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With control of four accounts that hold assets in the seven-figure range, McHugh, of Charlotte, N.C., qualified for cheap $8 commissions at both brokerages. But he says the level of service he was used to at Harrisdirect suddenly disappeared. When he asked for the automatic dividend reinvestment to be halted in one of his accounts, he says, it took four e-mails and two telephone calls to complete his request. When he sought rebates promised him for trades in late January and early February, he had to look up his trade history and read it over the phone. "You send them an e-mail, and it's quicker watching girders rust than getting a reply from those people," McHugh says. "I'm not going to put up with this kind of nonsense." McHugh, a registered broker himself, plans to transfer his accounts to another firm.

McHugh isn't the only investor running into problems as the discount broker industry goes through one of the biggest waves of mergers in the industry's short history. In the fourth quarter of 2005 alone, mergers affected 3 million accounts and nearly half a trillion dollars in assets. The latest round of merger mania redrew the broker landscape: Ameritrade combined with TD Waterhouse to form TD Ameritrade, while E*Trade acquired Harrisdirect and then BrownCo. Transferring hundreds of thousands of accounts from one brokerage to another can be daunting, and the brokers going through mergers have taken heat from customers worried about glitches, poor service, and a new set of trading tools and commission levels.

Indeed, an annual survey from J.D. Power found that even though overall online-broker satisfaction was up slightly last year, each of the brokers involved in a merger had a lower score on the overall satisfaction index. Internet chat boards are packed with messages from angry customers grousing about being forced to switch firms.

Brokers argue that not everyone is losing out during the consolidation: For starters, the nearly $2 trillion in accounts at Fidelity and Schwab comprises 80% of the cash in discount brokers, and neither company was involved in a merger. Even at E*Trade, President Jarrett Lilien says the Harris takeover was the rare "perfect storm"; the merger was complicated by everything from software bugs to a surging market to differences in the cultures of the two brokerages. "Harrisdirect had much higher service levels," he says, "while E*Trade was more for the people who didn't need much help." Nor is the news for investors who do find themselves at a new firm all bad. Commissions at TD Ameritrade are now $9.99, much cheaper than the $17.95 for small investors at the old TD Waterhouse. Brown customers will soon be able to trade bonds online at E*Trade, which wasn't possible at their old broker. Then there's Warren Potas of Washington, D.C., who's used Waterhouse for years, enduring a Web site that works so poorly on his Macintosh he has to go to another site to get stock quotes. Potas says he is looking forward to trading from Ameritrade's platform and gaining access to a new set of tools.

Still, the picture may get worse before it gets better. Some industry experts say the current round of consolidation is just heating up. Joe Moglia, CEO of TD Ameritrade, told SmartMoney he expects to see only three large discount brokerages left when the mergers are finished.

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What do all these changes mean for the consumer? The bottom line is that you may have to shop around — better that you choose a broker rather than allowing a merger to make the choice for you. That's where our survey comes in. We opened accounts at 14 brokers, where we bought and sold big stocks, little stocks, corporate bonds and covered calls. We pestered customer-service centers by phone and e-mail to see whether or not they could answer our questions, and how quickly. To get a real-world sense of how much you'll pay to trade a mutual fund, we found out who charges a hefty transaction fee for out-of-network funds. (Hint: Beware Fidelity and Schwab.) We pored over 1099 tax forms to see which had the information you need on Apr. 15; we checked account statements for readability; and we ran Web sites through their paces, grading them on ease of use and efficiency.

We also added a new variable this year: rates on cash. After the dramatic rise in short-term interest rates, payouts range from a stingy 0.95% (TD Ameritrade) to a stellar 4.77% (Vanguard). So make sure you ask for the best rate or transfer your cash to a high-yield money-market fund.

We based our rankings and the commissions we report below on a hypothetical buy-and-hold customer with an account of $50,000 who invests in stocks, bonds and funds and wants to write covered calls. That means our top-ranked site would not be the first choice, say, for a day trader or for someone who buys only mutual funds. Below are our results.

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