Sharebuilder Review

I wanted to love Sharebuilder but unfortunately this service ended up costing both me, my boyfriend, and who knows how many investors hundreds of dollars because the site apparently could not handle large volumes of activity that naturally occur during rallies and other times of high trading.

During two periods of major stock market activity, a few months ago, the site became completely inaccessible to both of us. We would try to log on over and over again to no luck. Online message boards filled with complaints as we watched the value of our investments fall and fall with no ability to sell. This was my first time investing outside of my retirement account and terrifying to watch.

Had this happened just once, this may have been forgivable but it had happened months earlier and happened AGAIN just a few days later. (Google "Sharebuilder outage" for more details.) Phone lines had impossibly long waits. In the end customer service offered virtually nothing in return.

I highly recommend trading with a company that has established itself as being competent enough to handle high trading volumes.