[ryandrake]

Although the TreasuryDirect UX is pretty bad, it's not impossible to navigate. My biggest beef with TD is that there appears to be no way to convert the bonds purchased electronically to paper bonds. You have to keep them on the web site, which seems risky. You are hoping that 1. their database does not get corrupt or something and they lose tens of thousands of your dollars, 2. your account doesn't get compromised, 3. your account doesn't get banned or deleted.

With a bank, you (typically) have a brick-and-mortar building you can walk into to resolve edge case problems, and also FDIC insurance. For brokerages, you have SIPC for fraud and sloppy accounting, and usually have decent telephone support. TD has a phone number--that's it. Ever try calling it? It's a long hold time, and who knows if they can even handle these edge cases. Who would you sue if you lost your account or became a victim of fraud?