IRA Financial Reviews 1,827

Crappy service. I initiated a wire transfer to move funds out of my IRA Financial account to a local bank account; six business days (and ten calendar days) later, the wire has not been sent. Someone did reply to my email and said, "Oh, we are really busy". This is one example in a series of other poor experiences. Based on my lousy experience, I suspect this may be a one-man operation that is pretending to be larger than it is.

I regret I signed up with them. There is so much inertia involved in switching out, otherwise I'd move away from them. I don't know if there are other companies in their space that are better, but this firm sucks big time.

I am surprised to see the other positive Trustpilot reviews—I wish my experience had been as positive.

I've been with this company for years and generally had a positive experience. However, I am pulling my hair out trying to get my funds transferred to me. I completed the forms on 1/14/26. On 1/20/26 I called to check on status. Sat on hold for 15 minutes and finally got a message that I needed to leave a message and someone would call me back. They never did. Called again on 1/21/26. This time I spoke to a customer service rep who told me they were running behind but that funds would go out by the end of the week. It's end of the end of the week and my funds have still not been transferred. I've got bills to pay! I need my money!

5 years with this company and the experience has been so disappointing. Wiring a contribution in and getting access to these funds to invest took over 3 weeks and we kept getting different explanations and excuses. They are not competent and they don’t care.

I signed up with IRA Financial to be custodian of a private placement in a self directed IRA, and it has been a very frustrating experience trying to get them to sign the investment documents. They continue to ignore my emails and calls. Wish I had picked a different custodian- I chose them due to good reviews but things appear to have gone downhill.

Follow-up Review After 6 Months of Use

I’m writing this update after using IRA Financial for six months, and unfortunately my experience has been consistently poor.

First, I was charged unexpected and unexplained fees multiple times. These charges were not clearly disclosed upfront, nor were they proactively communicated. Each time, I had to reach out myself to investigate what the charges were for.

Second, customer support is extremely difficult to get through. Long hold times and slow responses appear to be the norm. Based on my experience, this seems to be a systemic issue—likely due to the volume of customer complaints related to billing and account issues.

Finally, the most frustrating issue: my distribution check was rejected without any clear explanation. Resolving this required over five hours of my time across emails and phone calls just to trace where my money was and why it was being held up. This is unacceptable for a financial services company handling retirement funds, where accuracy and reliability are critical.

Overall, the lack of transparency, poor customer service, and operational inefficiencies have made this an extremely disappointing experience. I would strongly caution others to consider these issues carefully before using this firm.

I have been trying to get a wire distribution from my account for over 2 weeks now. I finally conceded to paying their "expedite" fees, which don't actually do anything at all.

After dozens of phone calls and emails, I was finally told my wire would go out on Tuesday, and they were waiving the expedite fee due to all the issues.

Tuesday came and went with no wire. I called Wednesday morning and they said the wire was on hold because I hadn't paid the $25 wire fee. Why wouldn't someone contact me to let me know this rather than just let it sit on hold?? Also, there was no mention of the wire fee in all my conversations and emails prior to this.

So I paid the wire fee and now I'm told the wire will DEFINITELY go out on Wednesday. Well, Wednesday came and went with no wire...surprise surprise.

So here I am on Thursday, over 2 weeks since the initial request, with 2 days of "its guaranteed to go out today", and still nothing. Who knows how many more phone calls it will take before they release my funds.

For reference, when I sent an unrelated wire from my local bank earlier this week, the entire process took 20 minutes from my initial phone call, to completing the wire forms, to sending the wire. 20 MINUTES FROM START TO FINISH. It's not that hard.

I will most likely be finding another IRA custodian sometime this year. You've been warned.

Horrible company. You don't answer phone and process paperwork on a timely basis. If I could rate as a zero I would. I have been trying to get my funds from Company but they won't send for 3 months

Was I just scammed?

I've been a client of IRA Financial Trust for 4 years now, using their IRA LLC service and a capital one account. Historically, they've been very good and responsive. However, something has changed in the past 3 months where they are no longer responsive and I can't withdraw my money. I've emailed them over 10 times, to different departments.

I called them and the first time someone answered and I had asked for them to check the balance of my Capital One account (because you can't see it online). The rep said he had trouble seeing my capital one account and would call me back later once resolved. I never heard back. I've since tried calling back over 10 times and no one answers. I have money stuck there that I want to withdraw but am unable to because the company is not responsive.

This now feels like a scam and I will be reporting it to the South Dakota Division of Banking where they are regulated

Complete nightmare every step of setting up a SDIRA to investing in a Private Placement. When they tell you “it takes 3 to five days” what they don’t tell you is that you have to deal with 5 different departments that each take “3 to 5 days” so realistically you are 3 to 5 weeks going from account setup, account funding, Private Placement vetting, filling out investment forms, then going to ‘full service’ team, then auditing, then outgoing wires. None of these departments talk to each other, there is no workflow. They don’t answer their phones, they don’t return calls when you leave a message. The recording tells you to use the chat feature on their website (it does not exist!) – when I finally was able to speak to someone they said you have to log out and use the chat feature before logging it – I tried that – does not exist either. My initial investment was $100k. Their website says my ‘current value’ is $200k after 1 month – wow, doubled my money and website says I have a 50% return – huh?? All that to say their technology is terrible, business process do not exist. You have to constantly call to get them to move to the next process. They get 1 star for doing two things well – promptly collecting their fees and apologizing for poor performance. Somehow they found a way to juice up their ratings but those high ratings are only for a few individuals, not the company itself. Please don’t suggest I email Mark or Brian because they either don’t exist or don’t care. I copied both of them over 2 weeks ago on a problematic email chain. The sound of my phone not ringing is them not calling. Adam Bergman cannot be aware of what a disaster this outfit is. If he is aware, he would be wise to sell before this cluster implodes.

(1) They strongly recommended a Capital 1 bank account for my LLC, which I set up. Then, the phone app did not ever work, spent hours trying to get it set up. The website worked, but no way to deposit checks. Then I tried to find out where I could deposit a check. At a branch... Yeah, no branches within 400 miles. So I opened account at another bank. I think the C1 account is still open but I tried for weeks to close it.
(2) Trying to do an in-kind distrubution. To accomplish what I want, they insisted that it required FOUR deeds rather than one. They insist it is an IRS requirement. Um, no. It is not. Then they said I could not do an in-kind distribution of more than 49%. IRS requirement. Again, NO. New custodian does not have this rule. Hmmm...
These people have an overzealous control issue and compliance issues. They claim things to be IRS requirements so you are less likely to push back on them. In the course of trying to do this in kind distribution, I was told by one rep that it was impossible, then by another that I just had to fill out a form, and then by the person who actually OKs it, seems to not understand how deeds work. They want YOU to draft the deeds, or have them drafted, but they don't know what should be in them. They recommend quit claim deeds ... This custodian has been extremely hard to work with and is rife with misinformation.

Becky was courteous and friendly when I called for help filling out some distribution forms for my retirement account. It's so good to get that consistently good phone support from IRA Financial that I have come to take for granted. Keep up the good work!

I am an attorney who tried to send clients to this company. It was extremely difficult to deal with this company: My emails went unanswered my calls were never returned, their phones went unanswered; just the very worst experience I have ever had dealing with a financial institution.

The paperwork was easy and got filed correctly, most of the rest is satisfactory. I have two cautions for the next guy:

1. They don't provide an agent address, which means if you want to protect your privacy with a WY LLC, you have to go somewhere else to get an in state agent before you file your LLC. If you file with your own address initially - it completely obliterates your privacy. It seems a simple partnership with one of many companies that provide the serve is a no brainer - but they don't, or aren't sensitive to the privacy matter.

2. Transfers of funds is an unnecessarily difficult and manual process. You would think by now they would have solved seamless electronic transfer by ACH instead of expensive manual wire transfers. It is 2025 and they take 2 weeks, consistently, to take your transfer request and send it to your banking institution (who turns it around the next day) and they receive and credit the funds to your account. For Gods sake, just charge us higher annual fees and not steal our interest with phony security settings and an antiquated manual process. You loose about $170 on your $100K transfer. Its a scam to increase revenue.

The first item is easy for them to fix and the 2nd they seem unwilling to do.

Good set up service just be aware of the pitfalls.

Jill Brenden made the experience great. She was able to quickly review my uploaded IRA documents and discovered an error and help me quickly fix it so that I could get in the document review queue and instructed me correctly on next steps

Jenn B. is very knowledgeable and polite.

Jen and her team at IRA Financial made the entire process seamless. Their guidance was clear, patient, and professional, and they ensured everything was completed without any issues. Highly recommended!

Stay AWAY! I used IRA Financial trust to set up a self directed Roth IRA, since places like Vanguard and Schwab don't let you do that.

However, when it comes to transferring money to and from their account, it is an unrelenting nightmare. Any and all transfers require email after email, phone call after phone call. The staff apologizes, but there is always a problem. Their money transfer procedures are astonishingly incompetent. Find another vendor! You have been warned.

Wow, what a treat! Prompt, competent, friendly, well staffed service. Becky S was exceptional. Somebody wise, discerning and hardworking at the top runs a tight ship. As the owner of multiple small businesses, I know all to well today's challenges. I'm glad I found you several years ago. Staff has repeatedly helped me thru detailed requirements! Thank you, IRA Financial!

Suvie Fogelman, was exceptional - she walked me through everything I needed using the on line website. Her directions were clear and concise, while being very patient with me as I was using my computer to complete forms to deposit money from my checkbook IRA into my custodial account and at the same time complete the form for my IRA mandatory 2025 distribution. She is kind, patient, understanding and extremely knowledgeable. I hope she is or becomes a longterm employee - the World needs more competent individuals like Suvie!

I work with IRA Financial for years and Jenn B. just help to open IRA checkbook LLC seamlessly.