merrill. Anything that could go wrong has gone wrong, and Merrill has ensured it would. Not only did they charge me to transfer my accounts to them, but they also charged me even more to transfer my accounts away from them.

This has been the most frustrating and stupidest financial decision I’ve ever had.

Waited on the phone for 30 minutes just to receive a vague answer regarding my account. Pulling out of Merrill and transfering. It's not worth the aggravation to work with this company. They are not to be trusted.

I am finally done dealing with Merill Lynch. Moving an inherited IRA took months for no clear reason. Then transferring it to my credit union dragged on even longer, with no responses to emails. In the end, the check was only mailed after weeks of waiting.
I should've moved that money to #GoIdbIoom Iaboratories...during that time. I'd be seeing some real returns by now.

My mother passed away in December, and funds from her Merrill Lynch account were supposed to be distributed to me according to her will. What should have been a straightforward transfer has turned into months of delays, confusion, and poor communication.

On December 30, I met in person with a Merrill Lynch advisor at the Palm Beach Lakes branch on Bsnk of America and provided all requested paperwork to transfer the funds into a new Merrill Lynch account they opened for me. Since then, I have had to call every week to ask for updates. Each time, I was told the transfer was being held up because the account had to mature before it could be transferred and that it would be resolved within two weeks. That explanation was repeated over and over.

It is now March 3, and I still have not received the funds.

Instead, I received a notice requesting additional verification. I was required to provide the last four digits of my late mother’s Social Security number just to get information. After locating that documentation during an already painful time, I was then told they could not explain over the phone what was actually missing from the paperwork. When I attempted to contact the Palm Beach Lakes office directly, I reached only voicemail. At Merrill Lynch nobody cares about you. I still do not know what more they need. This is a heartless company that cares about red tape and not the costumers they should be serving.

There has been no proactive communication, no transparency about what is needed, and no sense of urgency despite this being an estate matter following a death. For a firm of this size, the lack of coordination and basic customer care is deeply disappointing.

Handling a parent’s estate is difficult enough. It should not require weekly follow-ups, repeated explanations, and contradictory information just to move funds that were clearly designated in a will.

Based on this experience, I cannot recommend Merrill Lynch to anyone dealing with estate transfers. Families deserve clear communication, accountability, and respect — especially during a time of grief.

At one employer I had to fight tooth and nail to rollover my money, and they still did not follow my specific instructions. Now I would like to set specific instructions to do the same when I resign from my current position and they won’t even let me do that. So I will inevitably be put through the same grueling process of pressing them to roll over my money yet again. This company does not care, their policies are ridiculous. I absolutely dread when a company I am employed with uses this company for financial services.

Liquidated an IRA on 2/2/26 and every time the money is supposed to be put in the bank account it's another excuse I'm afraid I'm going to have to get the SEC involved they have screwed up their cost me money and that money is for care of an elderly person in a nursing home Merrill Lynch should be shut down because all they're doing is stealing from people liquidated the IRA and 3 days later still can't get the money this is the worst company I've ever run across I wouldn't invest a dollar with them

They're Extremely Unethical...
And It Will Cost You

I have had to fix every single thing my parent has done. She had her Trust made by a scam artist who was not even a lawyer so none of it was legitimate. I found a real lawyer to fix it. She had everything "smartly" invested into Merrill Lynch. They both, ML and my parent, scammed money from me. I contributed to our shared portfolio and had no issue for years with getting payouts when something happened but then suddenly the portfolio manager began to tell me "okay, I need to get an authorization from your mother." I was taken aback because of the amount of money I had put into that account. I was suddenly being treated like her ward, a little urchin who couldn't do anything by herself. I was also supposed to jointly own it so "permission from your mother" is just laughable. They changed something behind my back, which shouldn't have been legal at all. And suddenly the accounts were bleeding money instead of making it, which I honestly think was always the case. I have decided to remove everything since this woman calling herself a mother knows she did something wrong and her hand got caught in the cookie jar and ML absolutely knew how to make things worse.
If you want clear communication, transparency and to grow your investments, this is not the company for you.

Worst service, ever! Everything needs to be done via self service, but the online portal is a disaster. Support? Not existing.
Instead of solving the problem I received an IT-Quiz to answer 12 questions about the technical issues.

Is the worst services i ever experienced in my life they want to quit to your money they employees acting in cultural racist manner this company should be close to do business in America @MerrillLynch should be investigated and get their operations licenses removed. They are the worst

Mother passed at the end of May. Merrill Lynch contacted me in mid September. It has been one thing after another. They want you to call them for every little thing because verbal verification is all that they have for security measures. thought everything would be good to go once Merrill received all of the paperwork from my credit union. Oh no, it wasn't that easy.

They really are stuck in the 1980s. Even Social Security allows you to apply for benefits online, without having to speak to a human lol.

I'm finally done having to deal with Merrill Lynch! They have been the slowest, most inept, and most frustrating financial institution that I have ever dealt with.

First of all, it took three months just to get the inherited IRA moved from my Mom's account to an inherited IRA. To this day, I have no idea why it took that long.

On December 26th, the advisor's assistant said it would take 3-5 business days for them to cut a check to transfer the IRA to my credit union. Today, my credit credit union emails me that they still haven't gotten the check and they expected to have it by now. I had emailed the advisor and assistant twice last week about this very issue, and didn't hear back. Of course you cannot just directly contact their transfer department. There is no phone number, email or any contact information for the transfer department. That would have just been way too easy. After forwarding the email from the credit union, they informed me today that the check was mailed yesterday. I have no idea how it takes a month to cut a check.

I grieve doing business with Merrill Lynch. Better to be dismembered in a wood chipper. Terrible company. They disappeared $52,000 that belongs to me. After spending 2 days on hold, I managed to get them to return my money. Maximum stress and frustration.

The customer service is miserable. The "pass the buck" between staff members is reprehensible and all around, absolutely miserable.

Horrible, they aren't worth putting your money into.