Equitable Avis 55

Truly awful customer experience. My Father had a life insurance policy with Equitable. When he passed, I followed up on behalf of my Mother who was also ill to have Equitable settle the claim. I shared Death Certificates, Power of Attorney, Trust information showing that I had the ability to transact for my Mom - anything they asked for. Each time I didn't hear back I would follow up to find out we needed to jump through some other Equitable-created hoop (legally, it's all really simple). They finally did send a check which was returned by my Mom's Assisted Living facility, since by the time they sent it, my Mother, too, had passed. To be fair, the last part was a goof by the Facility, not Equitable, though obviously it could have been avoided had they not strung things out so long.
I would estimate the number of attempts to resolve the issue via phone, email, their website, physically mailing forms, etc. to be about 20 totaling ~10 hours. The secure site was janky - sometimes not accepting document uploads, forcing me to return to it later to roll the dice again.
Most of the people I spoke to on the phone were pleasant if not terribly competent. Four or five of them told me there were no secondary beneficiaries on the account - just my Mom. Nonetheless, they would follow up the calls by sending a form letter saying the secondary beneficiaries would need to fill out notarized paperwork to say they/we approved of sending a check to my Mom. Later on, a less pleasant but apparently more knowledgeable agent told me that there were, in fact, secondary beneficiaries. At first, she wouldn't tell me who they were. Eventually she relented and my Sister and I once again got documents signed and sent in (why secondary beneficiaries would need to approve the primary beneficiary receiving payment makes no sense to me, but...?).
I sent multiple messages via their secure mail system. Never once, did I ever receive a reply or acknowledgement. I can only conclude that at best customer experience is not a high priority for Equitable. I will say the last person I spoke to, Carla, was helpful & kind.
At worst, there's a good case to be made that they purposely drag their feet and throw up silly bureaucratic hurtles to protect themselves at the cost of pain & suffering of customers. And of course all of this is happening while one is grieving the loss of family members. Truly awful.

I had account for the past Three years...As others have stated, the customer service is TERRIBLLE!! I'm in the process of closing and my account and transferring my money out...Of course, you have to jump through all kinds of hoops to get YOUR MONEY!! Avoid this company!!

Horrible customer service. Outsourced customer service reps are unable to assist with the most basic requests for assistance. We were customers for more than 10 years and were very unhappy with the the service.

If you are looking to invest your money, you can choose The Equitable or you have a bon fire with it in your back yard, same result. they don't have clue, all they did was lose money, while I was still contributing to my 401K which kept going up. They I come to find out they locked up 30% of my money into a 6 year account without even tell me, I am 67?. Then when I asked questions about it, it took two days before they could answer it. RUN RUN RUN AS FAST AS YOU CAN AWAY FROM THE EQUITABLE.

They don’t have a place to upload secure documents and their customer service lies all the time telling they never received secure documents via fax

Extremely poor management of funds. I left 30k and after 2 years.. it became 28k. I am not able to withdraw / transfer the money as they are charging 2K to move the funds. Please don't get into their contracts... you will lose your funds in 6 years.

I closed and filed paperwork to distribute a 403b on June 26. Today is August 5, and I still have not received my funds either as a check or direct deposit. I cannot get anyone on the phone at the company so I’m beyond frustrated at this point. Avoid this company at all costs! They love to take your money, but when it’s time to give it back, they apparently do anything they can to keep it!

Connected to India with background noise and echos. They know nothing about the annuity account. Left call back number to return once they review our account and never called back.
Worst customer service you can have. US Government has better service.
I do not understand why they do not have representative in US in working hrs.

Closed my IRA annuity acct. Equitable did not follow my instructions for withdrawal. Did not notify me of their failure to follow instructions. After 8 days, still no receipt of my funds. Complained after 1.5hrs wait on the phone. Horrible way to treat clients. Never will use equitable again.

I opened a structured indexed account with them. Today, I noticed the value of the account dropping below my initial investment. I've been on hold for over 15 minutes now with their customer service, and no one answered my chat. That's not supposed to happen. I've contacted my broker and have been awaiting his response. Seriously?

You CANNOT speak to anyone in the USA. Every number goes to India or some such 3rd world cesspool, and good luck getting anything accomplished. I have spent (so far today) 2 hours and 45 minutes on hold because Habib is completely clueless. Just another sc*mbag company to be avoided at all costs!

My wife and I made a partial withdrawal on our annuity we have with Equitable. The paperwork was processed and they claim to have cut us a check (get this, a check instead of a wire transfer or ACH transfer to our bank account), they claim to have mailed the check on April 29. To date we have not received our funds (today is May 13, 2021). Have been trying to work with Equitable for the last several days to get this straightened out. Their customer service number gives you the opportunity to speak with someone from India with an accent so thick they are impossible to understand. A request to speak with a supervisor or manager falls on deaf ears. Dead end. They claim that Equitable can't do wire transfers or ACH transfers. WHAT? This is a billion dollar company. This is 2021! This is unheard of. The only reason I can think they issue paper payments is because the funds stay in their account for as long as possible so they can continue investing MY money. This is a shady operation. I am fed up with Equitable.

A senior with a Core Accumulator (IRA) at Equitable. Would strongly recommend against using Equitable as a simple request for an annual IRA distribution is proving a frustrating process.

I'm in the worlds of Betterment, Vanguard, ETrade, etc. so I'm used to things happening in an efficient and timely manner. The process asking a rep to initiate a simple transaction is out-of-date and extremely slow.

To note, the "rep" is with Morgan Stanley as this is where this retirement product was initially set up years ago. From what I see, once they sell you the product, and years pass, no one cares about the account anymore. They made their commission at the onset so servicing the account decades later seems to be zero priority.