You'd imagine any private wealth management firm will roll out the red carpet and go out of their way to serve their clients. Boy, Morgan Stanley completely shattered that notion.
Its backoffice, specifically legal and compliance, seem more eager to create roadblocks than to delight its customers. When I wired the funds in, they didn't ask a single question; when I requested to wire some funds back due to lack of attractive investment opportunities, they started asking all sorts of questions and demanded all kinds of docs, even including prior statements from my bank. Wiring should have been done in a day, yet almost three weeks passed by they still tried to compile a list of docs they asked me to send to them! Their front-office is professional and friendly. Unfortunately the front-office seems powerless to cut through the ridiculous bureaucracy.
Morgan Stanley's IT team is just downright incompetent and makes you feel like you're still living in the last century. Their inbox can't take attachment larger than 15MB, and their "secure client inbox" is more often broken than working. While even many slow-moving banks use e-sign these days, Morgan Stanley still relies on Fedex courier to get your signature.
Stay far, far away from the slow, incompetent and bureaucratic Morgan Stanley if your sanity is important to you. read more