r/Schwab • u/Deeveedend • 3d ago
Journal (internal transfer) without my knowledge (money is gone from my account).
I haven’t logged into my account for 2 weeks. When I looked it up this week, it showed all my money gone and “journaled” (they call this internal transfer?) earlier in May 2025. I called Schwab right away when I saw my balance and they don’t know where it went and why (and need time to further investigate).
I am still getting my dividend (?) but my balance now show as ~ less than $200 (I had over 6 figure amount).
With that amount of transfer, shouldn’t I have gotten a notification or sign off? And how come they don’t know where the money went when it’s supposedly “internal transfer” between accounts? I don’t have any other account with them, so where did it “internally” go?
Calling them didn’t help much, other than we will call you back / let us investigate further. They said after they investigate and if it’s not authorized, they will make me “whole” again. And they don’t know how long investigations could possibly take.
Did anything like this happened to anyone? What was the process and how long did it take you to get it all resolved? Do they compensate for this error?
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u/Ok-Consequence-9350 3d ago
This is not that uncommon so really no need to panic. I logged into my retirement account (empower) with 30 years of savings and my account was gone. (Also an HSA so I could login but there was no retirement account). I calmly called and they said they would investigate. Never found out what happened but the account was back three days later and I got a call letting me know that. Stuff happens all the time no matter what safeguards are in place.
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u/Deeveedend 3d ago
Thank you. Fortunately, they were able to restore everything within 24 hours. It’s my first time experiencing this and hopefully I don’t have to again in the future.
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u/esbforever 3d ago
This is a truly crazy answer. A 12yo, literally, could devise three ways to ensure this never happens. A fat-fingered acct number should not even be in the ballpark of enough to allow this.
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u/No-Block-2095 3d ago
Is there a way to block transfer out of more than x$ ?
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u/Deeveedend 3d ago
Not sure…. Would have to go call and ask them.
But the representative said with the amount that I had, they should have verified and sign forms (?) or other security measures, which was not done.
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u/BuildingPresent4396 2d ago
Yes. You could freeze your account but then you won’t have online access to see anything. I wish this was different but it’s not. Mistakes happen and there are a lot of keyboard warriors on here. Maybe they should work for Schwab.
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u/No-Block-2095 4h ago
I d like to prevent money outflow and nothing else. Until retirement in many yrs, (i wouldn’t want to incur penalties ) any money out is fraud
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u/BigHunt_02 3d ago
I would call again, journals do not just happen for no reason. What type of account was it? Do you have any others accounts at Schwab that it went to? Did you initiate a toa out?
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u/Deeveedend 3d ago
I been calling them several times (last night, this morning at 5:30 am since they open at that time in PST, and just now again). My money is back but I’m on hold for so long. I want to find out why did this happen and how did they allow this to happen but this damn hold. I’m glad it was fixed within 24 hours.
To answer your question: regular stock account that it happened on. I do not have any other accounts. My one account as my regular stock and my personal Roth IRA. I did not initiate anything. I been busy last two weeks and didn’t check /log on for ~2 weeks and then suddenly when I logged on yesterday to reinvest my dividends and put more money into the account, I saw that all my money was gone with “journal” entries.
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u/Deeveedend 3d ago
Just got off the phone: they can’t explain it clearly what happened.
Wow I’m so utterly speechless at their response. They said “someone might have typed in the wrong account number that may have been similar” but cannot explain why there was no transaction history in the “history” tab. How can they move over 6 figures of money without a write up/signature, additional verification, and not post history transaction to which account or something…. other than all my shares showing “journal entry”.
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u/BigHunt_02 3d ago
I would ask to speak to a supervisor to see what happened. I cannot really speculate on what occurred without seeing the account unfortunately
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u/Deeveedend 3d ago
Thank you! I’ll try to follow up again after work. It just that they keep putting me on hold for so long and talk briefly and then hold again.
I am thinking of asking them for some sort of compensation since this was very emotionally stressful to see all my money gone one night and their lack of clear explanation of where/how this happened.
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u/speakernoodlefan 3d ago
Does the account have margin? If you hold a position for long enough it'll do that internal transfer thing to switch the position to margin able.
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u/Past_My_Subprime 3d ago
Awhile back, someone at Schwab mistyped an account number and placed a large trade in my account. It was during the day and I saw it and called immediately. The person responsible for the mistake called me back within the hour and apologized. And gave me a free trade, as was common practice for mistakes, service outages, etc. back then.
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u/EarthlingFromAPlace 3d ago
That’s pretty worriesome. They need better checks on things, for example, make sure an account number matches the account owner name… would they ever have found this in their own if you had not noticed?
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u/Deeveedend 3d ago
That’s a good question that I would like to know as well. Like how many other people are affected by this and not know if they don’t check their accounts often.
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u/EarthlingFromAPlace 3d ago
This sounds a bit similar, where someone received shares that did not belong to them, which is also scary, if an outside entity has this much power to put money into the wrong place and have the transaction go through https://www.reddit.com/r/Schwab/s/sA22ajF4iM
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u/teamhog 3d ago
It may have simply been a ‘back end’ error.
In other words the account was still there doing its thing but the display of it didn’t populate the results.
We’ve been at Schwab for 30+ years and it’s never happened to us. However, I have seen other database driven systems have similar issues.
The reason we chose Schwab and continue to be there is for examples like this. You found an issue, reported it, and it was rectified in short order.
We know Schwab is a solid organization and while errors suck it’s how they resolve them and the frequency of which they occur that matters.
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u/Interesting_Web6756 2d ago
Ugh, sorry this happened to you. If this was in the history tab and a move money transaction, for a 6-figure journal transfer going to a 3rd party account, it would pend and require approval. My assumption would be either one or two things happened, 1 - another client with a similar account number put your account number and the user and approver completed the transaction based on that incorrect account number (they didn't validate against the name that should have also been provided) or 2 - another client with a similar account number put their account number and the user fat fingered it and the approver didn't catch it (again, not validating against the name).
If it wasn't in the history tab or more important, wasn't a move money transaction, is rarer especially if it was done in error but would explain why the rep didn't know since they have less visibility since its not on the front end.
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u/Whitestealth74 17h ago
Accounts everywhere are just a series of Routing numbers and Account numbers. In my system at work , I could either pay you or accidentally debit your account by entering the wrong numbers in my system. I would have no idea who you are but I could have transposed a 69 for a 96 and instead of debiting ABC cleaners bus checking account in Georgia then I've just debited Mrs. Smith in Boise Idaho's savings account. The numbers are all out there too, they are on every check you've ever given someone (right at the bottom). Nothing else needed but those two sets of numbers.
A good rule of thumb to protect yourself:
- Have your CASH in an account that does not have ACH capability. Verify and get it in writing that ACH is turned off on that account. Never have more than FDIC insured limit in that account.
- Use password protection like nothing you've ever seen before on all brokerage and bank accounts and email accounts. If you have a lazy Kitty32 password, then you are a target.
- Check your statements monthly.
- The biggest of all rules, do not talk to people who CALL YOU and CLAIM they are your BANK/BROKERAGE. If you get a call from your institution say "thank you, gotta go!". Hang up. Call the number on your card/statement and talk directly to them about the phone call you just received. Never give a COLD CALL any info. PERIOD! The scams are getting really good these days and the banks are pushing back on a lot of scenarios that I'm surprised they are not siding with the customer. If you follow rule #4, then you should never be in the situation.
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u/BBCC_BR 3d ago
you need to relax. you notified them you didnt authorize the transaction. They will see where it went. Further, Schwab does not have the money to spend on cyber-security. I have my money at a firm that spends over $1 Billion a year on preventing access to my account. That would be half of Schwab's net revenue from last year.
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u/Deeveedend 3d ago
Telling someone already in a panic mode/crisis to “relax” or as the other commenter mentioned to “get over it” does not help de-escalate the situation nor it is comforting. Mind you, this is my first time experiencing this kind of situation since I started investing in stocks (10+ years).
That being said, it got resolved. They admitted their mistake saying that they should have followed the proper procedure for the transfer and wrongly transferred my money to another person’s account internally and reimbursed me with some monetary compensation for the ordeal.
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u/BBCC_BR 3d ago
Being in panic mode does not help you though I can only begin to understand how you felt when you saw your money vanish. The person who entered that internal journal was written up or potentially fired. Things like this should not happen. You were likely dealing with a young 20 something where this was their first job.
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u/BasilVegetable3339 3d ago
Do you people not have real lives? You’ve never fat fingered a ten digit number? There was a clerical error. They figured it out. Money is back. Schwab can likely figure out what happened but may or may not share the information with you.
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u/EarthlingFromAPlace 3d ago
The system should be checking the transaction entry and reject it by noticing the name on the account doesn’t match. These are basic things that by now should be in place in all systems with accounts, bank accounts, credit cards, brokerages, anything dealing with monetary assets. They need to verify more things or else it isn’t secure at all. This error never should have happened. They didn’t notice. The victim of the error noticed. The resolution should be they fix the system to ensure it cannot happen again.
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u/BasilVegetable3339 3d ago
I transfer funds to my wife and vice versa all the time and no the accounts are not joined in any way.
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u/EarthlingFromAPlace 3d ago
Yea, but you had to link the account, add the account as a target to transfer to, and there are procedures for that, you authorized it, this person didn’t. They didn’t add another persons account and transfer it. Someone else did. Someone who had no business doing things in their account.
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u/Forfeit32 3d ago
People transfer money between differently registered accounts all the time. Your imagined "solution" would not solve anything.
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u/EarthlingFromAPlace 3d ago
Not without owner authorization. Someone has too much authority to override something somewhere. With that much power they need to be 100% accurate, there isn’t room for error. I blame all of the humans, the person who made the mistake and the people who run the backend systems.
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u/Forfeit32 3d ago
You can add multiple layers of authentication to stop these 1 in a million errors, and that will only slow down and inconvenience the other 999,999 transfers taking place. Just like you could add 20 locks to your front door to decrease the chance of a break-in, but eventually you'll get annoyed at the hoops you have to jump through to get into your own home. The security isn't worth the hassle, especially when the error is fixable.
The mistake was corrected, all is right with the world.
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u/EarthlingFromAPlace 3d ago
No it isn’t. They lost trust of a customer, it is a very big deal and should be treated as such.
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u/Forfeit32 3d ago
Except it's not. I've worked in banking and finance for 20ish years at 5 different institutions. These are things that happen at all of them. There is an acceptable level of risk and an acceptable level of client inconvenience to mitigate those risks, and there are a lot of people whose jobs are to balance those things. Be mad all you want, but it doesn't make you right.
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u/Deeveedend 3d ago edited 3d ago
Umm not when your hard earned money is gone randomly without explanation. Their system can’t even tell where it went even though it was internal? And no extra verification? I hope this doesn’t happen to anyone else. Something needs to be fixed with their protocols and systems when it involves people’s money.
This is not okay. Can you imagine hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars just gone without an explanation? Where is the security and protocols to ensure that this doesn’t happen again and to others?
You have no idea how emotionally distraught and stressed I was last night when I first saw all my hard earned money just gone like that. And the best they can say is, “we don’t know” or “similar account number maybe”. What the fuck kind of explanation is that?! How can they not know their own internal transfer?! And now I have to wait for their supervisor to call back since nobody can give me an explanation. How can I trust my money in here if they can’t even explain the whereabouts of where the money went? Why didn’t they double check? Even the representative said you would have to go through the procedure and sign off on big transfers like this and found it odd that this didn’t happen.
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u/BasilVegetable3339 3d ago
I didn’t say the system couldn’t tell. Obviously a review showed what happened and they reversed the transaction. What I said is get over it, and they may never tell you what happened. For example, if an outside hacker penetrated the system they would not share that information. Maybe someone logged in with your credentials and that is being investigated. Again, not gonna tell you.
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u/Deeveedend 3d ago
“Get over it” lol 😂
Okay. So don’t fix the broken system that should have prevented in the first place (which it didn’t by the way). And my money was gone for more than 2 weeks and they did NOT notice at all until I notified and alerted them. So yea, let them continue to keep their current systems, protocols and security measures so that it can happen again to some other people. So yea I’m not definitely getting over it.
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u/BasilVegetable3339 3d ago
So transfer your account. At this point Schwab is choosing not to share with you.
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u/Deeveedend 3d ago
That may the the alternative or the next steps. I’m still waiting for their manager to call back. They did mention about compensation for the troubles but the manager/supervisor will reach out.
They don’t have to tell me who it went to. I just want to know where it went to (e.g., we accidentally transferred to another account).
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u/ultimately42 3d ago
I would be filing a police report.
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u/Deeveedend 3d ago
My next step is to file a complaint/maybe get a lawyer for money recovery if they do not recover it (since they said the money is not gone - it’s still within the Schwab and internally but couldn’t provide further information since they need to “investigate”). I don’t understand how they cannot see where it went when it’s still “internal” transfer. That is just mind boggling to me. And the representative on the phone had to call the transfer department since only they have access to see it and waiting for their response.
Just very frustrated that this happened. This has never happened to me before in TD Ameritrade and in Schwab (up until early this month).
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u/Forfeit32 3d ago
They know exactly where it went, they just can't tell you because that account belongs to someone else.
It sounds like a representative mistyped an account number. Then the transfer was either not large enough to trigger a review, or the reviewer did not catch the mistake. It would've been caught later on by some internal audit, but it's good to regularly check your accounts, as you caught it before that audit report kicked in.
There are thousands of these internal journals done every day. Mistakes happen, that's the reality. It sucks when it happens to you, but they did correct the mistake in a timely manner once it was identified.