Charles Schwab

I have been a private client at Schwab for many years. As a single woman in a non-​financial career, I really value the guidance I get in planning and maintaining my investments. The professional people at the Sunnyvale branch, particularly Scott Gill and Sharon Harken have been extremely helpful in assisting me with anything I need. They are very gracious people I am priledged to do business with.

This branch is great!
Sharon is super helpful and welcoming. She makes coming in pleasant and convenient

Protip: When donating money to a charity, consider giving stock. You won’t pay taxes on the capital gains, as long as you’ve held the stock for at least a year.
Due to «security» policies, I couldn’t perform said transfer from my Schwab account online. I had the option of either filling out a form and faxing it, or visiting a Schwab branch.
I chose the latter, but the process turned out to be the same. I filled out a form onsite, and since it had only enough space to list four or so stocks, had to write out all the stocks on a separate sheet of paper.
Something about all this felt very backwards. While automatic high-​frequency trades happen in nanoseconds on Wall Street, the common man must fill out a form, fax it in, and wait for somebody on the other end to read it and manually type it into their system.
At least the clerk here was friendly and helpful, and saved me the time of having to fax the form myself. There are also regularly-​held financial workshops here, which is kind of cool; the Schwab website has the complete schedule.

I came in here today to open a Roth IRA account in my wife’s name, seeing as it’s near the deadline for making contributions for 2013. After talking to one of the specialists, I was informed that the best way to open a Roth IRA account is online, but I can’t access my account through any of the computers at the branch. Fair enough.
I sat in the branch and tried to open the Roth IRA account through my phone, only to find out that I could only open the account in my name, not in my wife’s name. I approach the desk and ask the receptionist, Sharon, about this, and in a somewhat condescending attitude she explained that of course I couldn’t open the Roth in my wife’s name because it wasn’t her account, even though our account was a joint account. She then mentioned that my wife (and she emphasized not me) can call the 800 number to establish an online login, or if she wanted to come in and fill out some paperwork, Sharon could help her open the account. I guess part of the confusion was the difference between the investment account and the online login account — again, fair enough, but I felt like she really didn’t want to be bothered with answering my questions and that she was trying to shoo me away.
I sat down again in the reception area, sent my wife some texts about the new development, and then went back to the reception desk to ask some more questions. By now there were two more people in line in front of me. The first gentleman finished his business, and the second man went up to the desk. I’m not sure what he was there to do, but I heard/​saw Sharon ask him to step away to finish writing his check (which might’ve taken an extra 30 seconds) so that she could «help the next person in line», which happened to be me. I wanted to ask about the paperwork (I wasn’t sure if it was for the login, or for the Roth account). Again, with a condescending air, while cutting off my questions, she repeated the previous answers, until I was able to ask and clarify that to establish an online login ID, my wife had to call the 800 number, and that the paperwork was only for the Roth account, not for the login.
As I explained to her that this was all I needed to clarify, she kept asking me if I needed the 800 number, that she could get that for me. No thanks, Sharon, I don’t need the 800 number, I, as a Schwab customer of 15 years, would just like some professional courtesy from the desk representative.
I don’t like leaving 1-​star reviews — as you can see from my profile, I tend to leave 3 stars or more. But the treatment I received from Sharon gave me a headache that lasted for the rest of the day, and it’s been a while since I’ve received such shoddy treatment from a professional institution, thus the 1-​star review.

Nice people working. One guy was very sweet to my mom, offering to help her with online log in since she was complaining of having a hard time.
Friendly
Nice that they have complimentary coffee and sodas.

So I have never been to the branch in person but I could not find just an online listing. All my interactions with Charles Schwab online have been perfect! The staff is knowledgable and helpful and will even help you to find a way around the company’s own rules (i.e. getting around the $ 1,000 account limit by ordering free checks). More than statisfied everytime I have called with a question.