In January when my broker left to go to another firm, I closed my brokerage account with Morgan Stanley and they socked me with a $1194 "Choice Account Termination Fee". The "Choice" account is one in which, instead of commissions for individual stock trades, they charge the client a flat fee of about 1.25% a year.
This $1194 "Termination Fee" represents the brokerage charges that I would have incurred for the fraction of the year before I closed the account if I had a regular commission account and not a flat-fee account. Neither my broker not anyone else in the firm every warned me about this Termination Fee and the new broker they temporarily assigned me never heard of it either. The Choice Termination Fee is buried in the fine print on p. 6 of Morgan's 13-page Client Services Agreement.
Had they advised me about this outrageous fee when I signed up or when I started to close the account, I could have taken steps to avoid it, such as closing the account on an anniversary.
When I complained to the branch manager about this fee, she sent me a copy of the agreement I signed, highlighting the fine-print termination fee.
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