In March I set up a revocable trust and moved my Fidelity funds from our joint account into it. At the same time I filled out the paperwork for EFT privileges. I thought everything was set until last week when I tried to transfer funds to the account from my bank. EFT wasn't set up (but I wasn't notified of the problem). I called Fido and explained (as I had back in March), that the bank, routing number, checking acct. and ownership were the same as for the joint account. No dice! I would have to fill out a new EFT form, have it medallion guaranteed, and mail it in (which we did).
Meanwhile, the Fido representative suggested that she could reactivate the joint account, I could transfer the money into it, and then simply transfer it from there into the trust. Great! Except when I tried to transfer from the joint account to the trust this morning, it was disallowed. I called Fido again and now was told I would have to wait until after the "collection period" to transfer the $50K. The soonest would be 1 week from today, but if I wanted to invest it in the joint account I could. I said that defeats the point of having a trust in the first place.
So now the money is not in my bank account, not in my trust account, may or may not be my joint account which had been closed for 9 months, and I'm thoroughly disgusted with Fidelity. When the rep said she understood my frustration and asked if there was anything else she could help me with today, I was tempted to ask her to sell everything and mail me a check. But I'm sure they would find a way to screw that up also!
Comments
1. Any new thing you want to set up takes time in weeks not hours/days to be set up right, so nothing new should be attempted unless there is sufficient time. So plan accordingly.
2. Always do new setups only one step/feature at a time and wait for upto a week after each step for things to stabilize before doing the next step and if possible verify each step has been set up correctly before proceeding to the next. Also test new features with small amounts or test runs first if possible. If you think it takes too long that way, see rule 1 above.
Doesn't prevent all problems but makes things much smoother. Some of it is incompetence, some of it is to catch/prevent fraud. Tolerate it for the latter since I entrust significant sums of money and glad they have these things that will frustrate and drive away hackers if any that may want to meddle with my money!
Now you know why I like to deal with brokerage firms that staff neighborhood offices.
Three that come to mind are Raymond James, Scottrade and Edward Jones. When necessary ... you can get in front of them face-to-face.
Good Luck and I hope it works out for you.
Old_Skeet
The online account info/web site satisfies our needs for information, research abilities and fairly easy to use for numerous functions.
The only "bitch" I will provide is that Fido does not provide forward notification about changes being made to functions. One becomes accustomed to doing one thing and a whole new page layout arrives without notification.
We have also used Vanguard and Schwab. Many vendors have their good and not so good for some features; and of course, there will be some folks at vendors who don't provide the service one expects.
Fidelity service - in general, as good as it gets. That's not to say it is without faults, as others have noted. Their latest faux pas (by a private client rep) was telling a relative that until her fund sale cleared, they didn't how much she would have when she closed the account. I was astonished by this response, since the value of a fund sale is known hours after the market closes; you don't have to wait until the next market close (settlement date).
Local offices - For general information, you'll get the same conversation whether in person or on the phone. For account specific information, it seems they just wind up calling some back office person, the same as if you'd called yourself. So while I like to walk into an office (to drop off a check or get that too often requested medallion guarantee), there's really nothing for which a local branch seems essential.
P.S. on closed accounts - not that long ago I called Fidelity regarding an account that I had closed a few years ago. At the time, they told me it was still available for use (could be reactivated). By the time I tried to use it a few days later they had completely closed it (could not be reactivated). Just bad timing (the account closed automatically), but it would have been nice if they'd been on the ball and had let me know that was going to happen. Turns out they had an excellent workaround, fortunately.
@msf "Moving" investments into a trust is not a simple matter. Forms have to be completed, medallion stamped, certification mailed, etc. They wouldn't let me invest in trust funds with money from the joint account.
I use Scottrade but feel that their website is lacking compared to Fidelity and they don't have all the options available I want on equities particularly the reinvestment of dividends into additional shares.
There are some transfers that require a lot of paperwork. You could need that paperwork for each different account you're transferring from. It sounds like what Fidelity told you was that you had completed that paperwork for transfers from your (closed) Fidelity joint account to your Fidelity trust account, so you wouldn't need to do that again. This is why Fidelity made their suggestion.
The problem with the suggestion was time - Fidelity (like many brokerages) allows trades to be made in an account with unsettled funds, but won't allow the removal of unsettled money even to another account with the same registration, let alone a different form of ownership. Hence Fidelity's comment that you could trade immediately, and my posted observation that you'd be able to transfer the investments once the bank transfer settled. The purpose of the trust would not be frustrated ("defeated").
"They wouldn't let me invest in trust funds with money from the joint account."
Do you mean that they wouldn't let you move the money immediately to the trust to invest in funds (discussed above), or that they wouldn't let you invest in funds that would be available to the trust (i.e. trust has access to more funds)? If the latter, there's more going on in terms of trust structure than you're letting us in on. That's okay, but it precludes discussion.
As far as paperwork for transfers at Fidelity goes ... been there, done that. One of the most absurd requirements is that transfers from a joint account to an individual account requires everything you've described. One cannot log in, or even call Fidelity, and have them transfer money from a joint account without the papers, even though each owner on the joint account has full legal right to all the assets. And even though one could simply hand Fidelity a check signed by one person from the joint account to withdraw or transfer cash.
Oh, Fidelity does make an exception. If you want to transfer money from a joint account to an IRA (which is similar to a trust account though there's a custodian in place of a trustee), no problems. Fidelity explains this away by saying that it's very common.
It's annoying, it's frustrating. But in your case, it still sounds like Fidelity offered a reasonable workaround to avoid additional paperwork (by using the joint account as a conduit). I think I addressed the issue you raised with unsettled funds (inability to invest in funds for the trust).
If I've made incorrect inferences and gotten things wrong, correct me. I'm glad to discuss further. I've used Fidelity for decades, and have had enough problems with them to make them sound like one of the worst financial institutions ever. From lost financial documents (that I personally handed to them), to misinformation, to their inability to make some corrections, to misreporting tax info, on and on. And I've used this board and others to vent (though infrequently).
Over decades these things will happen. They've also been extremely helpful in a number of situations, both on the retail and institutional sides.
Fido: We received your application. Please stay on the line while I check it's status.
Fido: It seems your application was forwarded to the wrong back office, so it hasn't been processed yet.
Me: What do you mean "hasn't been processed yet"? When the @$%& were you going to notify me? Send it to the right office and I want confirmation right now!
Fido: OK. Stay on the line.
Fido: The back office says the medallion stamp is very faint and they're having a problem confirming it.
Me: What the &!$# do you mean faint! I have the @$%& copy right in front of me, and I can read every @$%& word of the stamp!
Fido: I understand your frustration, and apologize for the delay in handling your transaction.
Me: You can't even begin to understand my frustration! Every time I ask Fidelity to perform a simply $%& task, they !&$% it up and apologize!
Fido: I will personally talk to the back office and get the ETF process set up. Can you hold?
Me: I'm not going to hold on the @$%& line all day! I want the process set up, and I want a call from Fidelity when complete or I'm going to withdraw all my @%$& money from Fidelity by the end of the day!
Fidelity called back within 30 minutes and said the ETF was ready to go.
I'm not perfect, and I'm not a bully, but, by God, I can't stand incompetence!
Wow to their atypical incompetence, troubling, but wow to your 'I'm not going to hold' impatience. How do you deal in the real world, doctors, mechanics, clerks, everyone else, where incompetence is hardly uncommon? Sounds like they fixed it totally --- true or not? Please report.
I received an email this AM saying they were initiating the process of deposit/withdrawal to my bank account verifying the ETF procedure. I hope it puts this frustrating experience to rest.
Regards,
Ted
Fido: "Oh Oh! It looks like we dropped a digit while entering the number.."
Me: "What does this do to the EFT Set-up process?"
Fido: "Well, once they correct the number, they'll have to start the deposit/withdrawal process all over again! We apologize for the delay."
I can't make this up! Is it mere coincidence that my Fidelity account is handled by Bozo's?
@Ted: The nearest Fidelity branch office is 60 miles away. This was not a "complex financial matter". Vanguard, TR Price, and Janus had NO problems getting it right the first time!
Ted, I have been a pretty satisfied customer with Fidelity for about two decades with both retirement plans and standard brokerage accounts. But going to the local office is often of little use given how Fidelity divies up specific lines of business to separate operations centers around the country. I was once in a downtown Boston Fidelity office trying to resolve a setup issue with a retirement plan. I was told to contact the Cincinnati office for my concern. No one at the local office could help, nor anyone at any of the other Fidelity buildings within a 3-mile radius where vast multitudes of Fidelity staff worked.
Jinxed, you would be well rid of them, I'd say. It has been 11 days since your initial post. And a long time since March. (Ha, meant to add I have my own revocable trusts with Fido including easy etf w/ BoA and among other Fido accounts ... but these were all set up 20+ years ago.)
Fidelity. I'm only giving a factual account of my dealings with them pertaining to a relatively simple matter. I've been satisfied with the Fido funds I have (that's why I tried to transfer money to them). I would like to post a Mission Accomplished report, but per previous posts, I haven't been able to do that yet...
Regards,
Ted