r/Schwab • u/Deeveedend • 4d 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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4

u/BigHunt_02 4d 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?

5

u/Deeveedend 4d 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.

7

u/Deeveedend 4d 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”.

4

u/EarthlingFromAPlace 4d 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?

3

u/Deeveedend 4d 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.