E*Trade Adds Sneaky Charge, Class Claims
SAN FRANCISCO (CN) - A federal class action claims online stock broker E*Trade Securities charges customers for not making enough trades, despite promising not to do that. For every inactive quarter, E*Trade takes $40, sometimes selling off people's stock to pay itself the fees, the class claims.
Lead plaintiff Joseph Roling says he noticed in 2007 that E*Trade "was making notes on his account for $40 'quarterly inactivity fees,'" taking the money every quarter he did not make a trade.
Roling says that when he complained, E*Trade representatives said they were "entitled to charge and collect such fees and told
there was nothing he could do to avoid the charges."
He claims this violates E*Trade's own policy, as stated on its Web site, which promises that E*Trade will "not charge fees when your account is inactive for a period of time."
By 2008, the value of stocks in Roling's account had dwindled down to the amount of inactivity fees E*Trade was charging him, so it sold his stocks and closed his account, he says.
http://www.courthousenews.com/2010/02/05/24427.htm