With the introduction of Chase’s new Ultimate Rewards program in July, we decided to switch our coverage from the firm’s legacy (and no longer promoted) Flex Rewards card to the Ultimate Rewards-affiliated Freedom card. The easiest way to do this, we assumed, would be to call a customer service representative (CSR), tell them we currently have a card account, and see if they could help us switch the account over to the new rewards program. When we actually called Chase, however, we hit a wall of confusion. Continue Reading »

TD Ameritrade has a history of acquisitions, and of taking a long time to integrate acquired companies into its operations. It took nearly five years for National Discount Brokers clients to be moved to Ameritrade.com. Likewise, it took over two and a half years for Ameritrade customers to reap the full benefit of the firm’s 2002 merger with Datek. The mid-2005 merger of Ameritrade and TD Waterhouse followed a similar pattern, taking two+ years to dissolve TD Waterhouse and form what is TD Ameritrade today.

When TD Ameritrade announced its purchase of thinkorswim in January 2009, we expected a repeat of this historical pattern. And to date, things have been very quiet. The merger has had no impact on thinkorswim clients, a good thing from their perspective; they continue to trade on the same platforms and speak to the same client service reps that they’re accustomed to. TD Ameritrade clients also haven’t experienced any interruptions or overhauls in service. That said, changes are clearly afoot, and sooner than we expected. Continue Reading »

July was a time for getting back to basics, it seems, as a number of firms introduced simplified or stripped-down versions of products. Credit card firms lead the way with changes from Bank of America, Wachovia and Wells Fargo.

Continue Reading »

Fresh on the heels of our Mutual Fund Monitor Report on Online Security comes word out of the Black Hat security conference that ubiquitous page verification technology SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) may have some loopholes in the way it functions with Internet browsers.

Mutual fund firms will clearly wince at this news, as our report found that all 18 MFM companies employ SSL for security. The good news is that potential breaches such as these were discovered before they were nefariously implemented, so it gives security and browser developers a head start in plugging the holes.
Continue Reading »