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  • edited September 2014
    @willmatt, I am very surprised that someone working for a transfer agent who made a mistake of this sort would expect a do-over, and wonder why you would think you could trade in and out of FPINX like some no-fee etf or cash fund.

    However, to check your report, I just went to sell something I bought recently in Fido in my Roth, and on the confirm screen it did say:

    Fidelity will charge a Transaction Fee each time you sell shares of FundsNetwork(R) funds purchased without a Transaction Fee or Load and held less than 60 days (short-term trade) The Transaction Fee will be based on the existing FundsNetwork Transaction Fee schedule applicable to this account

    and it did list a $50 add-on fee in the calculations below the notice. So ... if you feel strongly that they should rightly overlook your error, maybe send followup email and see where that gets you, saying you recall that you did not get any warning notice? Of course you have already moved your more than half-mil.
  • @willmatt, I am very surprised that someone working for a transfer agent who made a mistake of this sort would expect a do-over, and wonder why you would think you could trade in and out of FPINX like some no-fee etf or cash fund.

    However, to check your report, I just went to sell something I bought recently in Fido in my Roth, and on the confirm screen it did say:

    Fidelity will charge a Transaction Fee each time you sell shares of FundsNetwork(R) funds purchased without a Transaction Fee or Load and held less than 60 days (short-term trade) The Transaction Fee will be based on the existing FundsNetwork Transaction Fee schedule applicable to this account

    and it did list a $50 add-on fee in the calculations below the notice. So ... if you feel strongly that they should rightly overlook your error, maybe send followup email and see where that gets you, saying you recall that you did not get any warning notice? Of course you have already moved your more than half-mil.

    As I said, David, I made a mistake. However, as a 25-year-plus customer of Fidelity, I was accustomed to seeing the confirm screen as you described above. When it did not appear, I made the wrong conclusion that the fee would not be charged. However, no confirm of fees or warning appeared in this instance. I didn't expect a do-over, merely some sort of research on behalf of Fidelity to determine if there was some sort of glitch with their website or an overture to make things right. There are many ways to appease angry shareholders; I know about it all too well. However, Fidelity did nothing. So be it.

    Incidentally, I did send follow-up emails to Fidelity about the issue and no responses. Live and learn.
  • E*TRADE provides a warning about any kind of fee I've encountered although I think in some cases I've received the warning even for sales that won't incur a fee because I've held them long enough. To my pleasant surprise, they also warn me if I'm selling a fund that's closed although again I get that warning even if I'm just selling part of my position.
  • WM, I bet they respond eventually. I have never known them not to, as a 35y customer. If it was a software bug or some inconsistency as a function of fund type or something, you may have some sort of case, not clear what exactly, but something. Hope any mistakes you make w Schwab leave you feeling more appreciated, if possible.
  • Not certain, as I have made sure to not get into that particular situation. An advisory to that effect does appear when a fund is purchased, though.
  • Suffice to say, I moved a lot of money to Schwab. I have my 401K and Rewards Card with Fidelity now. Nothing else.

    That seems a bit counterproductive. In order to receive 2% on the Rewards card, the rebate must be deposited into an eligible Fidelity account - a taxable account, IRA, or 529. See footnote 1 in the card description. Here's a comprehensive overview of the card. (You're effectively giving up 1% by closing your Fidelity accounts.)

    I purchased FPNIX about 2 months ago as a holding place as cash substitute. When I purchased the fund, I signed off on the electronic prospectus, which includes the fees of course. I sold the fund online last week and incurred a 2 percent short-term trading fee. In the past, Fidelity always warned me online if any fees would be incurred PRIOR to the actual processing of the trade. I would never go ahead with a trade if there was a short term fee involved. For this particular trade, there was no warning or indication that a short-term fee was coming. I went ahead with the sale and got hit with the fee after-the-fact.

    There are fees, and there are fees. Davidmoran (below) seems to conflate fund imposed fees (which is what you were charged) with brokerage imposed fees, which Fidelity Brokerage never applies to Transaction Fee (TF) funds, such as FPNIX.

    ... to check your report, I just went to sell something I bought recently in Fido in my Roth, and on the confirm screen it did say:

    Fidelity will charge a Transaction Fee each time you sell shares of FundsNetwork(R) funds purchased without a Transaction Fee or Load and held less than 60 days (short-term trade) The Transaction Fee will be based on the existing FundsNetwork Transaction Fee schedule applicable to this account

    and it did list a $50 add-on fee in the calculations below the notice.

    This is Fidelity Brokerage's short term trading fee. This $50 brokerage fee was not assessed on the FPNIX redemption. Rather, the fund itself, FPNIX (not a Fidelity fund) imposed its own fee of 2%. In this situation, Fidelity seems to be nothing but the water carrier - it's just passing shares and cash back and forth.

    Fidelity does not control the fund's fees, and did not collect the fee, period. Fidelity passed through every dollar it received from FPA. FPNIX prospectus: "The Fund will deduct a 2% redemption free from the redemption proceeds ..."

    ISTM that Fidelity was being asked to "refund" money that it never saw, for a fee that it had no control over. This is different from asking Fidelity to waive its own short term fee because of some misunderstanding.

    I am curious - has anyone here ever gotten an automated warning from Fidelity (or any other brokerage) about a redemption fee imposed by a third party fund?

    Also, FPNIX imposes a 2% fee on redemptions for 90 days. This wasn't a question of an investor needing a reminder because one was off by a few days. That fee was in effect for at least another full month past the date of the redemption.
  • msf said:

    Suffice to say, I moved a lot of money to Schwab. I have my 401K and Rewards Card with Fidelity now. Nothing else.

    That seems a bit counterproductive. In order to receive 2% on the Rewards card, the rebate must be deposited into an eligible Fidelity account - a taxable account, IRA, or 529. See footnote 1 in the card description. Here's a comprehensive overview of the card. (You're effectively giving up 1% by closing your Fidelity accounts.)

    I purchased FPNIX about 2 months ago as a holding place as cash substitute. When I purchased the fund, I signed off on the electronic prospectus, which includes the fees of course. I sold the fund online last week and incurred a 2 percent short-term trading fee. In the past, Fidelity always warned me online if any fees would be incurred PRIOR to the actual processing of the trade. I would never go ahead with a trade if there was a short term fee involved. For this particular trade, there was no warning or indication that a short-term fee was coming. I went ahead with the sale and got hit with the fee after-the-fact.

    There are fees, and there are fees. Davidmoran (below) seems to conflate fund imposed fees (which is what you were charged) with brokerage imposed fees, which Fidelity Brokerage never applies to Transaction Fee (TF) funds, such as FPNIX.

    ... to check your report, I just went to sell something I bought recently in Fido in my Roth, and on the confirm screen it did say:

    Fidelity will charge a Transaction Fee each time you sell shares of FundsNetwork(R) funds purchased without a Transaction Fee or Load and held less than 60 days (short-term trade) The Transaction Fee will be based on the existing FundsNetwork Transaction Fee schedule applicable to this account

    and it did list a $50 add-on fee in the calculations below the notice.

    This is Fidelity Brokerage's short term trading fee. This $50 brokerage fee was not assessed on the FPNIX redemption. Rather, the fund itself, FPNIX (not a Fidelity fund) imposed its own fee of 2%. In this situation, Fidelity seems to be nothing but the water carrier - it's just passing shares and cash back and forth.

    Fidelity does not control the fund's fees, and did not collect the fee, period. Fidelity passed through every dollar it received from FPA. FPNIX prospectus: "The Fund will deduct a 2% redemption free from the redemption proceeds ..."

    ISTM that Fidelity was being asked to "refund" money that it never saw, for a fee that it had no control over. This is different from asking Fidelity to waive its own short term fee because of some misunderstanding.

    I am curious - has anyone here ever gotten an automated warning from Fidelity (or any other brokerage) about a redemption fee imposed by a third party fund?

    Also, FPNIX imposes a 2% fee on redemptions for 90 days. This wasn't a question of an investor needing a reminder because one was off by a few days. That fee was in effect for at least another full month past the date of the redemption.
    Actually, it's not counterproductive. Schwab offers cash incentives to move that much money to their brokerage. In my case, I received $1,200 to move that much money to Schwab, as long as I hold it for at least one year at Schwab. That more than makes up for the fee that was charged for the s/t trading fee.

    As an aside, I've seen automated warnings from Fidelity for selling a third party fund many times. I've been a Fidelity customer for more than 25 years.
  • TedTed
    edited September 2014
    @MFO Members: Once again all brokereages, and I mean all brokerages have advantages and disadvantages. All brokerages do at least one thing well.
    Barron's Best Online Brokerages 2014:
    http://online.barrons.com/news/articles/SB50001424053111904628504579433251867361162#printMode
    Regards,
    Ted
  • Since I've broached this thread, I'll say what one of my brokers does well. I'm not going to name the broker, because this is a full service broker (apparently an anathema here), and because the firm is not one of the half-dozen or so "names" tossed around. Rather, it is a major underwriter of muni bonds - not in the top five or so (those do huge amounts of business), but in the next tier.

    He watches over my muni bonds, and shortly after a bond matures, gives me a call to suggest another purchase. A quick 1-2 minute recitation of the issuer, background, rating, YTW, YTM, credit rating, etc. The only pressure is in the sense that some bonds don't stay available long. I usually spend a few minutes checking out the current rate curves and particular bonds, and give him a call back.

    He's come up with some interesting bonds (e.g. a VI bond, a zero that converts to interest paying, etc.) that would be very hard to find on one's own. And the yields I get on the bonds that I can find elsewhere (e.g. Fidelity, Schwab) are generally about the same, sometimes a little better, than I would do on my own. (That's net - including markups, commissions, fees, etc.)

    He also keeps my risk tolerance and maturity range in mind. Service, efficiency, sound investments. That's what brokers are supposed to provide, and some actually do.
  • msf said:

    Suffice to say, I moved a lot of money to Schwab. I have my 401K and Rewards Card with Fidelity now. Nothing else.

    That seems a bit counterproductive. In order to receive 2% on the Rewards card, the rebate must be deposited into an eligible Fidelity account - a taxable account, IRA, or 529. See footnote 1 in the card description. Here's a comprehensive overview of the card. (You're effectively giving up 1% by closing your Fidelity accounts.)
    Actually, it's not counterproductive. Schwab offers cash incentives to move that much money to their brokerage. In my case, I received $1,200 to move that much money to Schwab, as long as I hold it for at least one year at Schwab. That more than makes up for the fee that was charged for the s/t trading fee.
    That explains why you moved most of your money. It doesn't explain why you decided not to leave a minimal amount to get an extra 1% back on your credit card. Why keep the credit card if all you're going to get is 1% without a Fidelity account? If you followed my link to the writeup of the Fidelity CC, you'd see that they were comparing it with the Quicksilver card - a clearly superior card for someone who can't deposit rewards into a Fidelity account.

    As an aside, I've seen automated warnings from Fidelity for selling a third party fund many times. I've been a Fidelity customer for more than 25 years.

    That's not quite what I asked. Fidelity warns whenever Fidelity charges a fee for a transaction. In particular, when it imposes a short term redemption fee on an NTF fund - something it imposes only on third party funds.

    My question was whether anyone ever saw a warning for a fee imposed by the third party fund, not a fee imposed by the brokerage.

    Only 25 years? I've got a few decades on you, going back to investments made before I was born. (Fidelity shares purchased by parents transferred via UGMA/UTMA.) And I can recite lots of errors they've made, including not knowing the cost basis of those shares, losing an original of a financial document, incompetence in reversing a transaction, and a plethora of other ills. Yet over the many years, their helpfulness and ease of working with has much more than compensated.

    If only they'd stop tinkering with their website.
  • @msf: Thanks; I did conflate fees, it appears, because this was WM's lede:

    \\\ bad experience with Fidelity regarding a short-term trading fee.

    My bad.

    Fido have improved their cost tracking, and yes, it used to be iffy, or worse. Also many other things. I used to go to a center and sit with a rep to try to piece together Ma Bell breakup share tracking and problems. I go back with them to the later 1950s, sort of, when my father was an early investor in Fidelity Trend.

    I have several sisters-in-law who have their moneys (not heeyuge) with a UBS broker, I think it is, and he does perfectly fine by them, not just performance, but planning, allocation thoughtfulness, mindfulness, free tickets, and other heads-up behaviors. No churning, no advantage-taking, it appears.
  • edited September 2014
    msf said:

    msf said:

    Suffice to say, I moved a lot of money to Schwab. I have my 401K and Rewards Card with Fidelity now. Nothing else.

    That seems a bit counterproductive. In order to receive 2% on the Rewards card, the rebate must be deposited into an eligible Fidelity account - a taxable account, IRA, or 529. See footnote 1 in the card description. Here's a comprehensive overview of the card. (You're effectively giving up 1% by closing your Fidelity accounts.)
    Actually, it's not counterproductive. Schwab offers cash incentives to move that much money to their brokerage. In my case, I received $1,200 to move that much money to Schwab, as long as I hold it for at least one year at Schwab. That more than makes up for the fee that was charged for the s/t trading fee.
    That explains why you moved most of your money. It doesn't explain why you decided not to leave a minimal amount to get an extra 1% back on your credit card. Why keep the credit card if all you're going to get is 1% without a Fidelity account? If you followed my link to the writeup of the Fidelity CC, you'd see that they were comparing it with the Quicksilver card - a clearly superior card for someone who can't deposit rewards into a Fidelity account.

    As an aside, I've seen automated warnings from Fidelity for selling a third party fund many times. I've been a Fidelity customer for more than 25 years.

    That's not quite what I asked. Fidelity warns whenever Fidelity charges a fee for a transaction. In particular, when it imposes a short term redemption fee on an NTF fund - something it imposes only on third party funds.

    My question was whether anyone ever saw a warning for a fee imposed by the third party fund, not a fee imposed by the brokerage.

    Only 25 years? I've got a few decades on you, going back to investments made before I was born. (Fidelity shares purchased by parents transferred via UGMA/UTMA.) And I can recite lots of errors they've made, including not knowing the cost basis of those shares, losing an original of a financial document, incompetence in reversing a transaction, and a plethora of other ills. Yet over the many years, their helpfulness and ease of working with has much more than compensated.

    If only they'd stop tinkering with their website.
    In addition to my IRAs and 401K, I maintain a cash management account at Fidelity from which I pay bills, etc. I can use the AMEX card to gain points and put the 2% cash into the cash management account. In that cash management account, I have a few bond investments. So I'm not losing the 2% cash rewards at all. I can put the cash into a core account and purchase more shares that are held in the cash management account.

    P.S. I tried the new Fido website and it's pretty bad, IMHO. I hope they continue to give us the option of using the old website, but I doubt it.

  • P.S. I tried the new Fido website and it's pretty bad, IMHO. I hope they continue to give us the option of using the old website, but I doubt it.

    An FAQ on the info page for the new site suggests that they're planning to remove that option:
    Can I go back to the old Accounts & Trade page?

    To peek back in the past, select Exit Preview in the toolbar. For tablets and smartphones, this link will appear in the dropdown menu under Trade and Transact. But why would you want to? No, really, we want to know! While you can go back to the old experience for a limited time, please tell us what you're looking for. To give feedback, select the "i" icon in the new experience, and then choose Feedback. This will help us improve the new experience for you.

  • The user and all related content has been deleted.
  • I was so repulsed by the new site that I haven't taken another look in several weeks. Here are some annoyances:

    - message box floats above the Summary data - I have to dismiss or move it (unlike the old version where I could see a notice, but it wasn't in my face and I didn't need to dismiss it).

    - way too much clutter. Fidelity can shovel all the market data, Fidelity Insights, etc. that it wants at me from its home page. When I log in and get to my account page, I just want to see my account data. Or at least I want to be able to configure this other noise.

    - it takes multiple pages to get to the desired bill pay. If you have more than one account with bill pay, with the old site, you can get to it directly from your login page by selecting the account and action - pay bills. With the new site, you're stuck using the Acccount & Trade drop down (also on the old site), selecting Bill Pay, and on a second page, selecting the desired account.

    - for that matter, the account action menu (Balances, Positions, Closed Positions, Orders, History, etc) used to be accessible from almost everywhere on the site under "Select Action" - nice uniform interface. Now, the only place I see it is on the Performance tab (which looks like the old site).

    - Positions (grouped by symbol) - click on one account or another holding the same position, and you get the identical (and wordy) information - 10 pages of fund info to click through (horizontally). The only items that are account specific on these pages are "trade" button, Purchase History link, and Lots link.

    That is, you can't just call up the fund info by clicking on the fund symbol. (The old interface would bring up a ticker summary window, and from there you could click on research if you wanted more data.)

    What's the point of clicking on an account listed under a holding if all it brings up is information about the holding and not the account data (e.g. shares) for that ticker?


    - If I display positions without grouping, and if there are two accounts with the same holding, there's no way for me to tell which line belongs to which account without expanding that line and looking. (On the old interface, the accounts were shown on each line.)

    In fairness here, "no grouping" is a new option for the positions tab. They just removed the account labels for this option - the labels are still there when grouped by account (obviously), and also when positions are grouped by symbol.

    Need I go on? They wrecked FullView, and now they're doing the same to the rest of the site.

    In short - clutter, lack of consistency, loss of information that used to be on pages, redundant information. All negative "improvements" over the old interface.
  • To be fair, fidelity is one of the better sites and for my use it works very well. However, some sites (e.g., couple of my prior 401k sites) were so bad, I actually wonder if someone actually spent even a couple of hours going through some kind of design specifications with user ease in mind. Is it so hard to imagine that a user would like to see all his/her funds, number of shares, $ value in each fund and total $value of the account as a first screen when you login? The next most common activity is to change funds or change allocation. Direct link from that main page to this activity would cover 90% of use. Less clutter, faster websites (not too many users going through dozens of pages to get where they want to go).
  • fullview is a bit of a mess everywhere, little to do with Fido; at BoA yodlee works similarly more or less fine except it cannot bring in your current BoA balances, even though it says it can, and has; quite unbelievable, and ML and BoA c/s are quite helpless about it
  • When Fidelity first offered Full View, I spoke with their tech people, who said that Fidelity was running Yodlee software on its servers behind its firewall. With the update for Fidelity (about a year ago?) it now looks virtually identical to what I see on other sites. That suggests to me (though I haven't confirmed) that Fidelity gave up providing a customized, secure version and left everything up to Yodlee.

    Interesting that Yodlee's service for BofA cannot read BofA balances, because the service for Fidelity has no problem reading BofA balances. (I have a no-min, legacy BofA account to get a bonus on my legacy Schwab Visa rewards, now branded BofA.)
  • BoA say it is a browser caching problem blah blah or something, except it happens with all three browsers, and did not used to, and they have no problems with any other sites at all.
  • The user and all related content has been deleted.
  • never had any problems with privacy or anything else in that area, and there is no cost, so you must mean potential risk or something
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