Charles Schwab

am in a money crunch and made an appointment to see a financial consultant.
dan pease helped me understand EVERYTHING about my financial situation and helped me plan what to do going forward.
a nice guy; he knows how to explain things so that i understood them.
really appreciated his help.
there is no charge for this service and, as usual, charles schwab has helped me take care of my money, painlessly.

Do not use Schwab if you want competent, professional and knowledgeable employees. Especially do not go to the Berkeley, CA branch. Holly, the black, angry and rude branch manager is bottom feeder. They hire only rejects that can’t get jobs at reputable companies! These «employees» take no responsibility for their lazy, incompetent work. Find another investment company!

Recently retired and consolidated all my banking and investments at Schwab. They made this process go very smoothly with a focus on my needs and always kept me in the loop. To cap this off Schwab provided a nice bonus for transferring money to my brokerage account. I am totally happy with their financial services and they are head and shoulders above the typical financial institution.

I have had an account at Schwab for years, and moved around to various cities. Unlike the other reviewers here I have always found each office to be professionally staffed and helpful, and the Berkeley office is no different. I think Schwab is head and shoulders above any bank or brokerage I have worked with over the years.

Okay, so I used to be a Schwab representative myself – this is a bit of a secret shopper bust. But hello, I had to repeat my 8 digit account number 3 times in order for us to start doing business. I was trying to order a cashier’s check. Well. Now, we were off to the races about how I was calling the bank side of Schwab not the brokerage side of Schwab and how there was an advisor on my account and did I have check writing priveleges on it anyhow and this was not a high yield account where they offer their customers that side of the business. And well, you get the picture. Methinks that the person answering the phone over there doesn’t know what a Schwab One account is and tried to cover up for it with a bunch of corporate structure BS. Ouch. Good friends of this city, avoid this branch in favor of the website or the 800 number.

For the record, I primarily deal with Brokerage branch, so going to this place at first seemed like it was no different. I was wrong. Immediately, because I didn’t look like the typical Schwab customer (WASP), I was not taken seriously. I simply wanted them to deposit my checks and then make an autotransfer over to my checking account. The firm in Santa Rosa did this on a REGULAR basis without any issue. They told me that they didn’t have time to help me and that i should do it myself, despite the fact that there were no other customers. I called customer support and they said that their behavior was inappropriate. Think twice before dealing with this branch if you are not middle-​aged WASP.