Horrible Experience with Merrill Lynch – Opening a spousal beneficiary IRAI had the absolute displeasure of dealing with Merrill Lynch for what should have been a simple process of rolling over a deceased person’s IRA into a new one and then closing it. Merrill Lynch refuses to release the funds. To say it is a nightmare is an understatement.From the start, everything was unnecessarily complicated. The paperwork was endless. Despite multiple phone calls and hours spent trying to clarify the steps, their customer service was both unhelpful and uninformed. Every representative I spoke to seemed to have a different version of what needed to be done. I was constantly bounced around departments, put on hold for absurd amounts of time, and left feeling that Merrill is just stonewalling.The process of opening the IRA to roll over the deceased person’s funds was dragged out for months and is still a work in progress. Merrill Lynch goes out of their way to make everything more difficult, from requiring multiple signatures on multiple forms, and then disapproving submitted forms over missing dates in the signature. Dealing with the loss of a loved one is hard enough without the added stress of this incompetent brokerage. The Merrill Lynch Life Services department is actively blocking my every attempt to transfer the deceased account to the spousal beneficiary. The whole experience left me feeling frustrated, emotionally drained, and thoroughly disrespected. I would never recommend Merrill Lynch to anyone who has to manage such sensitive matters. Save yourself the headache and take your business elsewhere.
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