TreasuryDirect has a rating of 1.4 stars from 150 reviews, indicating that most customers are generally dissatisfied with their purchases. Reviewers complaining about TreasuryDirect most frequently mention customer service, bank account, and hour wait problems. TreasuryDirect ranks 211th among Government sites.
If you want to buy treasury bonds, bills, notes, etc. directly from the US Government, this is the place to do it. The fees are the lowest and you can trust them as much as you can trust any thing I suppose. The bad news is, as of May 3,2013 you essentially are paying the government to borrow your money since most (all?) real yields are currently negative and if interest rates rise as they one day will, all us bond holders will probably lose even more money. That said, what other assets look more attractive these days? I wish I knew...
I am Personal Rep for my aunt who passed this past February. While still alive, I had her move her savings bonds into Treasury Direct, thinking it would be easier to address payout after she died. In May, when I submitted the paperwork, the wait time was estimated at 4 months. I waited and called in September and was told the wait time had increased to 'expect it to take 12 months' due to high processing activity. Wow. Don't die holding savings bonds. If the wait time is as advertised, this estate will have extra expenses for tax and estate filing due to the delay. If NASA has to rely on Elon to bring back its own astronauts, perhaps TreasuryDirect can turn to him as well to introduce some technology and some AI into the process to aid the overburdened staff.
I opened an account today with Treasury Direct, to buy I-Bonds. It was a smooth ride. Yes it took maybe 30 minutes to open, but all seems to be fine so far. At the end of opening the account, they have a review and this was posted as of what the people have reported on this website:
Excellent 62%
Good 28%
Fair 6%
Poor 4%
I followed an online tutorial that made it pretty easy. Just check, and check and check again all your numbers. Happy investing.
I locked my account my mistake and the only way to get back in is by calling. Its now been 4 days of being on hold for hours. Worse you go on hold and the wait time message increases! How can that be? Unable to access MY money. Do not use treasurydirect!
Products used:
N/A
Typical government operation. I have been on hold for two hours now. Not sure when I will be answered. Need to update the software so that there is a way to unlock account without speaking to government Oxygen Thieves.
I have no idea what contractor the government hired to create their website but it's third world. It takes forever to open accounts and the security questions are insane if not impossible. If you get locked out, you're doomed. 45 minute to one-hour waits and then they hang up on you. You literally can't get to your money. There is hell on earth and it's Treasury Direct.
Tip for consumers:
Don't invest or use the site.
Treasury Direct need more people to staff the customer support phone lines. I was on hold for more than 2 hours and 40 minutes. And this is typical. On Hold for 1 hour and 50 min yesterday. But note, once you finally reach a person, they are extremely helpful and informative.
I have had an account for 5 years. It was difficult to set up in the beginning, but was finally working fine. I tried to log in in December to buy a gift bond. While logging in, my page crashed and a warning appeared that my account had been locked. I have been trying to get it unlocked for 5 months. If you contact them by email, they tell you to call. The number that is supposed to be customer service has a 1.5 hour wait to speak to someone. I have actually held for longer than that on several occasions. Assuming the Department of the Treasury wants to sell bonds, how on earth can they provide such terrible service. Bad website; hard to use; no support. Worse than the IRS!
We're locked out of our account because their repeated security questions were not answered correctly. The call back number is a big fat joke. They close at 5, and will not put you on hold in the queue after 2pm mountain time. That's 3 hours before they close. This is totally unbelievable, they can't work past 5. This makes this whole system a big joke, and typical government bureaucracy, where no one cares. This is so stressful
Customer support is non existent. I was on hold for 3 and a half hours yesterday trying to get my account unlocked and finally gave up since I have a life and things to do. They won't communicate via email unless you login and email them. So if you're locked out of your account your only option is to call and they don't answer. Find another way to invest your money. There is no way I'll ever spend another penny here.
Tip for consumers:
Don’t invest here
Products used:
I bound a I series bond
I don't know how this is a government website! 3 hours on phone and get people who don't know anything …. Then write an email thought that would be easy they respond back to my email stating they are only answering emails back for prior cases that have been open! This is NO help your own ya own! I'm pulling y money right out! This is the treasury we are taking about people! This is not normal and this cheap website is even more sick! Do not give this Treasury your money it will be lost
Tip for consumers:
Stay away from this !! This government is being ran by very sick people !! Our treasury has no customer service !!! How sick
They have stolen 5000 of my hard earned dollars. They claim that I answered my 3 questions incorrectly. Now, I am locked out of my account with no help at all from them. Obviously, I've been ripped off.
Shouldn't the feds be investigating this outfit?
Ps I needed to select one star to be able to submit this. As far as I am concerned, they deserve zero stars and some lawsuits.
All my 91 year old mother is trying to do is redeem her 20 year old HH bonds. There was no such thing as "treasury direct" or treasury direct account back then. But she has no option except contacting treasury direct. They won't take emails anymore so they're forcing people to call and wait on hold for over one and a half to two hours. They're latest cute trick is after being on hold that long, the call is taken off hold but no one comes on the line. They may as well just hang up on people. It's not just a one-off glitch. After it happened to my mother I tried a few times and it happened to me.
This is beyond outrageous and I can't find anybody in the Treasury department I can complain to!
Another waste of our tax dollars.
I was willing to tolerate some inconvenience because I really needed to get this done. (Buy a bond for someone across the US from me.) I did purchase one but now I'm out $100.00! What I got were headaches and ZERO, NON-EXISTENT, customer service. I got a pre-recorded line that says "Thank you for continuing to hold. Your call is important to us." (Over and over!) I spent an hour listening to that damned recording. The U.S. Treasury needs to do a lot better job than this maintaining their site!
UPDATE: I did manage to delete the bond (hopefully before the transaction went through) so I am greatly relieved to be done with this profoundly awful site.
Tip for consumers:
Avoid Treasury Direct. Run screaming!
Products used:
Series EE Bond
The unavoidable 2+ hour wait time to have someone fix a locked account (which is nearly unavoidable due to absurd website security features) is an extreme disservice to those who have invested money in the federal government. After five failed attempts to get through, I woke up early and called four minutes after the phone center opened, only to be told the wait time was already 2+ hours. How is that possible? Fix it, Treasury.
After having spent the last 3 weeks daily attempting to reach Treasury Direct by phone, I've sat on hold for several hours at a time. No one to take my calls and my account is frozen. No instructions on how to fix it, no email help either. If you mail in a request it can take up to 13 weeks to even get an reply. This is a horrible predicament for customers.
It seems nearly impossible these days to find a bank that will let you turn in savings bonds, meaning you have to deal with this garbage website. Terrible to navigate, pages crash constantly forcing you to log in again (they only let you enter your password in by typing a keyboard with your mouse). Try to edit any bank account info, you need to have a Medallion stamped form, that banks have about as much desire to give out as they do to cash your bonds in the first place. I legitimately think there is a scheme to make redemption as difficult as possible, in the hopes of people just giving up. A pinnacle example of government incompetence.
Two hours or more wait to speak to a representative. Phone lines available from 8 am to about 2 pm only. They close the lines early due to the high call volume. I called at 8 am and was immediately told there was a 2 hour wait. Most issues are concerning locked accounts. The phone message says that they updated the website to allow for a retry if the account is locked, but this is not true. Please hire more representatives and fix the complex login/lock out issue.
Tip for consumers:
Expect a 2 hour wait or more when calling for service.
Products used:
Savings I bonds
Was trying to get information on T-Bills. Entered treasurydirect.gov into the search bar and clicked the link. Keep getting the following message "This site can't be reached. treasurydirect.gov took too long to respond." WTF! And I'm not paying a broker for my piddly little investment.
Tip for consumers:
Was unable to login to website so I couldn't do anything.
There website is awful. I can't buy an Bond because they say the bank account is wrong. I have to fill out a long paper that takes 12 weeks to process or call. I finally got a human and they put me on hold again. Waitied 10 more minutes and the call dropped. Still no service. They got my number but I doubt they will call back.Its been about 15 minutes. No call back.
Tip for consumers:
Make sure you put in the info correctly the first time.
Treasury Direct is the biggest rip off going right now. They make it easy to buy bonds but good luck redeeming them and getting your money back. They require your bank to use their Corporate Seal or Medallion to verify your identity. The problem is that banks are not in the business of verifying identity for someone else and their Seals and Medallions are usually at the corporate headquarters. Several banks that I spoke to said they thought the form was a scam. They said that the Department of Treasure more than anyone else should know banks are not going to execute a document with their official seals for what amounts to an affidavit of identity
They tried to reinvent a wheel on the login process, and made it ugly and inconvenient. Moreover, after my typo in answering a security question they locked my account, and provided the only phone number to call them which is always respond "approx wait time is 2 hours or more"... I'm unable to restore my access..
I only use an iPad and while the site allows pre fills for account number and password, the security question had to be typed in. The tiny keyboard is hard to use by touch. So I got locked out and have to wait more than 2 hours per phone to unlock my account (I'm still waiting). Why isn't there a secure email to unlock my account?. Especially since my password and account info was correct.
Products used:
Savings bonds
I never had such bad experience with such a simple request to unlock my account. The wait time almost an hour and the lady is exceptionally rude. She asked me to answer security questions which I don't remember and that was what caused my account to be locked. I gave her answers but she was yelling something I did not understand and then she hung up
After years of buying EE Bonds every pay day for years they are maturing every month for years to come. I registered all the bonds and sent them in to Treasury Direct thinking that they would deposit the cash in my savings account as they matured every month. That isn't the case though. Every month I have to login to Treasury Direct and redeem the bonds that mature and are available on the 1st of each month, then request they money be transferred to my bank account. Then wait to see what doesn't happen and try again. Over and over. It doesn't work. Take my advise, it is less work and effort to deposit your bonds at your bank and get the credit immediately. The Treasury Direct web site is very hard to navigate, sure you can buy bonds there, but when it comes to turning your cash over to a bank, forget about it, it ain't gonna happen. Believe me don't do it, you'll be sorry when your sitting at home waiting for that deposit month after month.
I have lots of HH bonds that were handed down to me. I have cashed some as they expire for the last 4 years. Usually it's quick and simple. They send the notice. I put my bank info and sign the bonds. Send them in and in about 2-3 weeks the money is in my account. Not this year. IT's been 4 weeks and nothing. The interest has expired and I have no money to invest. I call and wait on hold for an HOUR. Yes the wait time says 2 hours. That is the first joke. Second they tell me it now takes 13 weeks to process any request. I get to a person just see if I can get a case number. He says he could look it up but their system is down. So I waited on hold for nothing. Why even answer the phone if your system is down. Thanks Biden for your great leadership in building back this county better.
Tip for consumers:
Don't bother with US Bonds. Put your money in the bank.
Products used:
None
If I could give a minus number for a rating it would still be too high a number for Treasury Direct. 2 1/2 hour phone holds at start of busines?! Not accepting new emails?! Up to a thirteen week response time for a regular mail query?! A total embarrassment!
We're a new Bureau of the Treasury Department formed from the consolidation of the Financial Management Service and the Bureau of the Public Debt. Our mission is to promote the financial integrity and operational efficiency of the U.S. government throu...
Is this your business?
Claim your listing for free to respond to reviews, update your profile and manage your listing.