More & more brokers are letting their customers set up links to their bank accounts from inside their brokerage accounts in order to withdraw & transfer money. I was thinking after reading news stories about Ameritrade account info being stolen that it may not be a wise idea to link up other accounts with a brokerage account. If someone does hack into your brokerage account, not only could you lose what's in your brokerage account, but also what's in your bank account. Just a thought.
Those idiots at Ameritrade still had my information 8 years after I closed the account. I was getting Etrade statements long after I withdrew all the money and requested closing the account too, and I requested a number of times that they actually close the thing and send me the remaining two dollars and change.. they did not do that for years. Is there a way to get them all to take our info off their records in these situations?? Also, be careful how your overdraft works, sometimes your savings is the unlimited supply for overdraft with banks.. I had a hard time getting a credit union to unlink my savings from the checking.
I received the security breach letter from Ameritrade today. It says that I'm getting it as a former client. The fact is that I've never been Ameritrade client! I had an account with Datek but I closed it well before the company was bought by Ameritrade. So they sold my closed account too. This feels very uncomfortable. It looks like I don't have any control over my identity information. Just a week ago someone used cash advance check which was sent to me by Discover card. These idiots just printed few checks with my name and account information on them and they sent them over by mail without telling me. The check was used 2 months after it was sent to me! If I only knew they are in the mail I'd cancel them right away. Well, I'm closing the account.
Suppose you have an account with company X. Company X may have a policy/method not to the client's specific information with others. A few months later, if the company X is bought by Company Y, it will inherit your information but not necessarily have to follow the same strict privacy policy to keep your information hidden. That may be a reason why your old Datek's information--which is now its parent company's property--is subject to be under different policy.