Zacks Investment Research Reviews 144

Horrible company. I signed up for their one off report - got an email... was not impressed, so decided to unsubscribe. Having unsubscribed to every email I received for a week, I am still getting a torrent of emails. Total scam. Emailed customer service, no reply yet.

What a joke! You pay your $249 annual or whatever they sucker you in for... You get a basic scanner and some dots on basic guesses about where stocks are going to go. Then they keep sending you emails about up and coming great opportunities, but guess what you have to pay more money. You have to pay a buck and then keep adding on more crap until you are in someone else service. They don't help you understand anything, help you make any money all they do is bleed you of your money. These guys are a run of the mill scam artists making an extra buck off of people that have absolutely no clue what they are doing. Absolutely no value in the service sorry... Don't recommend whatsoever. I did finally find a killer program that is no BS doesn't upsell anything and gives a great education but unfortunately this isn't the place for a plug. Hopefully anyone reading this finds at least a place like I found instead of waiting your money here. Just look at reviews before buying anything... Turns out they are more spot on than I had originally anticipated.

I purchased their Home Study Course along with a 30-day trial of their Research Wizard. I was then contacted by a helpful consultant who gave me some tips for the software and also informed me that some of the contents of the course are outdated, however the basics would still apply. I also contacted him with a few questions and got helpful answers.
After about 10 days, my access to the Research Wizard software stopped working. A few days later, as the problem still persisted, I contacted the consultant to seek for support. This time he did not reply. After several days without any update on the issue, I wrote him once again without getting any reply. I only kept receiving "special offers" to purchase the expensive software at a discount (still several thousand dollars for a piece of software that looks and feels like it has not received any update since 1997).
After I wrote, that I can not justify spending that much on a software where I am left alone when seeking for support, they also stopped sending me special offers. I tried to contact them via several mail addresses without getting any reaction.

All in all it seems to me that Zacks only care for their customers' money. When you're trying to get support that does not directly yield revenue for the company, you're being ignored. For this, even one star is too much.

Update: thanks to this review Zacks got in touch with me and restored the trial period. I don‘t know what went wrong in the first place but Zacks showed that they do care about their customers. The reason I still did not purchase their Research Wizard is that as a non-US resident, I received too many US small cap stock recommendations that I am not able to trade with my brokers. In addition, many stocks (even mid-cap) from my home country are not covered by Zacks.

I expected to try the 30-day free trial and I did not wish for any paid subscriptions following this trial. Then Zacks charged me $250. I am disappointed about that bad experience.

After a $1 trial membership that they allowed me to resubscribe to for several months and a 25% ROI, I purchased their pricy “Ultimate” lifetime access. Aside from price point, I’ve been pleased with the research available. Following their Home Run and Stocks Under $10 portfolios has helped toward my continued trading success. Not every add plays out but that is just the nature of the beast. I can’t pass comment on their cheaper offerings but I’ve already paid for my investment 10x over since September 2020 in gains. Also, the sales representative I dealt with was very helpful. The first 90 days I was just paying monthly when I realized they offered a lifetime access package that equated to basically a year of service charges. I contacted them and Rick was kind enough to give me 100% credit of what I’d already paid monthly toward the lifetime purchase.

Beware of this company. Zacks allow you to sign up for a trial membership, but you will soon find there is no simple way to unsubscribe. 99% of online companies have a cancel button on their site, but not Zacks.

So You end up sending them an email, asking to unsubscribe, but of course they don't reply to that request and then you find they have lifted the $249 from your card.

After a lot of poking around in your account, you will see they ask you to ring them in order to cancel! That's right, an online company in 2020, make you RING them in the US in order to cancel your subscription. So if you live in Japan, UK, France etc, you have to phone the USA to speak to them in order to cancel. Ridiculous!

So you have been warned, beware of Zacks

Zacks Investment is the biggest scam you could EVER get wrapped up into. To start, you’ll receive an email with a $1 offer to start your 30 day free trial, but what these fools fail to tell you is that after those 30 days have expired, you AUTOMATICALLY HAVE TO PAY $300. There’s not getting rid of it, once your card information is in, you’re screwed by Zacks. They will take every bit of your money and the stock picks? Unless you like seeing your portfolio in the red every single day I HIGHLY WOULD NOT RECOMMEND USING ZACKS!

I wanted to subscribe to this research service but how can I trust their service and reports if they can't even spell "strategist" properly? maybe they don't proof read. sorry but this turned me off. :D

David Bartosiak
Stock Stratedgist

Most of Zack's appears quite sound. I would strongly suggest staying away from the surprise trader. Of course all investments are made at the account holder's own risk. However, you subscribe to a service on the basis that they have done some underlying work, which you are unable to do (whether for time or expertise). I have lost about 3% of my capital following David Bartosiak's recommendations. The only surprise is the huge drops. I have come to the conclusion that he basically punts.

I also don't understand why Zacks do not create an alert to let you know when your stock has dropped a Zacks ranking. That is, intuitively, so importantly. If you had 20 stocks, as a retail investor, it is not always easy to keep track of their rankings on a daily basis. Simple function which they would be negligent not to introduce.

Awful experience. Tried to cancel membership and website would not let me. Basically stole over $300 from me. I'm disputing with CC company.

Absolute scammers, their research is useless and is all made to start bombarding you with emails about offers that are only for you or only for 24 hours and stuff like that.

Obviously not true they keep sending you tens of emails a week, you unsubscribe and they keep arriving, you protest with support and they say they deleted you but after few weeks they start again.

Don't ever pay this people, much better and accurate investing advice is available for free without the fraudolent activity of Zacks.

I've reported them to authority as well.

Very frustrated to discover your bank account is charged with $299 with no prior authorization just after the month they got your bank card details using “$1 trial subscription”.

I tried the 30-day free trial and had clearly marked in my account that I did not wish for any paid subscriptions following this trial - nevertheless Zacks charged me $250. I feel like this is a scam. Horrible service and a very bad experience.

I purchased the Research Wizard from them about 4 months ago. At the moment I'm break even more or less, which is what the SPY is also. So nothing worth writing home about. It remains to be seen whether or not the performance increases when the market does better.
I would give it 3 stars as it doesn't outperform or underperform but has a cost of $3000/year with a (supposed) 50% discount because I'm special...
Their money back guarantee is so complex it's virtually worthless for the user so don't count on that even though they'll insist you have nothing to loose.

The service at Zacks, however, is horrendous. I was told the I would be in constant contact with my advisor throughout the year, and so far he's contacted me once (besides all the commercial sales contacts of course) to let me know what strategy to use. Once in 4 months.
On top of that, they have assumed without asking that I'd be interested in upgrading to a full lifetime membership and have withdrawn the money from my account without my permission. Something I was very upset about as it put me in a difficult financial situation. It's been 30 days now and I'm still waiting for them to return the money despite their assurances it's in the works and my numerous reminders. A most displeasing and dishonest method.
I'll update my review upon receipt of the money even though I'll loose the international banking fees it cost me. I intend to notify the authorities in my country very shortly if I don't get refunded.
I will not be dealing with such dishonesty/incompetence again, and I hope my experience will serve as a warning for those inclined to put their money and trust in this company.

Edit: Received the transfer today after waiting for 36 days.