Like many people right now, I’m putting together my taxes. My wife and I have investments and a shared money market account through Morgan Stanley. I need some information from the money market account. Although we have lots of paper statements at home, I figured it was time I put all of it into Quicken, and since Morgan Stanley offers online access, I thought I would download my data.
But I’m using a Mac.
First off, Morgan Stanley’s ClientServ Web site uses a fucking Java applet for its navigation interface (which, as far as I can tell, could easily be replicated using CSS or even plain HTML) within the site — which doesn’t work on my Mac, using any browser. Not only is this useless tech, it’s not even implemented well, because there are no alternate links. Isn’t that a violation of federal accessibility laws or something? So the first step, simply getting to the page that allows me to download my statement, is a brick wall for Mac users.
I head to the office to access the site using a Dell laptop I bought for testing purposes. The navigation works, but then I hit another problem. I want to download more than just the most recent month of activity. This appears to be a simple process: click the checkbox saying you want a custom date range, and then change the range in the boxes provided. But checking the box does nothing; the fields are grayed out.
And then the final nail: I can’t connect to Morgan Stanley anyway with the Mac version of Quicken 2005, because (according to Morgan Stanley’s FAQ), “Quicken doesn’t support OFX downloads from Macintosh computers, at this time.”
So: Morgan Stanley doesn’t want to serve all of its customers, making the blind assumption of too many companies that Mac users are an insignificant statistic. And, Intuit (which has had a terrible record of Mac support, even killing Quicken — at the time the market leader on the Mac — before Steve Jobs showed them the iMac… oh, and did I mention that Bill Campbell, Chairman of Intuit, is on Apple’s goddamn board of directors?) can’t make its Mac software work in parity with its Windows software.
If we didn’t already have a good investment (not just in dollars, but in time and relationship via our financial adviser), Morgan Stanley would lose my business right now. As for Intuit, I think it’s time to give Moneydance a try, which apparently supports the damn OFX files.
Yeah, I’m stressed and pissed. There you go.
[Update] I’m feeling a little better now, because Moneydance does, indeed, connect to the Morgan Stanley, which means I can grab all my transactions. Yay! The downside… you have to manually accept each transaction. Which is hundreds of instances of “click transaction, click Accept button” to get all of 2004 in. Feck. But it’s better than hand-entering the data, I guess.
Jeff Carlson | Never Enough Coffee Creations 
I did a search for “morgan stanley clientserv” because I was trying to determine if Morgan Stanley uses another bank name (or a clearinghouse insitution like JPMorgan Chase) that I could plug into Quicken 2005 on my 10.4. This entry addressed everything I was experiencing. I *guess* I’m glad to know that I’m not the only one, although that doesn’t really help me get my transactions into Quicken.
I sympathize with you on your difficulty with the Morgan Stanley website. I have had problems with it also. But what struck me as really strange and interesting is that fact that you felt that you needed to justify why you have a Dell in your office. Almost as if to say “Attention all MAC users, please don’t hate me. The night I spent in the office with that Dell laptop was meaningless. I only bought it for testing purposes.” That mindset alone is what your biggest problem is. It’s funny, MAC users hate PC’s yet PC user don’t hate MACS (Maybe that’s because it’s not worth the energy.) Besides, MACs aren’t suppose to be used for taxes and spread sheets. According to their marketing campaign, you should be making moooovvvviiieees and Phhhoootttoooos with you MAC Weeeee! Funnnn!
Haha, Take a chill pill man, it’s not that serious.
You were on your soapbox over the disrespect business have for MACs right? It really wasn’t about Morgan Stanley at all.
Chris, you’re reading too much into it. I write about the Mac for a living, so the people reading my blog would know that I do only use Windows for testing purposes. I have no hatred for Windows; I’m just often annoyed that businesses assume that everyone is running Windows, rather than developing a Web interface that’s platform agnostic (which is what they should have done in the first place).
You’ll notice that even under Windows the site didn’t work properly, so it was a rant against Morgan Stanley at the time I wrote it (two years ago).
Since then, as it turns out, Morgan Stanley revamped their Web site (late 2006, I think), and now I can access it from Safari or Firefox on the Mac without difficulty.
I called morgan stanley on friday, July 13th, 2007 and asked to speak to my account representative, Dan Litchfield answered my call. I told him my account information and asked that he liquidate my account today..
and send me a check for the balance less liquidation charges. He said why would I want to liquidate my account,my response was that I had not had any reponse on this account FROM MORGAN STANLEY since 2002 and I don’t like my money being with them. He told me what it was going to cost me to sell my small amount of stock.
I told him that was one of the reasons, I can have more service, reasonable fees with Ameritrade than Morgan Stanley. I asked when should I expect my check and he told me Thursday of the following week…. I AM STILL
WAITING.. I called this last Monday and was told..your
proceeds have been put in a Money Market Account…I am
thinking that my monies, other customers monies and directions don’t count a Hoot to these people.. Take my
advice and check up on your account. I called to report this broker to the manager in Utah but the guy answering would not CONNECT ME, Actually hung up on me… I am thinking that $25,000.00 is nothing to them so if you are’nt a big account you could be in for trouble. When my account was over $650,000.00 I got great service, just terrible advice…BEWARE…..SHARON LOCHER
dimis
I too am having difficulty transferring my IRA’s out of Morgan Stanley and into bank CD’s for security. I began process at the bank of 1/14 and have spoken to MS at least twice a week. We are liquidating, doing all we can, it’s in transfer. These are the answers I’m getting. I have no idea what the fees will be. Very frustrated. It will be 1 month Monday. If there some place I can report them to? Is this legal? Anyone?
We lost over $400,000 in Morgan Stanley house mutual funds. We mistakenly thought mutual funds were a conservative investment. Never suggested anything and completely went by broker/manager’s demands. I am obviously ignorant, and broke, due to this.
I’m just often annoyed that businesses assume that everyone is running Windows, rather than developing a Web interface that’s platform agnostic which is what they should have done in the first place.