Consumer complaint received 2015-11-05
Product: Bank account or service — Checking account
Issue: Deposits and withdrawals — 
Company: SCOTTRADE BANK (CA)

I chose to open an account with Scottrade XXXX and later opened an account at Scottrade bank because it is the only way Scottrade allows customers to quickly withdrawal funds. 

Without a Scottrade bank account the only way to get money out of your brokerage account is by requesting a check and paying processing fees associated with that and often waiting weeks for the check to arrive in the mailIt seamed like a decent idea to open a Scottrade bank but boy was I wrong. And I 'm not sure where to start because the problems started before the account was open. 

First upon inquiring about opening a Scottrade bank account I spoke to a rather rude and frustrated branch manager at Scottrade who gave me an attitude like he could n't care less whether I opened the account and had " better things to do ''. Literally saying to me, " I 'm very busy today, can we make this quick ''. Granted, I assumed ( wrongly ) that may he was just having a bad day. After quickly going through the account the manager instructed me to sign a few documents and them them ( insecurely ) via email, which I protested for fear of identity theft, but was met with resistance from the manager who stated if its not sent via email the account will not be processed today. I reluctantly sent him the information, including SSN, driver license, income information, etc ( only later did I find out that this was totally insecure and the company routinely accesses and backs up email without using encryption ). I protested to the manager of Scottrade bank and their national department to ensure that the personal information is scrubbed from the emails but did not receive a response. To my knowledge, the personal information is still being stored in plain-text at Scottrade and accessible by numerous people. Scottrade refused to address the issue and still refuses to respond. 

Fast forward roughly 10 days after opening a Scottrade bank account and my online access to my account was shutdown after a hacker ( who presumably accessed my information that was insecurely handled by Scottrade ) logged into my account from a foreign IP address, forged headers, and other suspicious login information ( which Scottrade failed to detect or score as risky ). This hacker then proceeded to initiate transfers that exceeded {$800000.00} via ACH, despite the fact that the account history never held more than XXXX and never conducted such voluminous transfers or trades before. On numerous levels Scottrade 's allowance of this enormously fraudulent behavior shows that a number of their security, tracking, and risk scoring systems do not function correctly. Because of these failures, I lost a enormous amount of money. 

Upon realization of the fraud, I contacted Scottrade, filed a police report, and sent legal letters to their compliance department, all of which received a limited and unhelpful response. Finally, Scottrade said without explanation ( and almost immediately after I filed a whistleblower complaint ) that they would no longer be addressing my concerns and consider the issue closed. 

In essence, Scottrade allowed my account to be hacked, refused to investigate the hacking, and has failed to provide me with any information for fear that it will result in enforcement relating to the failed security systems of Scottrade. 

Today, I am asking Scottrade to provide me with an original copy of the arbitration agreement Scottrade claims I signed, however, they will not even provide me with a copy of the arbitration agreement, once again, attempting to avoid liability for their faults.