Hi,   I recently became the executor of an estate of a family friend who passed away.  He had investment accounts at both Scottrade and Schwab.  I went to both offices to convert these accounts into estate accounts.  Interestingly, the Scottrade officer told me that I could not trade online (per Scottrade policy) for estate accounts, translation - I'll have to pay $27 per broker assisted trade vs. $7.95 per online trade.  There were 7 holding at Scottrade thus a difference of 7 x $27 = $189 vs. 7 x $7.95 = $56, thus Scottrades' "policy" just netted them an extra  $133, or so I thought.  After I sold the holdings and received the trade confirmations, I was billed almost $700 in commissions on 7 trades.  Apparently, an estate account is considered a “Traditional” account and thus commissions are billed at $27 + $0.02/share.  This was never disclosed to me either in writing or verbally.  I’ve called twice to complain stating that full disclosure in investment is mandatory only to be told that there is no way to prove what was/was not disclosed verbally.   Had I’d known the commission was this high I would have just transferred the shares out of the account in-kind.  With Schwab, I paid $8.95 per trade, so I know this isn’t a Wall Street policy, just a Scottrade policy.   Does anyone know how I might fight this?   Thanks for reading.
Posted by PRinCO