Recently, our longtime broker, Scottrade, was acquired by TD Ameritrade. The transition was smooth and uneventful. All our positions transferred over and I have not experienced any disruptions because of the change. I initially had no intention of switching brokers, but a deal popped up that was too good to pass up. Charles Schwab is offering a “tenure trade offer” to all former Scottrade account holders. They will give you free trades for as long as you have been a Scottrade customer. Initially I though it went something along the lines of , if you were a customer for 5 years, you got 5 free trades. This is not the case.
If you were with Scottrade for 5 years, you got 5 years of unlimited free trades. To be clear, Scottrade has always been a great broker for me. They were always available, helpful and quick to act on anything I sent them. But in this case I could not pass up on moving my longest held Scottrade account over to Charles Schwab. I had held this account for 15 years, and Schwab said they would give me 15 years worth of free trades. Not only that, they agreed to extend this same treatment to any other new accounts I set up at the same time. I immediately created a ROTH and Traditional IRA for my wife, and 2 custodial accounts for my children. All of these are now setup with the same 15 years of free trades. What an amazing deal! I will be 58 before I pay a commission in any of these accounts.
The best part of this is that the deal appears to still be available. If you have an account with TD that was once a Scottrade account, take a look at the terms and conditions or just give Charles Schwab a call. So far, I have been very happy with their service.
