Absolutely the worst website I have ever used. I won't buy bonds again because of this. It feels like something from a third world country. Ridiculous read more

Very bad experience. Opened 2 Treasury Direct accounts within a Trust. Purchased short term T-Bills so I would have easy access to funds. When I needed the money a few months later they locked one of the accounts because they only allow one account in a Trust. Would have been nice to know that going in. Jumped thru all of the hoops and waited six months (with money in a 0% account). Called them this morning and the wait time has changed to 12 months. Stay away from Treasury Direct. read more

I see all the negative reviews but my experience is excellent. I only invest in I-Bonds and I am an advocate of that. When my bank account got hacked, I had to change account numbers and a rep named Darlene walked me through it and I was able to withdraw in about a minute. read more

TreasuryDirect fails to adequately disclose that investing on their site comes with considerable risk. It is as if the IRS were to open a similar site called IRSdirect in which taxpayers would be permitted to invest in future tax revenues. Even if the interest rates were attractive, one might have second thoughts about investing directly with the IRS. For example, if you mistakenly failed to pay for your purchase, the IRS has the power to divert your Social Security or Military Retirement benefits to pay what you owe, including any penalties. TreasuryDirect may not want you to know it, but they can do the same thing. There is another difference as well. While the IRS provides half-way decent customer service, TreasuryDirect does not. So why do I give them 4 Stars? I keep in mind what it is designed to do and that is to permit us little guys and gals to directly participate in Treasury auctions where we get everything we want at the best price. In other words, they give us preferential treatment. Even the really Big Boys, like Morgan Stanley, might also get the best price, but they will only receive about a third of what they want. I also keep in mind that TreasuryDirect is not run by an ordinary governmental or financial agency. It is The New York Fed (The Federal Bank of New York) that is directly in charge of it. They conduct the auctions and collect what is owed. Your comments are welcome and appreciated. read more

I opened a Treasury Direct account a few weeks ago. After depositing several thousand dollars my account was locked and I was told I needed to send a form in to unlock my account (which I sent in). I was told this would take up to 13 weeks to resolve. I'm not sure why my account was locked, but suspect I checked the wrong box and had my funds put into a Certificate of Indebtedness (which I thought was the place where funds where held until invested in T-bills). I've called several times to resolve the situation, and more recently asked that the funds simply be put back into my bank account. I was told there was nothing they could do about my account and I would just have to wait. I told them that it was unacceptable to lock a person out of there account for upwards of 3 months due to simply checking the wrong box on a form. They couldn't care less. I wasted several hours over several days trying to correct the situation to no avail. Once I get access to my money, I'm withdrawing it and closing my account. This is government stupidity and ineptitude at it's worst. I wish I had read Yelp reviews before opening an account with them. Do yourself a favor and steer clear of these bunch of clowns who treat your hard earned money with contempt. One other thing to note: Their web site is lousy. First, you must use your account number as your username, not your email address or a user friendly username. Second, you must use the site's links to navigate their web site. If you click the forward or backward button on your browser while logged in, you will be automatically logged out. It's like a web site from 20 years ago. read more

I would rate it -5 stars. Incompetent. Close my active estate case without paying out or notifying me. I was told 6 month processing time. It's now 8 months and no $. Now they say up to 12 months. read more

If I could give it zero stars I would. I bought an I-Bond on the website last year. Accessing your account is convoluted and painful. I can't believe our government. I will not invest another penny in TreasuryDirect and will be redeeming the I-Bond as soon as possible -- 3 years from purchase. read more

If I could give them 0 stars, I would. Do not use them for Series I-bonds. I had my bank connected to my treasurydirect account and would have money automatically drafted every week to my savings bonds. The problem is, one day I put in the wrong password to access my treasurydirect account and got locked out. Here's where it gets ridiculous. Problems 1. They do not have an interface where you can just reset your password via email like most sites. 2. Once you're locked out, you have to actually call and have their team assist you. But... 3. Every time I call, I get an automated voice. And the wait times are super long. I'm on the phone with them as I'm typing this. The wait time is 2 hours and it is currently 1:30pm EST. 4. But the problem is, once it gets close to 3 or 4pm, they stop accepting calls bc of "call volume" and too close to closing time. 5. I've called multiple times since I've been locked out and still haven't gotten in touch with anyone. 6. I was locked out of my account in October of 2022. It is currently March 13, 2023 and I still don't have access to my account. 7. I've submitted tickets through the portal to regain access to my account with no luck. The auto voice on the phone also said it can take up to 13 weeks to get a response. 8. Again, it's been more than 3 months since I've sent correspondence to them, and still haven't heard back from a living soul. 9. This is my 14th phone call. *crickets* I'm convinced this is a scam or they're playing a lot of people. Oh... And my autopay was still on. I couldn't take it off until I accessed my treasurydirect account which is locked. So I've racked up so much overdraft fees that my bank account closed. If you decide to use them, good luck. But if you put in the wrong password more than 3 times, you're SOL. They will not fix their interface or have better IT solutions. They're super trifling for that. read more

My dad has I-Bonds with them. When you call for help, you do not get any real support. Sent all the documents they requested and instructions. After 8 months, the response was they could not deposit into a trust account because the bonds were in his name, not the trust. As the executor of the estate, I should be able to deposit the funds in any account I choose. I opened a new account in the name of the estate and resubmitted the forms as requested. When I called to see if they have the new information, was told the old case was closed and a new one was opened. I now have to wait another 6-8 months. He died 2 years ago today. Also told there will be notification when the account closes, the money will just appear in the account. NO receipt of any kind. This is crazy stupid. They should not be allowed to operate this way. Stay away from this even if it is a good investment, you cannot get your money out. read more

Have some paper savings bonds you received as a kid that you want to redeem? Good luck!!!! My advice is to either open a bank account with a bank that will redeem paper bonds directly, or just take your bonds and throw them into the trash. Treasury Direct's website is laughably difficult to use. I could go into detail, but just think "website from 1996" and you'll get the jist. The biggest issue I had was certainly my fault, but again, laughable that the remedy is so challenging. I left out one digit from my bank's routing number, but to correct it (change it, delete it, add the right number in a new account, whatever), I have to print a paper form, go to my bank, sign it in the presence of a "certified bank official" and have them stamp it, then mail that form to a PO box in MN, and they will update my bank info. All because I left out a single digit from my banks routing number. Looks like I will just be throwing away a bunch of money! read more

DO NOT INVEST USING TREASURY DIRECT. They can freeze your account, not explain their actions, ask you to complete a form to verify you are the account holder after being a customer for over a year, tell you they received your form and now you have to wait five or more months to unlock the account, suspend all purchases requests, hold all of your cash proceeds from maturities without interest and who knows what else. This is a government-run disaster using your money!!!! STAY AWAY. Buy treasuries or corporate bonds thru your brokerage account. read more

God have mercy on you if you need to convert paper savings bonds through TreasuryDirect. If you're like me and have old paper savings bonds that were given to you long ago, you could redeem them for cash at a bank. However, if the bank puts limits on how much you can redeem, then it may instruct you to mail the bonds to your local Treasury Retail Securities Site for processing and redemption. Alternatively, you can convert your paper bonds to electronic bonds via TreasuryDirect, the website run by the United States Treasury. TD also lets you purchase electronic bonds directly. You can set up a linked bank account, and redemption of electronic bonds into your bank account is *reported* to be straightforward. So what's bad about TD? First, their website plainly sucks. If you're logged in and hit the back button in your browser, the request will fail AND your session will be borked - you'll have to log back in. The login process itself is a hassle - you need to remember your account number, typically a letter and nine numbers, and you have to click your password on a virtual keyboard. I understand the clicking thing is supposed to deter keyloggers, but it won't work against any sophisticated keylogger that captures mouse clicks, and just makes it more tedious on the user. But the worst part about TD's website security is that it asks you to provide answers to a few personal questions of your choice like "What's your favorite movie?", and when you try to log in from an unknown computer, it'll ask you ALL the questions, expecting you to remember which ones you provided answers for. Are you kidding me? Not only may I not remember what my favorite movie was two years ago, but I definitely won't remember which questions I answered and which ones I didn't. Worse, when a question is answered incorrectly, the website doesn't tell you which one, leading to a lot of permutations of guessing. That can encourage me to save the questions and answers in a text file on my computer, which negates the idea of this so-called security. TD's process for converting a paper bond to an electronic one is more or less straightfoward - create a manifest on their site listing each bond's face value and serial number, and mail the manifest and bonds to TD's address in West Virginia. Bonds typically take 4-6 weeks to get converted after they are received. However, what I wasn't clear on is that bonds with a P.O.D. designee count as a single owner, while bonds with an "OR" designee (like Bob Smith or Alice Smith) count as a dual owner, even though the second name appears at the bottom of the bond, not on the same line as the primary name. The manifest must list the correct registration type (single or dual) for each bond, and failure to do so will require additional processing for the offending bonds' registration to be corrected. That additional processing is the boat I ended up in. A month and a half went by without any progress, so I finally emailed TD and they confessed that they've been severely backed up but would expedite my request. Sure enough, two days later, the remainder of my bonds were converted. The final hassle though was that converted bonds appear in a separate linked account, not in the primary account. I would guess this is a result of an engineering shortcoming (another reason why their site is user-unfriendly). During the process, I emailed TD customer support a few times. To their credit, they do seem to read emails completely and provide direct answers instead of irrelevant canned responses. If you're doing everything electronically, you may not run into too many issues. But if you're converting paper bonds, watch out for the registration pitfall, and ping customer support the moment something looks like it's stalled. They always state that they won't update you on the status of your bonds - it's your responsibility to check. Yay for government inefficiency! read more

Abandon Hope, Ye Who Enter Treasury Direct's Site! I agree with everyone about the horribleness of this site. It is a Bizarro universe version of any usable website. I wanted to transfer funds from TD to a brokerage firm. To do so is nearly impossible..I had to print out forms that in themselves are labrythine, and very hard to describe to a brokerage person. The site is such a huge waste of time...maybe their idea of keeping info "safe" is to create an unbearably difficult user experience. read more

Nice way to purchase bonds, bills and notes. The online site is pretty good, however, if you decide to sell any of your bonds, bills or notes ahead of time, it takes months for them to close it out and provide you with your investment. This is a big drawback. read more

Like most, I have dealt with a lot of crummy organizations online, but Treasury direct is the worst by far, and this is saying a lot. I was trying to buy an i-bond and was locked out of my account because I couldn't remember my exact security answer. Now, I can only unlock it by calling and wait times are over an hour. If you are patient enough to wait you will find that wait times can actually increase with time! Plus, you have to listen to annoying messages over and over. Who pays the salaries of the people in this incompetent organization? My advice: Don't deal with Treasury Direct and buy other bonds elsewhere. read more

I have navigated all sorts of websites since the beginning of the internet. The Treasury Direct website is the worst. I got locked out of an account I set up when I went back to actually buy an I Bond. It's impossible to unlock through an automated process like every bank in the country has, and the phone number they give is outgoing only voicemail. They say they have high volume. Apparently, they have been saying that same thing for the past 10 years. Don't offer a product that you can't support. Would give a 0 if that was an option. read more

Should have looked here before opening account. Fortunately, I invested a small amount to see how it was going to work. Unfortunately, I locked my account and I have been on hold over 2 hours. It will be sad if I need to hang up, but I have an appointment that I need to get to. I cannot believe that anybody, including the Oxygen Thieves working for the government, think this is a good customer experience. read more

Is anyone there!? This is my 2nd week of trying to get in touch with them due to locked account. Terrible experience. The whole log in experience is ridiculous. In total I spent probably 6hour on hold. At this point I just want to see if anyone is even there. Their automated email response just said that they wont be able to respond read more

Slow, unresponsive, and inefficient. Best to avoid the Treasury Direct website at all costs. Anyone that wants to cash in Series EE bonds and needs the money within 1-3 months should try their hardest to cash them in with a local bank branch or credit union. I know each bank may have a different set of policies for cashing bonds in (customer account required, under $1000, etc), but from my experience and talking to others it's a minimum of 4 weeks from the date of receipt to having the cash deposited in your account. I'm at 10 weeks with no deposit. The site is from the 1990s, 2+ hour call wait IF you can get a hold of someone, no email responses, and if there are any problems with your submission you may have to snail mail your changes which could take even more time. read more

It takes hours to get through once locked out your account, often being disconnected when 3-4 hours into a call. The web site is a user experience disaster developed in the last century. The arcane security features make the site extremely difficult to use if the password or the limited security questions are not entered exactly as entered when setting up the account. This approach to security is unacceptable for infrequent users of this archaic system. This may be by design as it appears our government prefers to avoid dealing with individual investors. read more

Wish I could leave a negative number review. Treasury Direct is horrible and a total embarrassment to "customer service". 2 1/2 hour phone hold timed at start of business?! Not accepting new email correspondence!? Up to 13 weeks to possibly get a response to a regular mail query?! A web site that gives you false reasons for locking you out of accessing your account with no way to remedy the situation?! For months now, the Government has been aware of all these issues and has been unable and unwilling to provide users any relief. Just purely inept, uncaring and amateurish. read more

Waste of time. Typical govt phishes data then doesn't bother to do their job. Buy corporate or other bonds thru businesses that actually care about their customers and don't lead you down a path of compromised data read more

2+ hour wait time for help to unlock my account. After two hours on hold the automated message keeps saying the wait time is 2 or more hours. I do not believe there is anyone answering the phones. How on earth does it take more than 2 hours to get service. If there is no way to get your account unlocked then there is no way to redeem your savings bond. read more

Less than 0 stars. I have a TD account and had submitted the correct forms certified by bank to change my bank account number on my TD to use for sales and purchases. They input the bank account number incorrectly and of course the bank rejected as that account number does not exist. They did not go back to check their records. I have emailed them with case number to reference at least 5 times. Been on hold for over four hours several times only to be cut off or dropped even after finally getting through to a live person. No responses, call backs, emails. Nothing !!!!! This has been going on for almost 2 months and there is nothing I can do because the bank account number is incorrect. GRRRRRRRRRRRR!!! Not very reassuring and I have A LOT of bonds there. Plus the website is about a friendly as a den of grizzly bears. Do not bother. read more

So, the website is clearly horrible. It feels like it hasn't been updated since 1980. It took forever to open an account and once I had my account open, the website fail to connect my bank account to it. I emailed them, and of course, nobody answered my questions. So now I'm trying to call them. I have been holding the line for exactly 2 hours and 30 minutes (and I'm currently still waiting for someone to answer). What in the world is going on with these people. It's the 21st century and I can't believe it's so difficult to get proper customer service. read more

Absolute worst. I have spent over 5 hours on hold. Still not through. "wait time may be longer than usual". Now it is just a challenge. I have my phone just sitting and ringing, with an occasional obnoxious loop message. My call is apparently important to them however. They tell me that about once every 5 minutes. There is no other way to contact them other than calling. read more

This is my third attempt to contact Treasury Direct regarding my deceased parents US bonds.... Each time the wait has been over 2 hours and I wound up hanging up. Terrible customer service. DO NOT BUY US BONDS. read more

Horrible login and password reset experience. You have to use their keyboard to type password and then you have to remember which 3 specific security questions you used. read more

After meticulously creating manifests for 243 EE bonds and mailing them by registered mail I was surprised to learn that 17 of the 50 matured bonds on the first manifest were not received. I was pleased to hear the other bonds were accounted for but was bewildered of how the first 17 matured bonds escaped from the package. After my two hour phone wait I was assured they could be replace if lost (more like mishandled). I received an email detailing how to make a lost bond claim. After more hours of form filling and notarizing I'm back on the infamous 13 week merry-go-round. When it comes to handling money there should be no "Oops, we've never seen one like this before". On a positive note the additional EE mature bonds were converted to an I bond and the remaining EE bonds are automatically redeemed as they mature. I guess there is always Love and Hate in any relationship. read more

I have tried for 17 days to reach TreasuryDirect by phone. I once was able to be on hold for over 2 hours with a loop of messages. Usually the automated voice system declares a long wait and suggests to call another time. And disconnects. I emailed TreasuryDirect as instructed 9 days ago. The suggested time to receive an answer to the question is 5 days. There is somewhat of a warning that repeated emails will push back the response time. I initially signed up in 2021, in order to get an account number. I have never gotten an account number (thus the need to contact). I reentered the EXACT Individual Account Application information as the original (as requested) and the error of 'unable to verify' has been returned at least a dozen times. All this to get I bonds, which are no longer available by any other means. I COULD go the paper route to invest $5k but I wanted to invest $10k which is ONLY possible through the web site. I think I will give this up and let the US of A borrow from other sources. I give up. It took less time earning this money than it's taking to invest it here. read more

The Treasury Direct website is the worst website I have ever used. To start it is ridiculous that you can only purchase Series I Savings Bonds from treasurydirect.gov and cannot purchase from a brokerage account. The entire system seems designed to discourage you from purchasing I Bonds. If that was the goal, then they nailed it. You cannot use a password manager to store and paste in your password as the site does not allow you to paste in your password. You have to pick a complex password, with upper and lower case and a symbol, but when you try to log in, you are presented with a virtual keyboard that does not allow switching between upper and lower case. When you click on the forgot password link you are presented with eight random questions. You are supposed to only answer the three you answered when you set up your account. If you don't know which questions you originally answered, you can not log in and your account will get locked out. If your account gets locked out, the wait on the support number is over an hour long. The system does not place you on hold with music, instead it plays ringing to you and periodically interrupts the ringing to play the same recordings over and over. This phone system is clearly designed to make you hang up. read more

if i could give them a zero, i would. if a company or the government makes it difficult to do a transaction then it simply means they don't want the business. In order to redeem my bonds i have to hit a button 4 times. Now, mulitply that by 250 and I have to go into software and hit over one thousand buttons to get my redemption. Now, start including how many times it knocks you offline and locks you out of your profile because the software thinks it's fraud. Ridiculous! Do NOT buy anything from the site which is the only way to buy and support our gov. read more

I think the government purposely makes TreasuryDirect a terrible website to use so you cannot buy inflation protected assets like I Bonds. I submitted my application and immediately questioned the security of the site. Any PI with half a brain can figure out the answers to your security questions ("name of first car" etc). I submitted 100% accurate information and provided the address of my permanent mailing address, and then I got an email saying they can't verify my information and I have to go to a physical bank and get a signed witness document proving I am a real person. Are you kidding? The US Government cannot verify my own identity with information I provided from my drivers license and social security number? And I gotta go to a bank to get verified? The whole system is designed to lock people out of bond buying. read more

TreasuryDirect is, by far, the worst site to invest or save money. They claim they are a federal program, but have no customer support whatsoever. I consistently get locked out of my account, and the customer support number says the wait time is 2+ hours. After spending an hour on the phone, twice, with wait times not decreasing, I was forced to get off the phone. Next, I tried email, which said to call them at the same number. I have received no help and cannot access my own money! Since TD claims to be a "Federal" program, there is no BBB rating/reporting system, as I wish I could report this SCAM. PLEASE, BEWARE OF TREASURYDIRECT. read more

Absolute nightmare on hold twice after 2 hours, the call disconnects ... call the number again and informed its after-hours. Emailing simply generates a useless thread stating only emails requests through your account will be answered ... of course, that eliminates those asking for online account support because they are unable to access their account. Still in disbelief that this is the best effort from the Treasury Direct. read more

This is the worst website I have ever encountered or tried to use. I've been using the web for 25 years, lets say an hour a day. After almost 10,000 hours of web usage, I can say without a doubt that this website is the worst one I have ever encountered. The very bottom. I'm no Steve Jobs, but I'm also not an idiot. But this website had me questioning my intelligence as well as my sanity. Where to start: *the first red flag is that there is a tutorial on how to log in. I laughed when I saw it because what kind of idiot needs a tutorial on how to log in to a website?? Five minutes later I was clicking on it. Naturally, it was a dead link. *most of the time the instructions to complete a task on this website merely tells you to visit the website, with an unhelpful link back to the page you were currently on. *i'm pretty sure I created an account, but there is no real way to tell if you are logged into the website, and of course there is no actual "Log in" button. I could go on and on, but you get the point. I aged 2-3 years in the 30 minutes I spent on this site. The only upside is that now when someone asks me what my greatest regret in life is, I answer quickly and assuredly: it was that 30 minutes on a Saturday morning I spent on TreasuryDirect.org. Thanks for listening, this has been very therapeutic. read more

Works fine if everything is going fine. I got locked out of my account, and now I have over two hour waits to get it unlocked. There is no customer service. They do not even play music while I wait. They just have it ring with intermittent messages. It is the only way to buy bonds, so they spend zero money on customer service. read more

What a disaster! Continuously determines that you've entered too many erroneous entries and trips the "blocked" switch, despite the fact that my entries WERE NOT erroneous. With the "blocked" message is a phone number to call to get it unblocked. The recording states that "due to high call volumes, you can conveniently call back at a later time AND THEN HANGS UP. I just called "at a later time" and found they closed at 5pm and won't open till 8am! It says I can contact an agent via email -- only to find out that I should expect a reply in less than 5 DAYS!... I'm trying to buy a bond TODAY! You're government at work! Unbelievable! read more

I followed the instructions and bought series I bonds. That went very well. But, to buy treasury bills, notes and bonds - buyer beware. You request to buy one, it goes to auction and I have not received the advertised interest rate. When it goes to auction you get a lower yield. So, here's why its not 5 stars - those treasuries are marketable securities and treasury direct is like the Hotel California. You can get in but you can never leave. Not on your own. You buy a note or T-bond (NOT savings bonds) and if you want to sell before maturity, you need A BROKER. I can buy no problem, but I can't sell without a broker. read more

What a joke. Had my moms paperwork for 4 months and then said some of it with signatures was missing...well where was it sitting for 4 months? She has dementia and has gone down hill on these 4 months. Her bank is another joke, they don't cash savings bonds anymore. So now am I supposed to take this woman back to the bank to fill out paperwork afain..this woman that has no control of her bowels, can barely walk or complete a sentence...and then you want her to sign paperwork? Oh and now they want me to sent the savings bonds...so they can lose those to? read more