The Entrust Group

Began in 2011, service was acceptable to get accounts set up, people were responsive. Now 2015 – 2016 when I needed to close the account, it took over a month to complete and send out their paperwork. Now they continue to take out the fees for one account and bill me for the other (since we did a stop payment on that credit card), both customer serviced and accounting people insisting the stock certificates are still in the account (I am looking at them now in my own hand) and say they have no paperwork showing anything different, even though I have emailed them copies of the forms to show them proof. Very condescending in their tone, hard to get replies, voice or email, no account manager to work with, their fees are high when they do nothing each year on my account. Please, save yourself grief, they are great until after the account is open and funded, after that you’ll be sorry. find another IRA custodian. My opinion: They should have their license taken away.

I have been a client since 1999. Entrust has always done exactly as I have directed, which is the entire point as this is true a self directed account! Great information and helpful when I need them. Thank you Entrust

I opened this account years ago and have had minimal need to work with the staff. Glad of that fact because almost ALL of them have major attitude. Very condescending tone of voice, they always speak like they are doing you a favor to answer your questions. Have tried to move the account to another location but as each location is individually operated, I have not yet found out how I can do that short of closing the account completely and probably generating a bunch of fees. But after every phone call with them I start trying anew to move my assets to a friendlier, more polite bunch of people!

The admin fees just keep climbing! God forbid your investment loses value, you will lose even more by the administrative fees. I own raw land in this account, and the only expense is taxes… All paid to the same state. Entrust insists on paying with three separate checks in order to maximize their profit. It’s so easy to simply write the three parcel numbers in the check, and only write one check annually. I have only had one positive customer service experience in the ten years I have been paying these excessive and outrageous administrative fees, and am always feeling terrible that I chose to hold real estate in a retirement account, since there is no way to write off this loss either. Think more than twice before choosing this company to hold such simple real estate holdings!

YMMV
Somebody there is nice and can help you. My advice is when you get someone who is knowledgeable and understands you, get their extension number and call them. Don’t waste time if you get someone with attitude or not able to help you. Entrust is able to help you with many products and services that others can’t, that are not mainstream, at your risk. Each office is independently owned as well. So the degree of expertise and customer service varies widely. I venture to say that they probably make mistakes too. And it may be your fault if they do. But that, to be fair, I have seen elsewhere too! They only do what you tell them…
5÷9÷15: Keeping in mind what was said above about finding the same person to talk to each time, which you are actually able to do at Entrust, I had a transaction involving a transfer of assets from bank. Briefly, there were 5 steps: Getting the asset to Entrust, getting the asset to the buyer, wiring money from buyer to Entrust, getting another asset from buyer to Entrust, wiring money to me. The first step took 8 weeks, that was none of Entrust’s fault, except that it was mostly up to me to keep on the Bank’s ass so that they actually eventually transferred the asset. Entrust helped a little. The remaining 4 steps took a total of 3 days. My Dealer and Entrust were on top of it.

They forget to tell you receive invoices so you might get a late charge, they don’t respond to inquiries, etc. I have a real estate investment through them and look forward to I no longer need to rely on them.
They Need to handle employees with some customer service skill and experience.

I was amazed to see a few other review that dinged Entrust solely because buying real estate was not the reviewers best option. But, I finally had to write a review of my own when I saw some comments about lacking customer service. Entrust has held my IRA for about 3 years now. I have been extremely pleased with the service (especially from Tabitha and Kim) that I have received. I signed up at the San Diego office which has changed managers several times, but I really had no need to talk with them after the doing an IRA transfer. Once an IRA is funded, all of the business is done directly with the Oakland main office and for me that service department has been absolutely fantastic !! Anyone that has been having issues must be having them because they have never tried to establish a relationship with anyone in those customer service departments. My property purchases have gone smoothly, my payments are made on time and I have been very happy with the arrangement thus far.

I contacted Entrust in early December 2013, to see if I could close a transaction before end of year. I was told that this should be enough time. I asked if my transaction would be IRS compliant, and told that as long as I was not related to the borrower (which I was not), it would be compliant. I paid their normal fees to open the account. They lost one of my FedEx shipments, and then lost the document that was in the envelope. Then I was told the Holidays (Christmas Day) would cause a delay, and they would not be able to complete the transaction this year. I made other arrangements for the end of year closing deadline, and continued with an alternative loan investment in the first week of Jan. At least 4 times during the process, I was asked for additional documentation, never mentioned in the prior request. Then I was told that even though I was not related to the party receiving funds, it would be a Non-​compliant investment. I requested return of my funds, and was charged an exorbitant fee to wire the funds back to my traditional IRA.
I realize that the current Time Value of Money is not as attractive as it once was, but they USED my funds for over 2 weeks with no compensation (in addition to the $ 500 return wire fee). After reading many of the other negative reviews, many expressing concerns over timing, it became quite clear to me that one of their income strategies is to invest the clients funds in the short term investment market, then drag their feet to increase the return, and keep the interest.

Ripoff alert. never do business with this company, they steal your money blind. poor service. charge you for everything and they lie all day long at the end they empty your account and make you pay to move it.

DEE J
I have been using Entrust for a few years now and although there are are occasional problems, so far it has been a good and profitable experience for me. The problems that most people face are do mainly to the paperwork and or the time involved in the process .
I believe that Entrust has saved me from being taken many times as a lender/​investor. I had a very aggressive Builder/​borrower that I worked with, who thought I should just write a check on his say so, he was very pushy, I would explain, hey I’m sorry but if you want my money you are going to do it The Entrust WAY or forget it. This worked great for me .
And Yes there were some problems, but manly from the lack of understanding on the borrower s end. I thank god for Entrust every time I get a statement in the mail. I know the odds of collecting are always in my favor as a result of there effort and protection .
I ‘ve heard lots of complaints but I will not be one of them, I take that back, I did complain once but I wish now that i hadn’t. It was my misunderstanding of the process .
Thank You Entrust .
I have an awesome rep person her name is Gail Lieberman (Oakland Ca branch) who always returns my emails, calls and has answered my questions with out fail. She has been great .
This process is not for everyone, that is for sure, but once you get the hang of it and understand the how to’s and the what fores you can do very well .
The self directed IRA is for people who already have a good understanding of Real estate investing etc. If you are a novice, please keep your money in your employee 401 k plan.

I agree with the other reviews. Universally all their customer service representative are very unhelpful and not very knowledgeable. No one takes ownership of any problem. Three times I was told to contact some one in some other department. I spent many hours trying to resolve issues. You receive the most frustrating run around. The most shocking thing is their fees! To transfer my cash out I had to pay $ 500. There was a mistake on how the transfer was coded so they charged me twice. It is a tremendous hassle to deal with company and costly. I agree with the other reviewers their initial pitch is very slick but they do not deliver and once you set-​up an account with them when you try to leave they charge you 1.5% exit fee!!! I highly encourage to look elsewhere! Spare yourself the headache I am experiencing.

I have used this company for a self directed retirement account where I could buy real estate. The concept is great. However this company is not easy to work with. I almost gave them one star but their product is good. The problem is their service and people. After you talk to one of their slick sales people and get signed up, then the trouble begins. Their support/​service staff is non responsive and they do not communicate well with you while you are working on a transaction. There are many companies that do self directed retirement accounts so I would shop around and read reviews on others as well. Perhaps they are all the same, I don’t know.

Ripoff alert. I was an actual client until about two months ago. It turned out that the self-​direction was not the best idea for me. I was originally going to buy investment property as part of my retirement portfolio, but most sellers at the time were leery of a non-​traditional transaction like this. I suppose I should be relieved at this point that I didn’t, since property in the area that I was interested in has since tanked. Afterwards, I couldn’t decide what other direction to take those earmarked funds, so for sanity sake, I transferred those funds back into my other retirement account where I have an advisor. Here’s where I was shocked. I had had no support from Entrust during the 2+ years I had my funds with them (they can’t legally provide advice and the times I did call the office simply for direction on how to handle a transation, I really couldn’t get someone to clearly answer my questions. When I was attempting to make an offer on a property, they were of little or no help.) They deduct a regular maintenance fee which was reasonable for simply holding on to the funds. What was not reasonable was when I decided to close the account, I learned in the closing statement that they had deducted $ 250 each from two separate accounts — $ 500 for doing absolutely nothing but making interest off my retirement funds. If you are a dedicated investor, this might be for you. If not, I say, run — don’t walk — away from these people. What a rip!