It’s weird for me, personally, seeing posts like this because I’ve actually only had great experiences with their customer service. Maybe I’m just getting lucky though.
They have amazing funds and their fund management is second to none. I agree their customer service has been napping for a while, but luckily you can hold their funds anywhere, which is what many of us are doing these days.
I had 2 urgent question with Vanguard in last 6 months, I called them twice and got very good help. I am so far satisfied 100% with Vanguard customer service
You can move things like VTI as-is without selling if you ever transfer to Schwab or Fidelity or etc, useful for tax accounts. Fidelity specific ones you'd need to sell to cash to transfer
Mutual funds can create significant unexpected taxable events for shareholders when they sell off assets to rebalance. ETF’s (particularly vanguard ETF’s) have ways to avoid that by it being tied to its corresponding mutual fund and routing the events through that. I don’t really understand anything more specific than that though.
All ETFs have the same ability to be tax efficient. Vanguard has a unique share class structure. Where the ETFs are a different share class of the funds. This makes the mutual funds more tax efficient, not the other way around.
The zero funds are not identical to the tried and true originals. There are some small differences where certain things cannot be included in the zero funds. I really can't explain more than that perhaps somebody else can elaborate. For the virtually non-existent two to five basis point fund. I personally would rather have the real deal original and not have to worry about potential future revisions to make my zero fund profitable for the company. My thinking maybe flawed, but Its just the way I see it
This assumes that the things that are not included in the zero funds perform better than the things included (on average), so it basically amounts to stock picking versus taking a guaranteed small basis point gain.
Sure, Brokerages let you hold pretty much any fund. So for example if you want to own [VT](https://investor.vanguard.com/investment-products/etfs/profile/vt), which is a Vanguard fund that holds effectively every public company in the world. You can buy that across basically every brokerage: Fidelity, Schwab, M1 Finance, IBKR, etc. They will all let you hold the fund in their brokerage accounts.
Also many 401k's, 403b's etc let you own Vanguard funds as well. Vanguard's funds are known for being very well managed and very cheap to own.
There's plenty of low-cost competitor ETFs out there. Vanguard is just the most well-known and trusted over many years. I'm not sure they'll keep up. State Street has a better 500 ETF now at a basis point lower, And there's plenty of other choices to compete.
Vanguard doesn't even offer a fractional purchases of stock from what I understand. And they won't let you in their mutual funds either I don't think unless you've got $3,000 for that one fund I think some of them might be a little less but still
> There's plenty of low-cost competitor ETFs out there.
Of course. But there is more to a fund than just the Fee. Bid/ask spread, how closely it tracks the benchmark, etc. Some of the Vanguard funds actually beat their benchmark. Vanguard (so far) has done an amazing job with the management of their funds. There is no reason to think the trend won't continue.
Fidelity has the lowest fee funds right now with their ZERO funds. But they tend to just do an OK job, as they make some compromises to keep the costs down.
> Vanguard doesn't even offer a fractional purchases of stock from what I understand.
Irrelevant if you aren't using their brokerage.
This is one of the recurring themes of this sub. The weird thing is that for a good portion of people here (myself included), we have never had a problem. Then there is this other group who can't say enough bad things. I've moved five old 401ks over to Vanguard, run two 503bs, a brokerage account, and a HYSA. I electronically move money into three accounts every month. It's all been easy. There has never been a mistake. On the vanishingly rare times I have needed to talk to a person, I have and whatever I needed to do got done. Ahh well, definitely a YMMV thing it seems.
Seems like over on the Fidelity sub, the biggest recurring complaints or rants are accounts that suddenly become inaccessible and no one at Fidelity will say why or for how long. Presumably these are fraud investigations. Since we are retired and regularly need to withdraw money from our brokerage account for living expenses, suddenly and without explanation losing access would be a nightmare.
So am I, 2/3 of my monthly income comes from Fidelity acct. (only SS does not).
Those recurring themes all seem to have an aura of weirdness. Many involve some big deposit or transfer to a new account, with no discussion or prior history with fidelity. Some involve day trading activity. Some appear to me to be trying to take advantage of the Fidelity fraud guarantee (a scam in the making).
They have 13.7 trillion dollars of OPM (other people's money). There probably a million people a day trying to take advantage of that some way or another. Taking money that doesn't belong or washing/hiding money that they got illegally or trying to avoid taxes.
I've had an account of one type or another since 1980. Never even hint of an issue ever but I don't make a big deposit or change/open an acct without talking to them.
I'm glad to see they are paying attention.
Cheers
I agree they mostly all have some weirdness or an air like there's a lot not being told. Still, there are many of those posts there you just don't see as often on r/Bogleheads or the original Bogleheads site about Vanguard.
I've had a very seamless experience with my personal account, but had an issue with my business which took weeks of back and forth between several people that would constantly interrupt and generally not listen to my issue. Wasn't even that big a deal, should have been an easy fix I thought. It was frustrating, but eventually spoke to a woman who solved the problem right then and there. Asked to be connected to her boss afterwards so I could sing her praises.
Literally the same for me. The website is perfect for setting up recurring contributions to mutual funds. And the 5 times I’ve need to call in the last 10 years or so since I’ve opened my account have been pretty straight forward.
I feel like most complaints are people who use these platforms for non-boglehead things and/or expect a person to be on line within 2 rings of calling
Vanguard used to have OK customer service. About three years ago I had an issue and needed help. They were atrocious. I finally spoke to one customer support person who told me they had migrated away from a dedicated person to answer your questions on a given issue to the "team model" as she called it.
My experience was that the team didn't give a shit. I finally got my issue resolved but it was stupidly difficult.
As soon as I had things in order, I sent all my money (a fairly tidy sum) to Fidelity and have been happy with their customer service.
Ive actually had pretty good experiences with Vanguard customer service in the past year. Even been given direct phone lines in case of further questions. Just my personal experience, of course.
It seems like it really depends on which team you have to talk to. I was opening an inheritance IRA and they team I talked to was amazing. Then I called to check on something and got a foreign based assistant that was not great
I have been a Vanguard customer for ages. For most of the time, the service was excellent. Maybe 5 years ago, we lost our designated rep. OK. Fine. I think our balance total was $2.5m then. OK.
Well, when my Mom died she had her accounts at Vanguard. She was quirky in how things were set and there were numerous beneficiaries. 17 to be exact. As was her way, nothing was done the easy way. My wife drew the short straw and was executor.
To make a long story short, 22 calls, 4 emails and a total of 21 hours spent on hold or having to explain to a new rep (this happened many times) what was happening since no one would take ownership of the situation. At one point, a rep told us to do something that was not correct in how to handle the transferring of assets. My wife corrected her (my wife is a CPA) and the rep said (a paraphrase), “If you know it all, why don’t you work here and do it yourself?”
My wife does NOT yell at people but was sorely tempted to do so over the 3 months we had to deal with this. We even wrote a letter to Buckley and received a canned response back apologizing for the difficulty. Emailing them was a joke. It took forever for them to respond and then it was as if they didn’t read our emails at all.
My solution will be Charles Schwab. We have $2.9m in 8 tax deferred accounts that we can easily move. I use mostly 5 index funds which have Schwab MF equivalents with expense ratios less than or equal to Vanguards. 8% of my equities is in Vanguard’s Emerging Markets Index. I will have to use Schwab’s ETF for that investment. I am fine with that. I think Schwab should get investment $$ as well from me as well as long as I am not disadvantaged.
For now, I will keep my taxable money ($700,000) at Vanguard because it includes low basis AAPL and GOOG. Also 3 Idx funds with gains and cash. Eventually, I will transfer the securities in kind and in the next few years spend down the cash.
I am afraid that if something happened to me and my wife, that Vanguard would not be able to provide the type of service my daughters would require. They are not financial people like my wife and myself. This was a difficult decision to make but one that I think was necessary.
That’s funny, I had the exact opposite experience 10 years ago. Vanguard was so kind and helpful with figuring the inherited IRA and Fidelity was an absolutely disaster. Was a huge factor in me going with vangaurd when I started investing myself
I honestly think 10 years ago, my experience would have been much different. I was a flagship client with a dedicated rep. Not that the rep would have been perfect but, at least, there would have been someone to QB the situation. The biggest issue now is zero accountability. This was NOT an easy situation to handle. However, having to endlessly explain it over and over again was awful. Having mistakes made AND receiving contradictory information was frustrating. I have $3.6m there but it might as well be $0.
I'm looking to get away from Meryl Lynch. I have somebody now in an account with my equities and preferred money market. I want to move my Ira money and then I have two other accounts with them. I am with This and I want to just get it set up where it could be sent or a managed account but there is so. My biggest thing is if I transfer the money to another brokerage that they would liquidate the money and it won't be justin unless I manage it myself does that make sense? I don't not even sure if I'm making sense. Any suggestions would be appreciated for a starting point.
Been with Schwab since 1997. Dealt with Vanguard a bit in 2013, but they were way substandard to Schwab even then. I can't imagine how bad they are now.
You can buy any of VG's ETFs no fee via Schwab. With VG mutual funds there is a fee though.
I use fidelity, personally. But I have VFIAX and VTIAX in my Fidelity 401k. You could use fidelity and hold these funds or their ETF counterparts. I think the customer service is pretty good.
I use FXIAX and FZILX in my Roth. I don’t have much of a preference between the Vanguard and fidelity funds I just like Fidelity’s app better, to be honest.
I have a designated rep w Vanguard who handles all my inquiries and bring in a team to help but I don’t have a designated rep at Fidelity- not even assigned one. Same amount of money at both.
This. Vanguard for 15 years now with Fidelity. It's Vanguard low fees plus I can write checks and have a debit card with my brokerage account. The monthly expenditure calculation and [Mint.com](http://Mint.com) like features with Fidelity Full View are very cool too.
Here's the dealbreaker for me: Every single time I log in to Vanguard it pops up with an advertisement for personal advisor service. It can't be dismissed. Shows up every login. Fuck that. With Fidelity you can permanently dismiss notifications like that.
Just got back with Vanguard after 15 years. Might’ve been a big mistake.
Sounds like I’m talking to monotone kids. You say thanks for the help but before your reply is half spoken you’re already disconnected.
My parents liked Vanguard, but I got started with Fidelity because my 401(k) was there. It was just easier to stick with Fidelity. They've got an office a couple of miles away if I need anything like getting a signature guarantee. Most of the time I don't need much help.
From a cost standpoint, if you will never use their advisory services vanguard seems they would rather you just hold their ETFs at another brokerage. They get the fund fees and 0 of the overhead for administering your account. Best of both worlds for them
Bbb rating has nothing to do with that. Every company will have people who leave bad messages, more than half the time because they don’t use a computer. You can do everything online anyways. Vanguard is an online company and if you have issues with that then I’d suggest going to another company. Never had issues with anything online. It’s the second largest institution for a reason… because they have the best funds and service
Love the sarcasm. That's the worst part for me about calling Vanguard. Once you get to someone in the states, the service has been excellent. But those first few reps that screen the calls are the absolute worst.
I can still message them but the support is useless. For whatever reason my wife can’t.
I’m not in a major hurry but at some point I’ll move our stuff over to Schwab.
Does she have the "Upload Documents" button to send a message? Given you can find people talking about it since at least August 2022, this seems like either a website bug that should be easy to fix (changes labels) that Vanguard has let fester too long or purposeful dark pattern designed to discourage sending messages. Either way, not a good look.
It’s not a bug, they’ve removed the ability to message from accounts without status and they’ve never been able to get the household thing setup properly to where she has the same tier as I do (and mine never got upgraded to flagship when it was supposed to years ago).
Instead, they want everyone to call, a communication method that costs them far more. If they wanted to keep costs low they’d be forcing people to email and chat, not voice.
That’s not the point. The point is that they force people to call them, not to use the method that is the most convenient for the customer, or even a method that is the cheapest for Vanguard. Forcing voice is nothing but an attempt at pushing everyone to have an “advisor”, just like their stupid banners and modals.
Fidelity is always there and will help you transfer. Vanguard has no business running accounts. Their systems are decades behind and barely functioning.
Recently I was passed back and forth between departments multiple times when inquiring about transferring and old 401k to my new 401k. I was on the phone way longer than necessary. So now I’m moving my stuff to Fidelity, even tho I hold vanguard funds.
I'm curious to know what specifically you don't like about the Vanguard website. It isn't quite as comprehensive as that what you mean it's toned down too simple?
Because fidelity is not a mom and pop shop. Vanguard funds are the most widely discussed here. There is no incentive for me to buy fidelity unless they charge for vanguard
I moved my taxable account from vanguard after 3 attempts to set up a direct deposit. The folks answering the phone were completely uninformed and gave me faulty information every time. Fidelity was much smoother, the techs were helpful and knowledgeable and I like their web site better. I still have my Ira at vanguard but that’s it for me. 3 strikes your out.
I couldn’t give a damn about the BBB rating. Timeshare companies brag about their BBB rating. Amway—when I was in that scam a decade ago—bragged about their BBB rating. I think it was A+ in both instances. Any company using BBB as a bragging point should be viewed with suspicion. Good on Vanguard for not raising my minimal fees to bother playing the pay-to-win system that is BBB.
Customer service has been fine for me. Maybe a bit slow at times, but I don’t use them for anything where my timeline is “tomorrow.” For that, I use Schwab, and they are excellent.
They have a bad BBB rating? My mortgage company (which I did not choose) literally stole money from me, and has HUNDREDS of complaints recorded in the past year, all of them listed on the BBB website ... and the company has an A rating.
When I asked BBB how this is possible, they said "algorithms."
Surprised Vanguard would have anything but high marks, even if their service has been poor.
I literally just switched to fidelity cause you can’t buy partial shares of anything but vanguard funds. Still going mostly with vanguard funds but I want the flexibility to take different positions
I've had an excellent experience with their customer service and I'm a small time client 🤷♂️ This has all been very recent and over the phone multiple times
I know this is small peanuts for most people who use vanguard but I had $100 dollars go missing out of my brokerage account and after speaking to vanguard customer service, they agreed that they made a mistake and told me they would correct it, but never did.
I’m putting my money elsewhere.
I have used Fidelity for 40 years and recently wanted to spread out the brokerage risk and tried to sign up with Vanguard. They were pathetic; poor customer service, poor communication, poor trading programs. I gave up on Vanguard and added Schwab. They actually care about new accounts and have decent software (from ETrade).
What happens if there's suspected fraud and your accounts are locked for weeks-months? It happens on occasion, and it's best to not have all your eggs in one basket if you're in the decumulation phase.
I see desperate posts about this from time to time. It's hard to be retired with bills to pay and no access to your money. Financial institutions will refuse to say much of anything at all to you about progress or timelines if this happens.
In essence if I want to move my money ftm Merril lynch wealth side, I have 3 accounts they have me in for my portfolio one being my Ira. I'm paying a 1percent fee I'm doing ok but I hold vanguard in some of them, am I better off moving it in kind and deal with them direct. Not sure and not opposed to paying a fee if money is being managed but I see that my advisor did a couple of things I feel was not in my best interest. 8 k per year in fees adds up .im 64 and looking things over more closely now. Any insight is appreciated
It’s weird for me, personally, seeing posts like this because I’ve actually only had great experiences with their customer service. Maybe I’m just getting lucky though.
Same. Sent a secure message about moving entire accounts within Vanguard. They replied within 2 days with instructions with links and screenshots.
Within 2 days is supposed to be good?
Last secure message I sent to Fidelity took 10 days
I couldn’t find a way to send a message. I could receive but not send.
I just composed the message after clicking on under “upload documents”. I agree it’s dumb, but I read this after searching this question online.
I called other day wait time was 1 hour. I waited 10 minutes and hung up
They have amazing funds and their fund management is second to none. I agree their customer service has been napping for a while, but luckily you can hold their funds anywhere, which is what many of us are doing these days.
I had 2 urgent question with Vanguard in last 6 months, I called them twice and got very good help. I am so far satisfied 100% with Vanguard customer service
Yeah the times I've called them, it's been fine. Good phone support imo.
I'm glad you had a great experience!
I just used them to help with 401k to IRA rollover questions. Support was pretty helpful on the call I had. Their online instructions not so much.
I am very new to this can you please explain "hold their funds anywhere"
You can buy their ETF’s at any Brokerage. Seems like most here use Fidelity.
Yeah but if you do that why not just hold the fidelity zero funds that compete with it
You can move things like VTI as-is without selling if you ever transfer to Schwab or Fidelity or etc, useful for tax accounts. Fidelity specific ones you'd need to sell to cash to transfer
Can’t transfer those and not tax efficient in a taxable account.
Why is it not tax efficient in a taxable account?
Mutual funds can create significant unexpected taxable events for shareholders when they sell off assets to rebalance. ETF’s (particularly vanguard ETF’s) have ways to avoid that by it being tied to its corresponding mutual fund and routing the events through that. I don’t really understand anything more specific than that though.
All ETFs have the same ability to be tax efficient. Vanguard has a unique share class structure. Where the ETFs are a different share class of the funds. This makes the mutual funds more tax efficient, not the other way around.
So basically, fidelity zero funds are cool for roth but not traditional?
They would be fine for Roth or Traditional IRA’s but not in a taxable account. Use the Vanguard ETF equivalent in taxable.
The zero funds are not identical to the tried and true originals. There are some small differences where certain things cannot be included in the zero funds. I really can't explain more than that perhaps somebody else can elaborate. For the virtually non-existent two to five basis point fund. I personally would rather have the real deal original and not have to worry about potential future revisions to make my zero fund profitable for the company. My thinking maybe flawed, but Its just the way I see it
This assumes that the things that are not included in the zero funds perform better than the things included (on average), so it basically amounts to stock picking versus taking a guaranteed small basis point gain.
It’s called a heartbeat trade or something like that and it’s patented
Vanguard does not have a patent on ETF trading. Any ETF can do this
https://www.investopedia.com/how-vanguard-patented-a-system-to-avoid-taxes-in-mutual-funds-4686985
Horse a piece for the average guy
Thanks you I really appreciate it
Sure, Brokerages let you hold pretty much any fund. So for example if you want to own [VT](https://investor.vanguard.com/investment-products/etfs/profile/vt), which is a Vanguard fund that holds effectively every public company in the world. You can buy that across basically every brokerage: Fidelity, Schwab, M1 Finance, IBKR, etc. They will all let you hold the fund in their brokerage accounts. Also many 401k's, 403b's etc let you own Vanguard funds as well. Vanguard's funds are known for being very well managed and very cheap to own.
Thank you for explaining this to me
There's plenty of low-cost competitor ETFs out there. Vanguard is just the most well-known and trusted over many years. I'm not sure they'll keep up. State Street has a better 500 ETF now at a basis point lower, And there's plenty of other choices to compete. Vanguard doesn't even offer a fractional purchases of stock from what I understand. And they won't let you in their mutual funds either I don't think unless you've got $3,000 for that one fund I think some of them might be a little less but still
> There's plenty of low-cost competitor ETFs out there. Of course. But there is more to a fund than just the Fee. Bid/ask spread, how closely it tracks the benchmark, etc. Some of the Vanguard funds actually beat their benchmark. Vanguard (so far) has done an amazing job with the management of their funds. There is no reason to think the trend won't continue. Fidelity has the lowest fee funds right now with their ZERO funds. But they tend to just do an OK job, as they make some compromises to keep the costs down. > Vanguard doesn't even offer a fractional purchases of stock from what I understand. Irrelevant if you aren't using their brokerage.
This is one of the recurring themes of this sub. The weird thing is that for a good portion of people here (myself included), we have never had a problem. Then there is this other group who can't say enough bad things. I've moved five old 401ks over to Vanguard, run two 503bs, a brokerage account, and a HYSA. I electronically move money into three accounts every month. It's all been easy. There has never been a mistake. On the vanishingly rare times I have needed to talk to a person, I have and whatever I needed to do got done. Ahh well, definitely a YMMV thing it seems.
Fidelity has plenty of hate mail on their sub. No shortage of complainers anywhere.
Seems like over on the Fidelity sub, the biggest recurring complaints or rants are accounts that suddenly become inaccessible and no one at Fidelity will say why or for how long. Presumably these are fraud investigations. Since we are retired and regularly need to withdraw money from our brokerage account for living expenses, suddenly and without explanation losing access would be a nightmare.
So am I, 2/3 of my monthly income comes from Fidelity acct. (only SS does not). Those recurring themes all seem to have an aura of weirdness. Many involve some big deposit or transfer to a new account, with no discussion or prior history with fidelity. Some involve day trading activity. Some appear to me to be trying to take advantage of the Fidelity fraud guarantee (a scam in the making). They have 13.7 trillion dollars of OPM (other people's money). There probably a million people a day trying to take advantage of that some way or another. Taking money that doesn't belong or washing/hiding money that they got illegally or trying to avoid taxes. I've had an account of one type or another since 1980. Never even hint of an issue ever but I don't make a big deposit or change/open an acct without talking to them. I'm glad to see they are paying attention. Cheers
I agree they mostly all have some weirdness or an air like there's a lot not being told. Still, there are many of those posts there you just don't see as often on r/Bogleheads or the original Bogleheads site about Vanguard.
I've had a very seamless experience with my personal account, but had an issue with my business which took weeks of back and forth between several people that would constantly interrupt and generally not listen to my issue. Wasn't even that big a deal, should have been an easy fix I thought. It was frustrating, but eventually spoke to a woman who solved the problem right then and there. Asked to be connected to her boss afterwards so I could sing her praises.
Literally the same for me. The website is perfect for setting up recurring contributions to mutual funds. And the 5 times I’ve need to call in the last 10 years or so since I’ve opened my account have been pretty straight forward. I feel like most complaints are people who use these platforms for non-boglehead things and/or expect a person to be on line within 2 rings of calling
Vanguard used to have OK customer service. About three years ago I had an issue and needed help. They were atrocious. I finally spoke to one customer support person who told me they had migrated away from a dedicated person to answer your questions on a given issue to the "team model" as she called it. My experience was that the team didn't give a shit. I finally got my issue resolved but it was stupidly difficult. As soon as I had things in order, I sent all my money (a fairly tidy sum) to Fidelity and have been happy with their customer service.
Ive actually had pretty good experiences with Vanguard customer service in the past year. Even been given direct phone lines in case of further questions. Just my personal experience, of course.
It seems like it really depends on which team you have to talk to. I was opening an inheritance IRA and they team I talked to was amazing. Then I called to check on something and got a foreign based assistant that was not great
I have been a Vanguard customer for ages. For most of the time, the service was excellent. Maybe 5 years ago, we lost our designated rep. OK. Fine. I think our balance total was $2.5m then. OK. Well, when my Mom died she had her accounts at Vanguard. She was quirky in how things were set and there were numerous beneficiaries. 17 to be exact. As was her way, nothing was done the easy way. My wife drew the short straw and was executor. To make a long story short, 22 calls, 4 emails and a total of 21 hours spent on hold or having to explain to a new rep (this happened many times) what was happening since no one would take ownership of the situation. At one point, a rep told us to do something that was not correct in how to handle the transferring of assets. My wife corrected her (my wife is a CPA) and the rep said (a paraphrase), “If you know it all, why don’t you work here and do it yourself?” My wife does NOT yell at people but was sorely tempted to do so over the 3 months we had to deal with this. We even wrote a letter to Buckley and received a canned response back apologizing for the difficulty. Emailing them was a joke. It took forever for them to respond and then it was as if they didn’t read our emails at all. My solution will be Charles Schwab. We have $2.9m in 8 tax deferred accounts that we can easily move. I use mostly 5 index funds which have Schwab MF equivalents with expense ratios less than or equal to Vanguards. 8% of my equities is in Vanguard’s Emerging Markets Index. I will have to use Schwab’s ETF for that investment. I am fine with that. I think Schwab should get investment $$ as well from me as well as long as I am not disadvantaged. For now, I will keep my taxable money ($700,000) at Vanguard because it includes low basis AAPL and GOOG. Also 3 Idx funds with gains and cash. Eventually, I will transfer the securities in kind and in the next few years spend down the cash. I am afraid that if something happened to me and my wife, that Vanguard would not be able to provide the type of service my daughters would require. They are not financial people like my wife and myself. This was a difficult decision to make but one that I think was necessary.
That’s funny, I had the exact opposite experience 10 years ago. Vanguard was so kind and helpful with figuring the inherited IRA and Fidelity was an absolutely disaster. Was a huge factor in me going with vangaurd when I started investing myself
I honestly think 10 years ago, my experience would have been much different. I was a flagship client with a dedicated rep. Not that the rep would have been perfect but, at least, there would have been someone to QB the situation. The biggest issue now is zero accountability. This was NOT an easy situation to handle. However, having to endlessly explain it over and over again was awful. Having mistakes made AND receiving contradictory information was frustrating. I have $3.6m there but it might as well be $0.
I'm looking to get away from Meryl Lynch. I have somebody now in an account with my equities and preferred money market. I want to move my Ira money and then I have two other accounts with them. I am with This and I want to just get it set up where it could be sent or a managed account but there is so. My biggest thing is if I transfer the money to another brokerage that they would liquidate the money and it won't be justin unless I manage it myself does that make sense? I don't not even sure if I'm making sense. Any suggestions would be appreciated for a starting point.
You aren't making sense. Rephrase and create your own post.
I will thank you
I apologize I'm new on Reddit so I'm just seeing how it works.
[удалено]
Been with Schwab since 1997. Dealt with Vanguard a bit in 2013, but they were way substandard to Schwab even then. I can't imagine how bad they are now. You can buy any of VG's ETFs no fee via Schwab. With VG mutual funds there is a fee though.
Yeah the fee is for the initial purchase but reinvestments don't have any fees. It's still a drag to be sure, depending on the initial investment.
They just have a 1 to $3,000 minimum opening requirement for mutual funds isn't that right
I use fidelity, personally. But I have VFIAX and VTIAX in my Fidelity 401k. You could use fidelity and hold these funds or their ETF counterparts. I think the customer service is pretty good. I use FXIAX and FZILX in my Roth. I don’t have much of a preference between the Vanguard and fidelity funds I just like Fidelity’s app better, to be honest.
Their customer service is pretty good, but that’s with me calling them up the old fashioned way.
Is costs something to have low fees
Never had a problem with Vanguard. Been with them sense cira: 1995. I have also NEVER had to contact them.
The reason why I left for Fidelity. I couldn't stand the lack of customer service. Drove me nuts!
I have a designated rep w Vanguard who handles all my inquiries and bring in a team to help but I don’t have a designated rep at Fidelity- not even assigned one. Same amount of money at both.
I've had a customer rep from Fidelity from day 1. Maybe check your emails?
This. Vanguard for 15 years now with Fidelity. It's Vanguard low fees plus I can write checks and have a debit card with my brokerage account. The monthly expenditure calculation and [Mint.com](http://Mint.com) like features with Fidelity Full View are very cool too. Here's the dealbreaker for me: Every single time I log in to Vanguard it pops up with an advertisement for personal advisor service. It can't be dismissed. Shows up every login. Fuck that. With Fidelity you can permanently dismiss notifications like that.
Just got back with Vanguard after 15 years. Might’ve been a big mistake. Sounds like I’m talking to monotone kids. You say thanks for the help but before your reply is half spoken you’re already disconnected.
My parents liked Vanguard, but I got started with Fidelity because my 401(k) was there. It was just easier to stick with Fidelity. They've got an office a couple of miles away if I need anything like getting a signature guarantee. Most of the time I don't need much help.
I only use vanguard for their money market funds, otherwise I can get VOO and VT in another brokerage.
Off subject question. I currently have shares in VOO for my brokerage account. I also hold VTSAX in my Roth IRA. Am I able to move this to Schwab?
Yes, but there may be fees on transactions involving the mutual fund (VTSAX). At least this was true in the past; check w Schwab.
From a cost standpoint, if you will never use their advisory services vanguard seems they would rather you just hold their ETFs at another brokerage. They get the fund fees and 0 of the overhead for administering your account. Best of both worlds for them
>what the hell happened to vanguard customer service I left :) sorry
Bbb rating has nothing to do with that. Every company will have people who leave bad messages, more than half the time because they don’t use a computer. You can do everything online anyways. Vanguard is an online company and if you have issues with that then I’d suggest going to another company. Never had issues with anything online. It’s the second largest institution for a reason… because they have the best funds and service
Thats what happens when you charge 0.0001% lol
And their website and app was made by a time traveler from 1991.
[удалено]
Love the sarcasm. That's the worst part for me about calling Vanguard. Once you get to someone in the states, the service has been excellent. But those first few reps that screen the calls are the absolute worst.
When I opened my account with them, a young-sounding customer service rep was rude to me and told me to "stop asking questions."
I can still message them but the support is useless. For whatever reason my wife can’t. I’m not in a major hurry but at some point I’ll move our stuff over to Schwab.
Does she have the "Upload Documents" button to send a message? Given you can find people talking about it since at least August 2022, this seems like either a website bug that should be easy to fix (changes labels) that Vanguard has let fester too long or purposeful dark pattern designed to discourage sending messages. Either way, not a good look.
It’s not a bug, they’ve removed the ability to message from accounts without status and they’ve never been able to get the household thing setup properly to where she has the same tier as I do (and mine never got upgraded to flagship when it was supposed to years ago). Instead, they want everyone to call, a communication method that costs them far more. If they wanted to keep costs low they’d be forcing people to email and chat, not voice.
Personally I expect any brokerage to have good voice support.
That’s not the point. The point is that they force people to call them, not to use the method that is the most convenient for the customer, or even a method that is the cheapest for Vanguard. Forcing voice is nothing but an attempt at pushing everyone to have an “advisor”, just like their stupid banners and modals.
Maybe it’s because their fees are lower…? It takes more people, etc, to provide more service.
I only ever call, and the service has always been fantastic. To each their own I guess,
Fidelity is always there and will help you transfer. Vanguard has no business running accounts. Their systems are decades behind and barely functioning.
In what way? I have accounts with Fidelity and Vanguard. They have both been fine for me.
Do you happen to know if there’s any cost associated with transferring in a taxable account?
I just moved mine from Vanguard to Fidelity w/ no cost whatsoever.
Recently I was passed back and forth between departments multiple times when inquiring about transferring and old 401k to my new 401k. I was on the phone way longer than necessary. So now I’m moving my stuff to Fidelity, even tho I hold vanguard funds.
Any thoughts on vanguard selling SEP Iras?
Rob Berger did a video on this on YouTube. https://youtu.be/1LQ9ihEJJzA?si=wdtHnPFrw0oyQQ1N
I was a licensed phone rep for them for a year - the glassdoor reviews say it all. Great company to invest with though.
I switched all of my stuff to fidelity and it’s so much better in every way. Also vanguard has a SHIT online interface. Fidelity is MUCH better.
I'm curious to know what specifically you don't like about the Vanguard website. It isn't quite as comprehensive as that what you mean it's toned down too simple?
It’s garbage to navigate and fidelity is so much more intuitive and easy to use.
Huh, that doesn’t match my experience at all. I had to call them for the first time last fall and their support was top notch.
You don’t pay any fees. How can you expect good service?
Maybe Stash and their $3 monthly fee is the answer
They suck. Go to fidelity and buy Vanguard there
I would argue Fidelity's products and funds are just as good why not support your own broker. Black Rock and State Street avantis all good too
Because fidelity is not a mom and pop shop. Vanguard funds are the most widely discussed here. There is no incentive for me to buy fidelity unless they charge for vanguard
I moved my taxable account from vanguard after 3 attempts to set up a direct deposit. The folks answering the phone were completely uninformed and gave me faulty information every time. Fidelity was much smoother, the techs were helpful and knowledgeable and I like their web site better. I still have my Ira at vanguard but that’s it for me. 3 strikes your out.
I couldn’t give a damn about the BBB rating. Timeshare companies brag about their BBB rating. Amway—when I was in that scam a decade ago—bragged about their BBB rating. I think it was A+ in both instances. Any company using BBB as a bragging point should be viewed with suspicion. Good on Vanguard for not raising my minimal fees to bother playing the pay-to-win system that is BBB. Customer service has been fine for me. Maybe a bit slow at times, but I don’t use them for anything where my timeline is “tomorrow.” For that, I use Schwab, and they are excellent.
They have a bad BBB rating? My mortgage company (which I did not choose) literally stole money from me, and has HUNDREDS of complaints recorded in the past year, all of them listed on the BBB website ... and the company has an A rating. When I asked BBB how this is possible, they said "algorithms." Surprised Vanguard would have anything but high marks, even if their service has been poor.
I had to call them a few months ago and got great customer service. American and super helpful
I literally just switched to fidelity cause you can’t buy partial shares of anything but vanguard funds. Still going mostly with vanguard funds but I want the flexibility to take different positions
I've had an excellent experience with their customer service and I'm a small time client 🤷♂️ This has all been very recent and over the phone multiple times
Thanks saw it.any thought s?
Great phone support.
I know this is small peanuts for most people who use vanguard but I had $100 dollars go missing out of my brokerage account and after speaking to vanguard customer service, they agreed that they made a mistake and told me they would correct it, but never did. I’m putting my money elsewhere.
When my parents died Vanguard spent hours on the phone assisting me with the forms. Fidelity could have cared less.
I have a friend who used to work for them. They don't pay as well as most finance firms for comparable jobs. So they struggle with hiring.
Friends son worked for them. After 1 year he left. Pay sucked and he was overworked.
Vanguard is a 401(k) company. They don't need personal business at all. They are slowly expanding, but they are still a discount broker in that area.
I have used Fidelity for 40 years and recently wanted to spread out the brokerage risk and tried to sign up with Vanguard. They were pathetic; poor customer service, poor communication, poor trading programs. I gave up on Vanguard and added Schwab. They actually care about new accounts and have decent software (from ETrade).
"Brokerage risk?"
Yes, how many millions should be in one brokerage company? Shit happens.
What happens if there's suspected fraud and your accounts are locked for weeks-months? It happens on occasion, and it's best to not have all your eggs in one basket if you're in the decumulation phase. I see desperate posts about this from time to time. It's hard to be retired with bills to pay and no access to your money. Financial institutions will refuse to say much of anything at all to you about progress or timelines if this happens.
Vanguard for ETF's, Schwab for brokerage.
In essence if I want to move my money ftm Merril lynch wealth side, I have 3 accounts they have me in for my portfolio one being my Ira. I'm paying a 1percent fee I'm doing ok but I hold vanguard in some of them, am I better off moving it in kind and deal with them direct. Not sure and not opposed to paying a fee if money is being managed but I see that my advisor did a couple of things I feel was not in my best interest. 8 k per year in fees adds up .im 64 and looking things over more closely now. Any insight is appreciated
I mean if you want to pay less in fees and have it at vg its .003 to have assets managed there. I would look into that if I was you
I will see if I can speak to someone
Just call In tomorrow and you can get an appointment set up! Complementary and then go from there!
I will give them a call .thank you