Agree hard to work with. They go through periods where they are very responsive then period when they are not. Not sure if it is high turnover or what. I submitted account correction, 5 or 10 minutes job on 7/31 and it is now 8/11 and I'm still waiting for the account values to be updated. It isn't rock science, yet help desk has to forward it to someone else who doesn't seem to either make it a priority or is overwhelmed with other more important things to do. read more

Words cannot describe just how awful it is to work with Equity Trust Company. Expect to spend hours of your life on hold, even after paying for Gold Level Service. You will rarely speak to the same person but that's ok, because they are all equally untrained and unhelpful. You might console yourself thinking that the pain will end when you die. But unfortunately, the pain is now multiplied, and passed on to your heirs. Perhaps you might want to transfer your holdings to another trust company. You can be Equity Trust will do everything in their power to make that a byzantine task. Run away, far, far, away! Life is too short to have to deal with these clowns. read more

Run away from this company. Don't walk, run. I listened to an info session but never funded an account. After reading other reviews, and reading the SEC "ponzi" scheme indictment, I chose not to invest. However, I keep getting mail from Equity Trust (hard copy). I decided finally that it's time to cut the cord completely and save stamps and paper - so I called Equity Trust to close my account. They WILL NOT close my account until I pay $225 to cover document fees. HUH? All I did was listen to a presentation. Never do business with this company. There are much better agents out there. read more

I'm guessing most of you didn't have a choice with these guys; otherwise there's no reason to choose this abomination with their senseless fees. Despite the fees (and late fees on their fees), they do not have enough employees to keep phone wait times below an hour... go figure. They are more than bad enough to tell your advisor to avoid like the plague. read more

I have been trying to add to a real estate investment and can not get Equity Trust to transfer the money. The contact person, Kristi Henever, does not respond to email or telephone messages because you will never reach her by phone. It is very difficult to get anything done with this company. The worst customer service. read more

One of the worst companies to do business with ever. I have had an account for over 15 years, no because I wanted to but they bought the IRA company I was doing business with. They are so unprofessional and unapologetic about their careless work. Lastly I mailed them a check to deposit on October 14, 2021, they did not post until November 1, in them meantime I notified the check issuer to stop payment it must be lost. Mailing time is no more than 3 days. Seems like they are just piling up mail and opening at their pace. My relationship is winding down and I am closing accounts and transferring assets asap. read more

I don't know where the negative reviews for this company come from. I suspect it may come from competitors since Yelp has no filter that only allows clients to post. My elderly parents have had a Self Directed IRA with them that I set up through Safeguard Metals now for six months. They have always been prompt and attentive to all their needs. I am their power of attorney so I handle all of their affairs from mandatory distributions to outright withdrawals. The best part is that their portfolio has grown 11% during this time. I highly recommend them. read more

my dad passed away November 1, 2022 and I still haven't received the payout from Equity Trust even after all beneficiaries signed off in court and my attorney submitted the paperwork! it's June 2024 and still no payout! horrible company read more

Equity Trust Company uses deceptive practices to extract exorbitant fees from clients. The quality of the services they deliver aren't worth the fees and it is clear to me that this is a fee harvesting business. I attempted to close my account with Equity Trust Company as the product no longer made sense for my needs. I spoke with a customer service representative over the phone in early December over a month before my account was due for annual renewal to ensure that the account would be closed before an annual renewal fee was charged. The first hoop I needed to jump through was to submit a distribution form closing my account and to send it to the company over email. I asked the customer service representative if it mattered what email I sent the distribution form from and she responded no. Additionally, she asked if there was an email I would like her to send the form too. I gave her my preferred address to that I could submit the form via my phone. After receiving the form I filled it out, promptly resubmitted it, and asked for verification of receipt. Fast forward 2 weeks...I have not heard back from the company and decide to follow up. Dead silence. Fast forward to the SATURDAY BEFORE ANNUAL RENEWAL and I hear back from customer service telling me that the distribution form did not come from the email registered with my account and will not be accepted. No matter that I had asked customer service if the email address I used to submit the form mattered and they told me no, no matter that when I submitted the distribution form and then a follow-up email I asked for verification of receipt. This company uses misleading practices to harvest fees from its customers. Don't use Equity Trust Company products, it's not worth the hassle if you are someone looking for a return on your time and money commensurate with the fees you are paying them. read more

They never answer the phone, unless you want to open a new account. I am trying to close my account currently and again, I just get a lot of recordings telling me what to do to get in touch with the right dept. No one ever responds to my left phone phone messages or to my emails.... read more

Do Not Deal With This Company If I could give them no stars, I would. I have done two self-directed deals with Equity Trust and am trying to do a third. Each transaction took forever to complete. I filled out the first forms in May for this current investment. Their policies and procedures are archaic. Everything has to be done in writing. No online forms at all. So, each time there is a change, I have to revise and get new signatures again from all involved. And they don't send you all the changes at once. They keep nitpicking your forms. The funding I'm trying to do now is in Panama. They have asked for a copy of their articles of incorporation in English. Last time I checked, Panama does business in Spanish, not English. I have already transferred my brokerage account out of Equity Trust. I'm looking for a new self-directed custodian. read more

We had our self directed IRA with Equity Trust for years. It has been nothing but headache. Save yourself a heartache and find another company to do business with. When I transferred out my money, I was told that my account would remain open for 60 days. However, they closed it immediately. When you call them, they always tell you that they can do nothing for you, but will never waive any fees. There is no customer service mind at all. DO NOT RECOMMEND! read more

Worst experience ever. If you have ANY other choice, please avoid Equity Trust at all costs. It is easy to get on their platform but IMPOSSIBLE to get off of. It took 6+ months to get transferred to Fidelity. And the fees...hoo boy. When you want to get off the platform, get ready for fee after fee. Death by a million cuts. Customer service is a joke. Seriously, if you can't tell, I absolutely hate Equity Trust. I wouldn't suggest this platform to an enemy. A complete nightmare. read more

If you love exorbantly high fees then you will love Equity Trust. When I discovered I could get the same service from Mainstar trust at 1/4 the price. I decided to make the switch, but in order to switch providers they jammed me with $325 to do so, any other place would charge $50 to transfer your account. Crooks - stay away at all cost! read more

I've been stuck with this company since 2008. These guys are the absolute worst with ever increasing fees and piss-poor website. Website access is spotty and very unstable. The account closing fees are astronomical. Yes, they charge you for closing your account. The only reason I haven't left yet is that until silver prices return, I'd loose way too much on my investment. That said, the new manned phone personal are great. My guess is that it's a 3rd party support company as Equity Institutional aka Sterling Trust is way too incompetent to be running the phones. read more

I've been with ETC for several years because it's difficult to transfer Real property. Unfortunately, I've had so many issues with ETC sending required forms to other institutions on time or ever without multiple phone calls and emails from me. I can't really recommend this company to anyone new. Doing business that is time sensitive is so difficult with ETC. read more

This Equity Trust Company has to be the same as the Equity Trust Company of Westlake Ohio and previously of Elmira Ohio. 98% of their 136 personal ratings are one star. During my experience with Equity Trust for the last 13 years, I have found them to be horrendously bureaucratic over simple things. Today I was trying to get information so I could resubmit a document from MY Massachusetts home WHERE I won't return until May but their computer went down. The reason I was having to submit is that they were prohibited from inserting my account number and my asset number when there was only 1. This is not in accordance with the internal revenue service but their leadership and owner stupid rules. LOOK FOR ANOTHER COMPANY. THANKS TO THEIR RULES I MAY BE LATE AGAIN AND INCUR MORE EXPENSES. read more

I have been with Equity Trust since 2010. I am so disappointed with their service. Actually there is really no service, just fees to pay which will kill any return you might have on your investments. They charge fees they are not entitled to and when I try calling multiple times they just keep you going through their hoops of hell and no one actually addresses the issue. You get frustrated and give up, which i believe is their strategy. On top of that there was a legal issue with one of my investments, they would mail me the court documents with a two months delay. It's time to look for a new custodian. read more

ONE STAR IS TOO MUCH! This is possibly the worst company I have ever dealt with. Over 15 years of hell and they never would change my address and now there is a lot of money missing. read more

The response times and level of effort within the alternative investment division (ie private equity investments) is terrible. They are either a) not staff appropriately or b) the staff completely mails it in. read more

For two days in a row I am unable to get anyone to answer the phone. I have held for at least 1 hour and still no one. I have also tried the call back feature but no one calls me back. I am a current customer and their customer service is gone. read more

I actually love ETC. I have been using them for over 10 yrs and was always totally satisfied with their service. The customer service reps are super knowledgeable and online services are easy to use. They were also able to help me with whatever I needed, even complicated transactions, on the 1st call. Sometimes they'd call back just to follow up. So I do not understand why people are giving them negative feedback, although it seems many negative comments are from those who are not customers. The only time you cannot reach them on the phone is during off hours. Then you end up going through the phone loop. Otherwise they do pick up. If you e-mail them, you do get everything you need quickly, and they will call you if it is something that requires a conversation. I mostly buy and sell real estate with my self-directed IRA, and the transactions are easy. So I am really happy with ETC. Can't speak for stock investments... read more

Echoing others here, their customer service is truly appalling. I received word from my brokerage that Equity has not yet authorized deposit of my retirement fund check because they are "having trouble finding your account." How does something like that even happen? And when I tried to call them, I was on hold for more than 40 minutes with no answer -- and I would have kept holding, but I was trying to work at the same time, and they have a robotic voice that keeps advertising their services, which makes it impossible to concentrate. Moreover, unlike most companies these days, they do not offer a call back option to avoid the hold. If you have a choice, stay away from Equity. I, unfortunately, am stuck with them due to the way my account is set up. I reached out to their customer care email that I saw in another review below; perhaps that will lead to a response. read more

0 STARS!!!! I got tired of paying their exorbitant fees and started trying to get out over 3 months ago. Haven't been able to pull it off yet. Stonewalling allows them to charge their exorbitant fees just that much longer. This is surreal! I'm beginning to wonder if I'm ever gonna be able to get my money out of there. Not getting your money tied up in that Black hole in the 1st place would be my advice. read more

Very hard to reach anyone in customer service. Emails get forwarded and no reply is given. No phone numbers to specific customer service reps are given out. The company used to be very responsive but in the past year or two has become very difficult to deal with. Considering moving my investments to a different company. read more

On hold for over half an hour and still going just for a simple question. over 10 minutes on hold is absurd.

DO NOT DO ANY SELF DIRECTED IRA'S WITH THIS COMPANY. My husband and I have had self directed IRA's with this company for 15 years, and have seen the customer service go down big time. Just try to call and reach a human. Main issues......Have sent funds in with the coupons they direct one to use, to have the money deposited in someone elses account. Took 3 months to get it back. BEWARE. Use Quest if you are wanting to do a self directed IRA. read more

I am so sick of tracking down rent deposits sent to Equity Trust via ACH. I call and email multiple times and get no where.It took them 1 1/2 months to get MY MONEY into my account. Even if you fill out the deposit slip exactly how they want it still takes over a month to get your money. Thats money I could be investing and it is sitting idle in some other account. I have wasted hours of my valuable time tracking down deposits. I am going to look for another company. I want out! read more

I rarely write reviews, but I felt compelled to write this one. Years ago, this company was great. But in the last 5 years it has gone downhill rapidly. If you have any question, regardless of how short or long, you will have two choices. One, wait on hold for at least an hour, and have a 50/50 chance of being assisted by a representative that can immediately answer your question once the phone call has been answered. Once answered, it is likely that you will be put on hold again because the representative has to ask someone else. On average, I need to set aside at least 2 hours or more in order to get even the simplest questions answered. This is consistent. For any complex questions, it is likely that you will be put on hold for even longer, and then when you finally get to someone that is supposed to know the answer, they say they are not qualified or cannot answer your question. If I have to have anything handled, I need to allot at least a 2 hour time window if I need to make a call. My longest time was probably around 4 hours at which time I had to leave and they said they would call me with the answer which took another week. The other option is to email. However, they take around 2 days or more to answer your email. Usually instead of taking the initiative and looking up your account information by the name you provide in the email, they will email you back saying, you need to provide your account number. After two more days of waiting for them to reply to the email where you tell them your account number, they will email back saying to reference the form which you are talking about which will take two or more days for them to reply to. They are also expensive. Unlike other custodians, they want you to reassess the value of any property you hold in the account so that they can charge you more. They also nickel and dime you and charge a fee for anything possible, and charge an annual fee to give you horrible service that is higher than other custodians. Their less experienced representatives, will tell you flat out false information, like one time when the representative told me you can't have a manager handle anything outside of the account and that I had to have ETC do it instead (to which they would charge a fee of course.) Most recently, I requested to terminate the account. After a back and forth for approximately two months, they finally mailed to me the termination form. One page of the form was ripped in half when it arrived in the mail. I did not have the time to wait for multiple hours on the phone that day, so I emailed instead. Despite the fact that I emailed them a picture of the front and back of the form that had plenty of identifying information, and they have my name and email address on file, they emailed back asking for the form reference number and my account number. Another delay of about a week or two since if you send the email on Monday they don't answer until Thursday or Friday, and then it is the weekend. They finally emailed back, but it was encrypted. I was unable to open the email on an iphone or iPad. I did not have access to a computer at the time, so I requested that they fax it to me. Instead, they sent another encrypted email. When I was finally able to get to a computer, I discovered that the first encrypted email said that they had attached the pdf of the ripped form, but there was no attachment. To the next email where I asked them to fax it to me instead, they responded by asking what the reference number was. Please note that I had told them the reference number in the original email and they keep records of all correspondence and could easily have looked at the email tree which was a part of the original email I replied to. This is not an isolated incident. It is par for the course on how pretty much everything is handled at this company. Frustrating, inefficient, ineffective. I honestly think ETC should stand for Extremely Terrible Company, or I guess etc is incredibly appropriate as their acronym, since you end up in the land of etc, etc, etc... read more

I've been in the IRA business since 2012 and Equity Institutional has been consistently the absolute worst IRA custodian in the business! This is a known fact amongst those that rely upon them on a daily basis! Some way, some how they always manage to drop the ball. Calls and emails are rarely returned, if at all. Paperwork that usually takes 3 or 4 days with other IRA custodians to process takes Equity weeks upon weeks. Ask them why and someone that's been hired days ago will regurgitate a lame, false answer. Keep in mind IRA clients rely upon swift and accurate service to preserve their hard earned IRA dollars and Equity Institutional could care less!!! read more

Equity Trust Company has to be one of the worst Trust Companies available to the American public. At this moment I have been on the phone, on hold for the last one hour and 57 minutes. This will be my third call to them in the last 4 days with no answer. Last week I did manage to actually speak to someone about my account, but he was unable to help me and needed to speak with his supervisor. He said he would get back to me or someone else would. That never happened. Please be aware with Your Money or Assets. I have been trying to get mine transferred with not much success. I just wish I had read and heeded the many bad reviews on varied sources. read more

Did you know the SEC issued a cease and desist order 33-9807 against Equity Trust on June 16, 2015? They were deeply entwined with two specified Ponzy schemes, knew they were bad and continued to collect fees from (now worthless) accounts for several years thereafter (item #46). Look it up. Old habits seem to die hard with these guys. 30 months ago I informed them that an alternative partnership, the only equity in my ROTH account, had gone bust and was worth nothing. I sent them a copy of the letter I received. After the first of the year they invoiced me for an account value approaching $50,000. When I received the final K-1 I forwarded it to them to verify that the investment was of no value. Yet the billing and late charges continue. Initially I tried to resolve this with their customer abuse folks. I think I corresponded with around 10 different minions. No living material was discovered in those exchanges. They sent a form letter about the accumulated (bogus) billing and that one possible alternating was for them to liquidate the account and inform the IRS. Go for it. There is no value and it was a ROTH account. Or the could send the account to a "National, third party collection agency". Try again. I have informed everyone possibly affected to never pay their claim. All I want them to do is admit the obvious and cancel the bogus charges for the last two years. I wonder if the SEC would be interested in their continued shady billing practices? Maybe there is a class action suit just under the surface. read more

Terrible!!!! DO NOT DO BUSINESS WITH THIS COMPANY!!! Overpriced service and poor customer service. I opened an account with them and regret it. It took 3 weeks for them to send me the cash in my account. And to get it I had to deal with their customer service people. I believe they train them to be mean. If I could give 0 stars I would. I think a 1 star review is too high. read more

I've been very pleased with my gold account. The staff is attentive, informative, and willing to help. This was one of the best moves I made, and I'm happy to report this company is as stand-up as they come. read more

I have been trying to get someone via phone or email to liquidate some of my precious metals and take a disbursement out of my IRA. So far I have been on hold over an hour several times before giving up. I have left my number for a call back several times and have yet to receive a call. I have tried to email contact them several times as well but all I get are auto replies. These people have no interest in customer service or timely communication. read more

Must agree with others. Customer service is on par with Xfinity and am so pleased that I closed my account at with them after numerous errors and poor service. After closing my account they had the nerve to send me stock certificates that did not belong to me and charge a $30 fee for sending. I asked for a correction of fees and asked how they would like the documents returned and was told that they could do nothing about it and I should take care of returning the certificates to the asset provider. read more

A few months ago I had entered escrow to purchase an investment property and then I discovered that I could do it with my IRA money. I had looked at several options and came across Equity Trust. I did a LOT of research and called Equity Trust a number of times to understand the process and to be sure that I could close on time (in two weeks). I was a little worried after reading some of the reviews online, but I felt that my situation was straightforward. I just needed to setup the IRA, transfer over the money into it, setup the paperwork, transfer the funds into the escrow from my IRA, setup title, and close. I had also wondered how I would go about paying bills for things like utilities and my contractor who is fixing the place up. They told me that I'd just use the online bill pay to do that just like with my regular bank. I had less than 2 weeks to get everything done so that I could close escrow on time, and I decided to give it a shot. I wanted to do as much over the phone as possible so that I didn't screw things up, and each time I called I was helped by informative agents who walked me through everything and followed up with me to make sure it was all good. Because of my tight timeline, I opted for rush processing on everything (setting up the initial account, transferring the funds into the account, etc, etc). Sure it cost me a little extra (and not very much at all), but it was worth it. I think with all of the expedited processing for everything it ran me a few hundred bucks, well worth it knowing the tax savings I'll get by using my IRA money. I am happy to report that I was able to get everything accomplished ahead of time and was able to close on my investment property in time without ANY hassles at all. I have been using the online bill pay to pay for all of the things I need without any issues, which has been a big plus for me. Thank you ETC! read more

Everything including talking to one of their reps takes 2 to 3 business days for them to comprehend and to process. Updated credit card - 2 to 3 business days to process even though I sent it to them 10 days ago. They take fees from main account rather than looking in the account for credit card information. So that makes the main account short on funds and therefore unable to transfer out even though credit card is on file for fees. They have a lot of great excuses for incompetence. 'I will do you a favor and send a message to processing, or to AR, or to your account rep.' Too much red tape. I'm looking for alternatives to Equity Trust. I WOULD NOT RECOMMEND THIS COMPANY TO ANYONE. read more

I would agree with the prior comments. This company was selected by an Ridgewood Energy which was an oil field investment on which we will lose money. Equity continues to charge outrageous fees and does not invest the money in the account in any manner that would result in a return. They have incorrectly charged me for 990T preparation even though this was done by my CPA in my tax filings. Do everything you can to stay away from this company. Unfortunately, I am not able to do this because a decision by Ridgewood Energy. read more

I only wish I had read a majority of these reviews prior to oopening my account several years ago. This company has terrible and antiquated "customer service" (In quotes because there is no service). Like other cusotmers have noted, getting through on a call takes forever. I found that the online chat never got responsed to. Emails take at least a day to respond, after the immediate auto-response. The best bet is to call, wait for a few minutes, and then have them call you back when prompted. Just don't miss this option or you have to start over again. Fees are pretty high on an annual basis if you just have an open account. Try to get anything done, and you have to have an enormous amount of patience, or pay several expedite fees. Paying for expedited service is the ONLY way to get a transaction done in a timely manner. I'm closing my account and just went through all of the reviews here before I had opened the account. Following is a post I made on a Real Estate networking website: IMO I would stay away from Equity Trust. There fees are seemingly reasonable from an annual fee standpoint, but you CANNOT get any timely response or paperwork out of them unless you pay for expedited processing. Calling them takes a lot of patience. Online Chat just sits there and repeates a message that you need to wait 2 minutes. This notice can repeat for hours. They don't respond to an email question for 1 or 2 days. Overall, the service is just outright terrible. An SD IRA is a good mechanism, but it really an antiquated system that Equity Trust uses. They make you feel like you are in the stone ages. I'm switching to a solo 401K, but I can do this because I am truly self employed. There are also "checkbook controlled" IRA set up as well. I would consider the start up costs for this type of account, even though it's less to set up a standard SD IRA. After about 2 or 3 years, you will be saving on the annual fees with checkbook control types of accounts (usually a Trust or LLC). Final note on Equity Trust. I just got off the phone as I wanted to ask about expediting closing my account and they say they do not offer that as an expedited service. Quote turn around is 4 business WEEKS to close my account. This will likely mean that they will charge me another annual fee on Jan 1, 2016 and may screw up my taxes as well. If anyone has had terrible service from Equity Trust, please contact me to talk about retribution from them. They are clearly not looking out for their (former) client's best interest and are using our money in some other manner. Good luck investing. read more