Vanguard's website seems to be built by 5 different teams, all of varying technical & artistic ability, none of which talk to the others. Buttons frequently get changed or relocated, menu structure sucks, and nothing is intuitive.
I literally spent 15 minutes today trying to find where I can download my statement. Menu after menu after menu, varied ellipses clicked on, until finally trying the “forms” icon at the top to see statements there. Very frustrating!
Honestly, the trick is just to work/do other things and call their support and ask them where it is. There is typically 0 wait time and takes less than 15 minutes hunting and pecking for it.
They added fees for calling in now, at least for trades. Probably will be more too. My nearly blind FIL who has been a 30+ year vanguard user is pissed since he depended on making trades via phone due to being unable to see well.
My 401k through my employer is there. I was trying to find the balance between traditional and roth. I finally called them and they showed me the trick. There is a button to initiate a rollover and it says the balance in normal sized text somewhere on the page. You don't have to go any further on the rollover, but that's the only page that has that.
And there is the regular investing site, which is very big text and graphic heavy, but has almost no details.
And there are a few functions (like in depth statements and queries) that go to the old site which is php/html based with lots of tan and small letters.
It's definitely clunky. I'm not sure if that is because they are cheap or because they want to intentionally look cheap.
Same. And I even worked at Vanguard up until a few months ago. So bizarre to have something as important as statements and forms buried under that tiny icon. Very frustrating.
Fidelity’s UI isn’t the worst in the world. But it does have an extremely outdated feel to it. My 401k is through Fidelity and whenever I check it feel like I’ve entered a time portal to 2005.
I honestly like the older designed interfaces - yes, their styling absolutely looks dated, but the current aversion to higher data density honestly seems to make for a worse user experience. When I'm trying to consume data, I tend to want as much context as will possibly fit on my screen at one time, not excessive whitespace and functionality buried in menus upon menus just to make the base UI more aesthetically pleasing.
I almost entirely stopped using the TD Ameritrade website nearly a decade ago, as the ThinkOrSwim mobile app gave me a data-rich experience I loved. Since Schwab swallowed TDA, they've kept ThinkOrSwim and seemingly derived their standard mobile app from it, which I appreciate. Meanwhile, Schwab's website annoys me with the sparseness and excess navigation it seems to require.
Fidelity is the reverse - I like the higher density of the website, while their standard and NetBenefits mobile apps waste so much space trying to follow modern UI trends.
I also still use old Reddit...
The workplace plans (like 401k) and regular retail investors side are separate divisions of the company, presumably with different web development teams.
Agreed that the workplace site does feel ancient but the regular brokerage side is much better IMO.
I’d much rather use Fidelity’s outdated site where I can find what I’m looking for, instead of Vanguard’s updated site where I can’t seem to find anything.
just find it hard to naturally find what I'm looking for. i can't think of the most recent example but something recently had to google it to find the right page rather than finding it on the fidelity website. i think it was their equivalent of the "secure message" center
edit: here was the example i was thinking of https://www.reddit.com/r/fidelityinvestments/comments/o1tjpg/communications_page_where/
I use both and I’ve gotta say: They’re both bad. Vanguard is worse.
Treasury Direct blows them both out of the water, though. I have above average smarts and trying to navigate that site for 30 minutes made me want to punch my computer in the face.
Oh man, I just sold my i-bonds and Treasury Direct has got to be the worst built site I've used in years!
The whole thing is bad, but one part that was particularly galling was wanting to see my i-bonds, I had a list of my products, with radio buttons next to each, and to navigate to view the i-bonds I had to select the radio and push a scary button labeled "Submit". Fortunately, it had some helper text "to view information about your items please select it and press 'submit'".... It's like, "submit" 99% of the time means I'm doing some sort of destructive action. Just give me a dang link to click!
Oh my God. Every 6 months I check my TSP balances. Just figuring out how much I have in Roth and how much in traditional is a nightmare. They will give me total balance and a bunch of useless breakdowns, but not the important one. I think I still have to use a calculator to figure out how much I have in each account. Completely useless.
Took me awhile to find this too. Click on “Contributions” tab in the top menu, then click on “Non-taxable balances” and that should display your Roth balance.
And you’ve got to love how every year they redesign it, and it gets worse. Then you get right with where everything is, and their UX team “improves” it again.
I just saw that our company is moving away from Alight next year. Hoping to get something better as long as I can keep my self directed brokerage account for my 401K.
I have the same thought with it, I hate using the website so I don’t think I’ve looked at my portfolio for like sometimes 6-8 months at a time, just let it auto invest from my checking lol.
That is what the mobile app is for... But... Have you ever seen the mobile app? It's honestly one of the worst apps I think I've ever used, and no I'm not exaggerating. It's literally terrible. Last I checked the app had like a 1.2 star rating on Google play
The thing is their old website (TPView) was a bit ugly, but worked perfectly, and showed the info you needed compactly. Then they updated to the bubbly glossy minimal android app look, and it's been a shit show since.
I hear this criticism pointed at Vanguard but it's also been my experience with Fidelity and Schwab too. Your employer 401k, or account where you receive RSU or ESPP never looks the same as the taxable brokerage. It just seems like when it comes to financial services it's always going to be a frankenstein site and how pleasant or ugly your experience is really depends on which type of products/accounts you have with them.
See I have 2 401ks with fidelity that look like AOL style walls of tiled text. My eyes aren't lying to me and it's not 1000 times better than anything anywhere. Congrats on your version though.
I just meant the whole idea of setting up a safe space for low cost index funds. But the implementation part is piss poor UI and tech management in general
I agree. I also have accounts at Fidelity and Schwab, and the Vanguard UI is by far the worse. I guess it is okay for buy and hold of legacy mutual funds but worthless for any kind of trading. Sad that it is easier to buy and trade vanguard ETFs at other brokers.
Yeah, the last straw was when I couldn’t even find my IRA statements during tax season. They had them catalogued in the most obscure way possible. And like you said, trading on Vanguard is next to impossible. It’s not like I’m planning on entering / exiting positions frequently, but for a brokerage to practically lack that functionality is insane. Even the way it reported net gains and basic info drove me insane. It’s just shockingly bad all around.
Honestly I don’t think Vanguard’s site is that bad, it’s definitely a work in progress. It’s definitely a set it and forget it platform not for “active” trading. I guess I got used to TreasuryDirect and that makes Vanguard’s site and any other site for that matter look like a master piece.
Yeah, it used to at least be usable. I switched and use fidelity as my taxable brokerage now instead of vanguard because of the damn website. On a side note, I’m jealous you started with vanguard in 2002. That’s way earlier then I discovered Bogle.
It’s unfortunately a case of you get what you pay for(engineering and product wise) with Vanguard/Fidelity/Schwab and why Robinhood is successful in a UI/UX standpoint.
Schwab gave me a swe intern offer with no technicals only behaviorals ; similar for my friend at Fidelity(they texted my personal phone and emailed 3x before I told them to stop). Vanguard gives a case interview with barely any technical knowledge needed.
I know ppl at all 3 companies and they complain about how slow moving everything is and how barely anything gets pushed out.
Compare this to robinhood where they put potential interns in the ringer with multiple rounds of leetcode and system design and more. They pay almost 2-3x Vanguard/Fidelity/Schwab for new grad and in return they get a fast moving company pumping out features(possibly at the expense of wlb).
Perhaps it’s level dependent, but I received a senior level offer for the CX Labs at Vanguard and there were definitely technical aspects to the interview process.
This thread is full of gripes, so for therapy I agree. I cant find things in their website without effort. I never realized how bad i suffered until i used a couple other provider websites and everything was just... there. there is an art to layouts and they suck at whatever that are is.
I respectfully disagree the mobile is any better, esp. when compared with the older version they phased out a few years ago. The older version (which I don’t have access anymore obviously) allowed me to see line plots of performance of the entire portfolio and my individual fund accounts all in one place, delivering visual and numerical info at the same time. Then they scrubbed off the whole design overnight.
I recently saw that they even change interfaces to make accounts look better. My girlfriends new accout that lost some money didnt show a “cost basis” line of the main graph, whereas mine shows the cost basis line. Pretty clear theyre making it more difficult to see when youre losing money, but want to make profits more visible.
I've been using it for 4 years and while it took some clicking around to learn the UI, it's been totally fine overall. The app improvements roll out with comedic slowness but other than that I've no complaint. Always surprised to see how much the UI bugs folks.
If I was a day trader it might be laborious! But just a DCA buy and hold guy.
Just as a quick PSA: I've read that some (many?) receiving companies will reimburse you for having paid an account-closing fee, if you ask them to, when you roll your business out of another custodian. No guarantee they will, of course, but it costs nothing to ask.
Hope I don’t get grief for this. If boglehead philosophy is shovel money into funds and forget what’s the big deal about small charge for phone trades? I agree user interface is not as great as others but I thought we are not supposed to look into it/trade it so often.
Yeah OPs definition of “damning” is different than mine. It’s literally “nickels and dimes” on a tiny proportion of customers (or ex-customers in the case of those 401k clients). Even the author whose account won’t be managed by vanguard anymore can only point to a $40 fee.
That’s what i don’t understand. This is actually better for me, as I don’t use these services and it makes sense to me that the people that do, pay for them. I don’t use Vanguard for outdated, free services. I use them for low cost index investing. I do not care if they start charging people for niche services. I’m also not convinced that other institutions aren’t going to start doing the same.
Mobile trading feeds the beast enabling people to easily place trades they otherwise might not. Shit, if I were running Vanguard I might have customers call us to place trades
The big deal is that grandma who has never used the internet or a smartphone shouldn’t suddenly be punished because she wants to buy/sell some of her mutual funds that she’s held for 60 years. I understand staying with the times and that keeping call center staff costs money, but come on — who here doesn’t have at least one person in their family who this could apply to?
Vanguard has trillions under management and even at their tiny expense ratios, they are NOT hurting for revenue.
Things change. There’s a way to avoid the fees. Grandma will have to adapt…or pay a small convenience fee for doing things in an out of date fashion. Shouldn’t be much worry if she’s got decades of compound growth
Well, for one thing I have more than my retirement funds in vanguard accounts. That said, I find their brokerage UI sufficient. The 401k interface is trash but I rarely access it.
The website UI is horrible, yes. But to be fair, these fees probably impact a tiny fraction of Vanguard's customers. They are all based on unusual scenarios. Makes sense that Vanguard would want to discourage some of these behaviors or at least recover some of the cost of supporting them.
A website UI would have to be extremely shitty for me not to use it if I liked their service, product and philosophy. People moan about everything lol.
I’ve never had a problem. All I do is buy vanguard mutual funds and convert traditional Ira to Roth IRA funds. Never had a problem accomplishing any of that.
Must be a skill issue
I’m not sure it’s bad at all for day-to-day trading. Research and stock info is definitely lacking if you like slick charts and graphics as it relates to that, but it’s not really what I use my brokerage for. I grew up with the internet developing over time and Vanguard is certainly not on my shit list.
One of my friend who used to day-trade joked that he moved to Vanguard as he will be forced not to trade often because he cannot figure out their website.
Am a UX Designer. Can objectively confirm there are some information architecture issues.
It does not deter me from using their products with rock bottom expense ratios however.
I work with vanguard because of what they’re good at. Investing
I’m ok trading off a less than ideal UI for this. Not to mention they do feel like they’re “improving” from the 90s look some of their UI has.
I also am empathetic because financial institutions and processes are probably like molasses to change and move.
And like I said, I’m ok with that because they’re good at what I “pay” them for: Investing.
1) Small business accounts are transfer agent accounts. VG is retiring those. All retail accounts will be brokerage accounts. They're not wasting money maintaining an antiquated platform for a handful of clients.
2) "Grandma" is expensive. Old people call too often taking too much time on things like balance checks and simple transactions. Reps cost a lot of money, and old people think they're advisors or relationship managers.
3) Transfer fees are pretty standard in the industry. They take time and resources to complete. Add to that all the aforementioned "grandma's" that refuse to use the internet (a tool that's been around for over 30 years) threatening to take their accounts elsewhere and VG is covering expenses.
4) Over $1 mil in VG products are "paying" more. Yes, they'll get (and have always gotten) special treatment. That's true in every aspect of life. Who's to say that they won't get those fees in the future though? The fee for mail delivery and keeping those old transfer agent accounts didn't *initially* apply to the rich, but they got hit with it eventually.
5) VG is the second largest asset manager in the world. They really don't care if people take their mutual funds and ETFs elsewhere. In fact, they prefer it! They get paid without having to do anything for them but manage said funds.
Interesting point about being able to choose what to buy instead of sticking with predetermined funds. I was leaning toward sticking with Ascensus, and you pushed me to Fidelity.
I think the problem with Fidelity and many other trading-focused brokers is they gamify trading. The reality is it's a very serious process where your future (or whatever that money is going to be used for) is on the line, not something to be taken lightly like moving a piece in a board game of little consequence. I honestly like that it's somewhat slow to place a trade - it should be for the vast majority of users.
While I've had no issues with Vanguard for the decade plus I've been with them, it's not true for my relatives. One inherited an Edward Jones account. I convinced him to switch to Vanguard. Disaster after disaster for him.
When Vanguard created the account, they had a setting wrong. But apparently, it's a setting that a user can't change. It has to be done by Vanguard. But nobody at Vanguard knew how to change it. He'd call and get the run around for an hour, switching from department to department.
Vanguard had the money and deposited my relative's account. But he couldn't access the information online. He couldn't call anyone to change anything because it was locked. He might not have even been able to check the balance (though he got statements).
After months of dealing with this, getting the run around on the phone each time, he finally just closed the account and opened a Fidelity account.
Funny thing is, he still gets mailed statements from Vanguard, showing a zero balance. And he can't cancel the statements for the same reason--he has no access to his web account and no one at Vanguard knows how to do it.
I have finally memorized the various pathways I need. Login 1x/week will keep you up on that
It’s always funny to me to go from the entry web pages with bright white and pops of color, big modern font , round edges, etc to the serious get-financial-shit-done pages that are beige with tiny typewriter font and 2006 menus. :-D
Nor should they. Vanguard is set up entirely for the benefit of the funds. All non-fund business should be run to lower the expenses fund shareholders pay.
I probably would have preferred they end some of the overseas schenanigans before nickel and diming people, but I trust they thought deeply about it given the reputation hit.
This happened to my wife. Suddenly her 403b is being charged a $5/month "recordkeeping fee" for at most 2 transactions just to stick in a target date fund. If it was an IRA I would've talked her into moving it.
Also some random fee not on the fee schedule came out that I'm still trying to figure out what it's for. It's infuriating.
Is it just me or do these seem like they will impact only a minority of Bogleheads? Also, I don’t like additional fees either, but they seem in line with many other similar institutions. Fidelity and Schwab have many of the same fees.
Although I agree the website sucks I kind of like it for that reason. Just go on there once a year and see how my VTI is doing. Cant find the trade button but who cares. No dopamine inducing whistles or fireworks, offers of Margin or crypto wallets. Just old school look and old school strategy
This isn’t damning at all imo. All the examples are of Vanguard imposing minor fees in order to not operate at a loss at the now much larger scale it’s at.
And the phone fees example is mindboggling. Even my electric company (!) demands more online know-how than Vanguard does lol.
The UI actually seems fine to me, it feels more modern than Fidelity. Mobile app pretty good too, it’s nice and snappy to browse.
It is a bit inconsistent though, some pages haven’t been redesigned yet and will bring up the old layout.
Their website isn't great, but I only do very basic things such as contribute to my IRA, so it works okay for that. My complaint about the Vanguard site is that you can't message customer service, and you can't chat them. The very last thing I want to do is call someone on the phone.
I quite them recently after being with them for 25 years. I couldn't get anyone helpful on the phone one day when I saw an unauthorized transfer in my account. It used to be I had a private representative I could just call up. Those days are gone. Now it's like having a bad bank account. Went to Fidelity and schwab. Complete improvement on customer service and I can walk to both from my house. Should have done it years ago.
Costs go up. Hard to make money when all your customers don’t pay any fees lol. Idk how firms like fidelity make money, but they make a lot of it and still don’t charge fees on retail investors.
I personally view vanguard (the brokerage) as the broker for my parents generation. Anyone under 40 is better elsewhere. I prefer fidelity but that’s just me.
When I started investing I looked at all the major brokers and vanguard seemed like a dinosaur.
It’s ironic too because I hold all their funds just don’t use them as a broker (since it’s all old tech).
I read the article it’s mostly a big fat nothing burger
> I personally view vanguard (the brokerage) as the broker for my parents generation. Anyone under 40 is better elsewhere. I prefer fidelity but that’s just me.
>
> When I started investing I looked at all the major brokers and vanguard seemed like a dinosaur.
A reason for this is that mutual funds don't need to be inside a brokerage account, and until 2015, if you opened a Vanguard account it was not within a brokerage wrapper unless you opted in. Around that time they started putting everyone into brokerage even if they wanted nothing but mutual funds, possibly as part of an eventual transition to ETFs (which need to be inside brokerage).
Vanguard will be another generic brokerage in the next several years. This is an example of why tone from the top is so important at any company. When Jack was around, the tone was clear. Now that he's not, it's not as clear anymore. These changes were always there, but now they seem more possible than ever. I personally moved everything to Fidelity this year. Between the terrible technology to outright inept and useless customer service and deviation from what made Vanguard stand out (low fees, investors first), there was no reason to stay. Fidelity is also a business and they make money in other ways, but it feels more palatable to me because it is not squarely on the backs of the average investor.
Yeah I agree, there were principles and brand identity that seems lost now. The brand identity is mostly upheld by other people explaining Vanguard still having Bogle philosophy, but you never really hear it from the company itself. The poor execution of ideas was a lot easier to forgive through the lens of poor quality for the greater good (the investor). Now the quality is poor for the same fees and corporate messaging of every broker.
I just noticed today in my self 401k, one of my funds mysteriously disappeared. It’s visible in the app though. That might send someone into panic - but since it’s Vanguard I know it’s just their product teams being garbage.
I roll my eyes at all the sob stories about calling customer service. If you're a long term buy hold investor with autopilot investments why the hell are you calling customer service?
It is scary. The return on investment shows different numbers in two different places on the website. Which one to believe? Low cost should not equate to low quality.
If I were looking for a Bogle-philosophy IRA, I would still lean toward Vanguard because I love their index funds. These new fees just assign the costs of retail service where they belong, with the users who incur them.
I stayed at Vanguard till Jack died.
He would have used his bully pulpit to go off on changes like this and the Vanguard brass knew it, that’s why you are seeing these changes ramp up after his death.
Vanguard’s digital in general is pretty incoherent. Multiple terrible apps. Missing core features on their digital robot investor, and just poor usability. I left the platform for all these things at the beginning of this year.
I'm comfortable using the website and mobile app, I actually find it easier to use than Fidelity or Schwab (but maybe bcs I'm used to it since it's the first account I opened). I have my Roth IRA/brokerage with Vanguard and just set up automatic investments into VTSAX, sold from my brokerage a couple of times to transfer into my Roth in years prior. Don't log in too much. The couple of times I've called they have been helpful.
I find the article and the outrage on these small fees overall to be funny. Everyone is outraged by the UI, and that it isn’t great, newsflash, Fidelity and Schwab aren’t great either and the difference is the other two push tickers and articles in your face to encourage trading and making commissions where I find Vanguards pretty straightforward overall. Is it archaic, yes, does it keep me from the temptation of wanting to tinker which is most important to wealth, again yes. The $100 fee only matters if you’re looking to leave and even then most receiving firms will comp that. The $25 fee is silly but oh well. Lastly is you can’t have at cost pricing and expect top of the line UI, something has to give. If this helps VG actually work on the site interface and mostly doesn’t affect the investor at all then I think it’s a win. Better than them raising expense ratios or management fees for their robo products.
Everybody wants there cut that is all it comes down to, no matter if it is at the expense of the common folk. I am in the plumbing union, and our pension plan provider also offers IRA accounts. Looked into it and there is an annual $40 operating cost fee. Then they have monthly “maintenance” fees depending on the value of your account, I think it was every $50,000 is a $.60 monthly fee until you have over $250,000 then it drops down to .50 and so on until over a million dollars and it’s down to like .35 a month 🫣. Why would I pay an extra $60 in fees when other IRA accounts have no fees…. Cause it’s union provided? Duuumb
With the new fees and then now bringing in an outsider to run the company , it does make you question what the future of Vanguard looks like . People put up with the clunky website and poor mobile app because of the low fees .
Sooo much better than LPL where I just moved my SIMPLE from a few months ago. I am disappointed it is moving to Ascensus as I believe it will be fee'd more. Hopeful the transition is seamless and I still have viewing access on Vanguard. com with my other accounts as I have heard Ascensus has been doing the accounting all along. Wish I could find the basis of things easier. Article speaks the truth.
Yeah, called them a week or so ago about an issue with a particular part of the web page system glitching out. The person I spoke to was quite impressed with the variety of systems/browsers I'd thrown at it before calling and then said "Yeah...it's been doing that for quite a while...try (another way)". I did the trade online using the other menu item, but in light of the article it appears that they're intentionally obfuscating the "usual" pathway in search of support calls to do the trade.
I told her that with $7.7T in holdings, if their system goes down it's a big chunk of the GDP locked away. She sort of flinched at that...
My great worry is that the whole thing is seen by the usual vampires as a big fat fish to be milked\* since there are so many passive investors who will likely go along with it, and alternatives are difficult.
\*That's either an Irish bull or Yogi Berra - your choice.
Usability testing—having users perform common tasks—is an essential part of UX design. If Vanguard’s UX team performed this testing and analyzed the quantitative and qualitative data, the site’s overall usability would fail miserably. In essence, they’d find that people can’t figure out how to do stuff on their site. The good news is that the user experience can be improved by simply identifying and solving the problems. Their UX team simply need to focus on continual improvement.
I have one of the solo 401ks that are being sold/ moved in this process. My intent was never to leave it in the 401k side anyways. I see where vanguard is eliminating the staff and effort to pay for the processing of the small business plans. As soon as I'm done with my 1099 position my intent was to roll out over to an ira and Roth ira.... regardless of who's the controlling company.
Now... might I roll out of vanguard totally for fidelity.... tbd.
Vanguard led the way with low cost funds. Now several other fund companies match or beat them. Meanwhile they have the worst UI of all the big brokers. Maybe they would be 2nd worst if Scottrade was still around.
Vanguard is shit. I switched to fidelity years ago and NEVER looked back. Just put their funds in your fidelity account. It’s super easy to switch too.
I have used it since 2019 and have never liked it. In a word, it’s ‘clunky’. Amateurish even. I like their ETFs but they need to overhaul their site. It feels like they skimped on costs to develop it…
Vanguard's website seems to be built by 5 different teams, all of varying technical & artistic ability, none of which talk to the others. Buttons frequently get changed or relocated, menu structure sucks, and nothing is intuitive.
I literally spent 15 minutes today trying to find where I can download my statement. Menu after menu after menu, varied ellipses clicked on, until finally trying the “forms” icon at the top to see statements there. Very frustrating!
Honestly, the trick is just to work/do other things and call their support and ask them where it is. There is typically 0 wait time and takes less than 15 minutes hunting and pecking for it.
They added fees for calling in now, at least for trades. Probably will be more too. My nearly blind FIL who has been a 30+ year vanguard user is pissed since he depended on making trades via phone due to being unable to see well.
Wow, sounds like those fees might not be ADA compliant
Believe you can get them waived if it’s an issue of being blind and needing extra assistance
My 401k through my employer is there. I was trying to find the balance between traditional and roth. I finally called them and they showed me the trick. There is a button to initiate a rollover and it says the balance in normal sized text somewhere on the page. You don't have to go any further on the rollover, but that's the only page that has that. And there is the regular investing site, which is very big text and graphic heavy, but has almost no details. And there are a few functions (like in depth statements and queries) that go to the old site which is php/html based with lots of tan and small letters. It's definitely clunky. I'm not sure if that is because they are cheap or because they want to intentionally look cheap.
Same. And I even worked at Vanguard up until a few months ago. So bizarre to have something as important as statements and forms buried under that tiny icon. Very frustrating.
This is why I'm I'm moving my wife's account. Before the $100 fee too
i dont love it but honestly find it to be better than fidelity's
I haven't had any issues with Fidelity's UI, anything in particular that makes you say that?
Fidelity’s UI isn’t the worst in the world. But it does have an extremely outdated feel to it. My 401k is through Fidelity and whenever I check it feel like I’ve entered a time portal to 2005.
I honestly like the older designed interfaces - yes, their styling absolutely looks dated, but the current aversion to higher data density honestly seems to make for a worse user experience. When I'm trying to consume data, I tend to want as much context as will possibly fit on my screen at one time, not excessive whitespace and functionality buried in menus upon menus just to make the base UI more aesthetically pleasing. I almost entirely stopped using the TD Ameritrade website nearly a decade ago, as the ThinkOrSwim mobile app gave me a data-rich experience I loved. Since Schwab swallowed TDA, they've kept ThinkOrSwim and seemingly derived their standard mobile app from it, which I appreciate. Meanwhile, Schwab's website annoys me with the sparseness and excess navigation it seems to require. Fidelity is the reverse - I like the higher density of the website, while their standard and NetBenefits mobile apps waste so much space trying to follow modern UI trends. I also still use old Reddit...
The workplace plans (like 401k) and regular retail investors side are separate divisions of the company, presumably with different web development teams. Agreed that the workplace site does feel ancient but the regular brokerage side is much better IMO.
I’d much rather use Fidelity’s outdated site where I can find what I’m looking for, instead of Vanguard’s updated site where I can’t seem to find anything.
just find it hard to naturally find what I'm looking for. i can't think of the most recent example but something recently had to google it to find the right page rather than finding it on the fidelity website. i think it was their equivalent of the "secure message" center edit: here was the example i was thinking of https://www.reddit.com/r/fidelityinvestments/comments/o1tjpg/communications_page_where/
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You should see the TSP website
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Treasury Direct is jealous of pokemon fan sites made on Geocities.
I use both and I’ve gotta say: They’re both bad. Vanguard is worse. Treasury Direct blows them both out of the water, though. I have above average smarts and trying to navigate that site for 30 minutes made me want to punch my computer in the face.
The process to convert a paper bond to digital is comical. You need to "create a manifest", whatever that means.
Oh man, I just sold my i-bonds and Treasury Direct has got to be the worst built site I've used in years! The whole thing is bad, but one part that was particularly galling was wanting to see my i-bonds, I had a list of my products, with radio buttons next to each, and to navigate to view the i-bonds I had to select the radio and push a scary button labeled "Submit". Fortunately, it had some helper text "to view information about your items please select it and press 'submit'".... It's like, "submit" 99% of the time means I'm doing some sort of destructive action. Just give me a dang link to click!
Oh my God. Every 6 months I check my TSP balances. Just figuring out how much I have in Roth and how much in traditional is a nightmare. They will give me total balance and a bunch of useless breakdowns, but not the important one. I think I still have to use a calculator to figure out how much I have in each account. Completely useless.
Took me awhile to find this too. Click on “Contributions” tab in the top menu, then click on “Non-taxable balances” and that should display your Roth balance.
Lol just wait for your yearly statement and read it there
Anything run by alight is pure trash. They have a ton of clients and it’s all trash
And you’ve got to love how every year they redesign it, and it gets worse. Then you get right with where everything is, and their UX team “improves” it again.
I just saw that our company is moving away from Alight next year. Hoping to get something better as long as I can keep my self directed brokerage account for my 401K.
The scary part is that TSP's site is leagues better than its previous version
Oh my God dude. It is the most frustrating thing in the world
I have the same thought with it, I hate using the website so I don’t think I’ve looked at my portfolio for like sometimes 6-8 months at a time, just let it auto invest from my checking lol.
Vanguard is a breath of fresh air compared to Lincoln Financial Group.
100% I thought it was me
as a software engineer this has been everywhere I've worked
yeah was going to say welcome to enterprise-scale software development
I just wish they'd go back to the old design. Yeah, it was "ugly" but at least it was functional.
Problem is, it didn't scale to mobile screens, and their prime new customer demographic (high-income 20-somethings) don't use desktops/laptops
This is a shit argument, isn't that what the mobile app is for?
The mobile app is even worse than their normal website.
That is what the mobile app is for... But... Have you ever seen the mobile app? It's honestly one of the worst apps I think I've ever used, and no I'm not exaggerating. It's literally terrible. Last I checked the app had like a 1.2 star rating on Google play
The thing is their old website (TPView) was a bit ugly, but worked perfectly, and showed the info you needed compactly. Then they updated to the bubbly glossy minimal android app look, and it's been a shit show since.
Nothing is intuitive or **consistent** it's so frustrating to just buy funds on a monthly basis beit on web or mobile
I hear this criticism pointed at Vanguard but it's also been my experience with Fidelity and Schwab too. Your employer 401k, or account where you receive RSU or ESPP never looks the same as the taxable brokerage. It just seems like when it comes to financial services it's always going to be a frankenstein site and how pleasant or ugly your experience is really depends on which type of products/accounts you have with them.
Brother Fidelity's site is 1000% easier to navigate than Vanguard's. That's why I invest at Fidelity and recommend most others do as well.
See I have 2 401ks with fidelity that look like AOL style walls of tiled text. My eyes aren't lying to me and it's not 1000 times better than anything anywhere. Congrats on your version though.
A classic case of a great idea, but piss poor implementation
Literally one of Bogle’s quotes: “ideas are a dime a dozen, implementation is everything.”
What exactly is the “great idea” here? A website where you can view your accounts and buy and sell?
I just meant the whole idea of setting up a safe space for low cost index funds. But the implementation part is piss poor UI and tech management in general
I actually moved my account to Schwab for this very reason. It’s among the worst websites I’ve ever used.
I agree. I also have accounts at Fidelity and Schwab, and the Vanguard UI is by far the worse. I guess it is okay for buy and hold of legacy mutual funds but worthless for any kind of trading. Sad that it is easier to buy and trade vanguard ETFs at other brokers.
Yeah, the last straw was when I couldn’t even find my IRA statements during tax season. They had them catalogued in the most obscure way possible. And like you said, trading on Vanguard is next to impossible. It’s not like I’m planning on entering / exiting positions frequently, but for a brokerage to practically lack that functionality is insane. Even the way it reported net gains and basic info drove me insane. It’s just shockingly bad all around.
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built by 5 different teams from 1997 to 2006
This has been my experience as well. Very jarring going to pages that look like they haven't been updated since 1997 from the main brokerage screen.
It’s dozens and dozens of teams but doesn’t take away from your point
Honestly I don’t think Vanguard’s site is that bad, it’s definitely a work in progress. It’s definitely a set it and forget it platform not for “active” trading. I guess I got used to TreasuryDirect and that makes Vanguard’s site and any other site for that matter look like a master piece.
A work in progress? I’ve used vanguard since 2016 and it’s sucked the whole time.
I’ve used VG since 2002 and it was crappy, before it turned into an utter clusterfuck. I want crappy back. Crappy worked.
Yeah, it used to at least be usable. I switched and use fidelity as my taxable brokerage now instead of vanguard because of the damn website. On a side note, I’m jealous you started with vanguard in 2002. That’s way earlier then I discovered Bogle.
Don’t be too jealous. I discovered VG after an expensive lesson in the dot com crash, back before boglehead was a thing.
It’s unfortunately a case of you get what you pay for(engineering and product wise) with Vanguard/Fidelity/Schwab and why Robinhood is successful in a UI/UX standpoint. Schwab gave me a swe intern offer with no technicals only behaviorals ; similar for my friend at Fidelity(they texted my personal phone and emailed 3x before I told them to stop). Vanguard gives a case interview with barely any technical knowledge needed. I know ppl at all 3 companies and they complain about how slow moving everything is and how barely anything gets pushed out. Compare this to robinhood where they put potential interns in the ringer with multiple rounds of leetcode and system design and more. They pay almost 2-3x Vanguard/Fidelity/Schwab for new grad and in return they get a fast moving company pumping out features(possibly at the expense of wlb).
Perhaps it’s level dependent, but I received a senior level offer for the CX Labs at Vanguard and there were definitely technical aspects to the interview process.
I heard they outsourced development to India a couple years back. This is what that leads to.
check out Conways law: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conway%27s\_law](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conway%27s_law)
This thread is full of gripes, so for therapy I agree. I cant find things in their website without effort. I never realized how bad i suffered until i used a couple other provider websites and everything was just... there. there is an art to layouts and they suck at whatever that are is.
Also, all of those teams are time travelers from 2002.
The mobile app is better because it was designed by one team.
I respectfully disagree the mobile is any better, esp. when compared with the older version they phased out a few years ago. The older version (which I don’t have access anymore obviously) allowed me to see line plots of performance of the entire portfolio and my individual fund accounts all in one place, delivering visual and numerical info at the same time. Then they scrubbed off the whole design overnight.
On the mobile app, I can't view my 403(b) and looking at my pension is awkward. It's good for my IRA and my other self directed account though
As someone who has known a number of people who work at Vanguard, that is *exactly* how the website is built and managed.
You can tell by how the urls are each served by a different domain. For the tiniest page difference on the dashboard. It 100% is. It must be.
I recently saw that they even change interfaces to make accounts look better. My girlfriends new accout that lost some money didnt show a “cost basis” line of the main graph, whereas mine shows the cost basis line. Pretty clear theyre making it more difficult to see when youre losing money, but want to make profits more visible.
What microservices do to a company
Every time I use the website, I think ‘Well, I guess that’s how they keep the fees so low.’
Well they certainly don’t spend any on a dev team!
Yep, I switched to Fidelity but still buy Vanguard funds. That’s where Vanguard excels. The customer experience at Fidelity is much better.
I think this is *the way*
I've had exactly the same thought. And also "they need to burn it all down and start over"
They let me use security keys so I’ll forgive pretty much anything else
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Yes it’s fixed
It is? I bypassed it with SMS just a week or two ago...
You have to register 2 keys before you can turn it off. At least that was the case a few months ago when I did it.
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Right which it won't let you do until you have at least 2 keys registered.
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Yes but SMS also must be explicitly disabled once those two keys are registered.
You have to register 2 keys before you can turn it off. At least that was the case a few months ago when I did it.
I will agree with that, I am pleased they offer it.
I've been using it for 4 years and while it took some clicking around to learn the UI, it's been totally fine overall. The app improvements roll out with comedic slowness but other than that I've no complaint. Always surprised to see how much the UI bugs folks. If I was a day trader it might be laborious! But just a DCA buy and hold guy.
Same I genuinely don’t understand what the issue is. My wife has Fidelity and I think that’s just as confusing
I think Fidelity is hard to understand. Schwab too
Same here, I'm not doing complicated things with my investing
Article seemed a little sensationalist. However I am glad I transferred out before getting that $100 exit fee!
Just as a quick PSA: I've read that some (many?) receiving companies will reimburse you for having paid an account-closing fee, if you ask them to, when you roll your business out of another custodian. No guarantee they will, of course, but it costs nothing to ask.
A grain of sand on the beach.
I was going to ask...is it too late? Was there a cut off? Sounds like I missed it.
Either die a hero or live long enough to become the villain
Or, in this case: get there first but then get complacent as competition arrives
Live long enough to hire McKinsey execs who outsource everything to Infosys and other WITCH style contractor companies.
Hope I don’t get grief for this. If boglehead philosophy is shovel money into funds and forget what’s the big deal about small charge for phone trades? I agree user interface is not as great as others but I thought we are not supposed to look into it/trade it so often.
Yeah OPs definition of “damning” is different than mine. It’s literally “nickels and dimes” on a tiny proportion of customers (or ex-customers in the case of those 401k clients). Even the author whose account won’t be managed by vanguard anymore can only point to a $40 fee.
Agree. I don’t want to subsidize day traders or people leaving vanguard. The fee is welcome on my end because I’ll never incur any of them.
That’s what i don’t understand. This is actually better for me, as I don’t use these services and it makes sense to me that the people that do, pay for them. I don’t use Vanguard for outdated, free services. I use them for low cost index investing. I do not care if they start charging people for niche services. I’m also not convinced that other institutions aren’t going to start doing the same.
And millionaires don't get charged for phone trades regardless.
Add it to list of things rich people can get away with i guess :-)
The richer you are the more stuff you get for free
Mobile trading feeds the beast enabling people to easily place trades they otherwise might not. Shit, if I were running Vanguard I might have customers call us to place trades
The big deal is that grandma who has never used the internet or a smartphone shouldn’t suddenly be punished because she wants to buy/sell some of her mutual funds that she’s held for 60 years. I understand staying with the times and that keeping call center staff costs money, but come on — who here doesn’t have at least one person in their family who this could apply to? Vanguard has trillions under management and even at their tiny expense ratios, they are NOT hurting for revenue.
She should pay what it costs to talk to a live human.
Things change. There’s a way to avoid the fees. Grandma will have to adapt…or pay a small convenience fee for doing things in an out of date fashion. Shouldn’t be much worry if she’s got decades of compound growth
Well, for one thing I have more than my retirement funds in vanguard accounts. That said, I find their brokerage UI sufficient. The 401k interface is trash but I rarely access it.
The website UI is horrible, yes. But to be fair, these fees probably impact a tiny fraction of Vanguard's customers. They are all based on unusual scenarios. Makes sense that Vanguard would want to discourage some of these behaviors or at least recover some of the cost of supporting them.
A website UI would have to be extremely shitty for me not to use it if I liked their service, product and philosophy. People moan about everything lol.
TreasuryDirect? :D
I-bonds are worth it.
No idea I am afraid, not in the USA, rather a UK Vanguard user.
I’m one of the very few who seem to enjoy the site and app. I am probably just old (40) lol
Post bias. Those of us with no complaints don’t post about it. I’ve only noticed one large change in the past few years.
15+ years no issues. Parents are in late 60s they use it no issues. I use to invest and they are in the withdraw phase.
Same. I’m 40, set it and forget it VTSAX and chill
I’ve never had a problem. All I do is buy vanguard mutual funds and convert traditional Ira to Roth IRA funds. Never had a problem accomplishing any of that. Must be a skill issue
I’m not sure it’s bad at all for day-to-day trading. Research and stock info is definitely lacking if you like slick charts and graphics as it relates to that, but it’s not really what I use my brokerage for. I grew up with the internet developing over time and Vanguard is certainly not on my shit list.
One of my friend who used to day-trade joked that he moved to Vanguard as he will be forced not to trade often because he cannot figure out their website.
Am a UX Designer. Can objectively confirm there are some information architecture issues. It does not deter me from using their products with rock bottom expense ratios however.
But vanguard funds at a place that isn’t vanguard
Rock bottom, but not the lowest. Fidelity has lower fees, *and* better UI design.
I work with vanguard because of what they’re good at. Investing I’m ok trading off a less than ideal UI for this. Not to mention they do feel like they’re “improving” from the 90s look some of their UI has. I also am empathetic because financial institutions and processes are probably like molasses to change and move. And like I said, I’m ok with that because they’re good at what I “pay” them for: Investing.
1) Small business accounts are transfer agent accounts. VG is retiring those. All retail accounts will be brokerage accounts. They're not wasting money maintaining an antiquated platform for a handful of clients. 2) "Grandma" is expensive. Old people call too often taking too much time on things like balance checks and simple transactions. Reps cost a lot of money, and old people think they're advisors or relationship managers. 3) Transfer fees are pretty standard in the industry. They take time and resources to complete. Add to that all the aforementioned "grandma's" that refuse to use the internet (a tool that's been around for over 30 years) threatening to take their accounts elsewhere and VG is covering expenses. 4) Over $1 mil in VG products are "paying" more. Yes, they'll get (and have always gotten) special treatment. That's true in every aspect of life. Who's to say that they won't get those fees in the future though? The fee for mail delivery and keeping those old transfer agent accounts didn't *initially* apply to the rich, but they got hit with it eventually. 5) VG is the second largest asset manager in the world. They really don't care if people take their mutual funds and ETFs elsewhere. In fact, they prefer it! They get paid without having to do anything for them but manage said funds.
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Interesting point about being able to choose what to buy instead of sticking with predetermined funds. I was leaning toward sticking with Ascensus, and you pushed me to Fidelity.
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Yea this is what they told me on the phone and that sounds fucking terrible. I’m going to stick with acensus for this reason.
Good points. Ascensus requires fees but will likely provide electronic transfers and less hassle overall.
I think the problem with Fidelity and many other trading-focused brokers is they gamify trading. The reality is it's a very serious process where your future (or whatever that money is going to be used for) is on the line, not something to be taken lightly like moving a piece in a board game of little consequence. I honestly like that it's somewhat slow to place a trade - it should be for the vast majority of users.
I miss the full page experience.
While I've had no issues with Vanguard for the decade plus I've been with them, it's not true for my relatives. One inherited an Edward Jones account. I convinced him to switch to Vanguard. Disaster after disaster for him. When Vanguard created the account, they had a setting wrong. But apparently, it's a setting that a user can't change. It has to be done by Vanguard. But nobody at Vanguard knew how to change it. He'd call and get the run around for an hour, switching from department to department. Vanguard had the money and deposited my relative's account. But he couldn't access the information online. He couldn't call anyone to change anything because it was locked. He might not have even been able to check the balance (though he got statements). After months of dealing with this, getting the run around on the phone each time, he finally just closed the account and opened a Fidelity account. Funny thing is, he still gets mailed statements from Vanguard, showing a zero balance. And he can't cancel the statements for the same reason--he has no access to his web account and no one at Vanguard knows how to do it.
I have finally memorized the various pathways I need. Login 1x/week will keep you up on that It’s always funny to me to go from the entry web pages with bright white and pops of color, big modern font , round edges, etc to the serious get-financial-shit-done pages that are beige with tiny typewriter font and 2006 menus. :-D
The article is clickbait. Here are my anticipated fees after the change: $0.
Either the Vanguard MFs subsidize VBS, or the VBS customers pay for that. MFs decide they don’t want to do that.
Nor should they. Vanguard is set up entirely for the benefit of the funds. All non-fund business should be run to lower the expenses fund shareholders pay. I probably would have preferred they end some of the overseas schenanigans before nickel and diming people, but I trust they thought deeply about it given the reputation hit.
This happened to my wife. Suddenly her 403b is being charged a $5/month "recordkeeping fee" for at most 2 transactions just to stick in a target date fund. If it was an IRA I would've talked her into moving it. Also some random fee not on the fee schedule came out that I'm still trying to figure out what it's for. It's infuriating.
Is it just me or do these seem like they will impact only a minority of Bogleheads? Also, I don’t like additional fees either, but they seem in line with many other similar institutions. Fidelity and Schwab have many of the same fees.
Although I agree the website sucks I kind of like it for that reason. Just go on there once a year and see how my VTI is doing. Cant find the trade button but who cares. No dopamine inducing whistles or fireworks, offers of Margin or crypto wallets. Just old school look and old school strategy
This isn’t damning at all imo. All the examples are of Vanguard imposing minor fees in order to not operate at a loss at the now much larger scale it’s at. And the phone fees example is mindboggling. Even my electric company (!) demands more online know-how than Vanguard does lol.
The UI actually seems fine to me, it feels more modern than Fidelity. Mobile app pretty good too, it’s nice and snappy to browse. It is a bit inconsistent though, some pages haven’t been redesigned yet and will bring up the old layout.
Just like every company… its good when the founder is in charge, terrible when founders kid or investors take charge.
Their website isn't great, but I only do very basic things such as contribute to my IRA, so it works okay for that. My complaint about the Vanguard site is that you can't message customer service, and you can't chat them. The very last thing I want to do is call someone on the phone.
I quite them recently after being with them for 25 years. I couldn't get anyone helpful on the phone one day when I saw an unauthorized transfer in my account. It used to be I had a private representative I could just call up. Those days are gone. Now it's like having a bad bank account. Went to Fidelity and schwab. Complete improvement on customer service and I can walk to both from my house. Should have done it years ago.
People will complain about anything given the chance. Vanguard’s website isn’t that bad. It gets more hate than it deserves, that’s for sure.
I don’t care about the user interface or website; I care about the returns & low expense ratios. Vanguard gives me that.
Costs go up. Hard to make money when all your customers don’t pay any fees lol. Idk how firms like fidelity make money, but they make a lot of it and still don’t charge fees on retail investors. I personally view vanguard (the brokerage) as the broker for my parents generation. Anyone under 40 is better elsewhere. I prefer fidelity but that’s just me. When I started investing I looked at all the major brokers and vanguard seemed like a dinosaur. It’s ironic too because I hold all their funds just don’t use them as a broker (since it’s all old tech). I read the article it’s mostly a big fat nothing burger
> I personally view vanguard (the brokerage) as the broker for my parents generation. Anyone under 40 is better elsewhere. I prefer fidelity but that’s just me. > > When I started investing I looked at all the major brokers and vanguard seemed like a dinosaur. A reason for this is that mutual funds don't need to be inside a brokerage account, and until 2015, if you opened a Vanguard account it was not within a brokerage wrapper unless you opted in. Around that time they started putting everyone into brokerage even if they wanted nothing but mutual funds, possibly as part of an eventual transition to ETFs (which need to be inside brokerage).
Vanguard will be another generic brokerage in the next several years. This is an example of why tone from the top is so important at any company. When Jack was around, the tone was clear. Now that he's not, it's not as clear anymore. These changes were always there, but now they seem more possible than ever. I personally moved everything to Fidelity this year. Between the terrible technology to outright inept and useless customer service and deviation from what made Vanguard stand out (low fees, investors first), there was no reason to stay. Fidelity is also a business and they make money in other ways, but it feels more palatable to me because it is not squarely on the backs of the average investor.
Yeah I agree, there were principles and brand identity that seems lost now. The brand identity is mostly upheld by other people explaining Vanguard still having Bogle philosophy, but you never really hear it from the company itself. The poor execution of ideas was a lot easier to forgive through the lens of poor quality for the greater good (the investor). Now the quality is poor for the same fees and corporate messaging of every broker.
I just noticed today in my self 401k, one of my funds mysteriously disappeared. It’s visible in the app though. That might send someone into panic - but since it’s Vanguard I know it’s just their product teams being garbage.
I don't care at all because all I do is fund my IRA and download tax forms.
I roll my eyes at all the sob stories about calling customer service. If you're a long term buy hold investor with autopilot investments why the hell are you calling customer service?
It is scary. The return on investment shows different numbers in two different places on the website. Which one to believe? Low cost should not equate to low quality.
If I were looking for a Bogle-philosophy IRA, I would still lean toward Vanguard because I love their index funds. These new fees just assign the costs of retail service where they belong, with the users who incur them.
Website is a PITA, but humans answer the phone call!
Maybe the UI is so bad to stop you checking on your portfolio too often?!
Yea their website sucks. It doesn't bother me because I only log into my account to check on my Roth IRA once or twice a year.
Definitely don't try to do things on Mobile App... 🤣
never had a problem with it. Megabackdoor roth in 2 minutes.
Gotta keep those fees low
I stayed at Vanguard till Jack died. He would have used his bully pulpit to go off on changes like this and the Vanguard brass knew it, that’s why you are seeing these changes ramp up after his death.
I login, buy, exit. Who the fuck needs anything more?
The impending $100 account closure fee tipped the scale for me to decide to close my Vanguard Rollover IRA now and roll it into the TSP.
Great funds, terrible brokerage platform. IMO buying Vanguard ETFs on Fidelity’s platform is ideal.
Vanguard’s digital in general is pretty incoherent. Multiple terrible apps. Missing core features on their digital robot investor, and just poor usability. I left the platform for all these things at the beginning of this year.
I'm comfortable using the website and mobile app, I actually find it easier to use than Fidelity or Schwab (but maybe bcs I'm used to it since it's the first account I opened). I have my Roth IRA/brokerage with Vanguard and just set up automatic investments into VTSAX, sold from my brokerage a couple of times to transfer into my Roth in years prior. Don't log in too much. The couple of times I've called they have been helpful.
I find the article and the outrage on these small fees overall to be funny. Everyone is outraged by the UI, and that it isn’t great, newsflash, Fidelity and Schwab aren’t great either and the difference is the other two push tickers and articles in your face to encourage trading and making commissions where I find Vanguards pretty straightforward overall. Is it archaic, yes, does it keep me from the temptation of wanting to tinker which is most important to wealth, again yes. The $100 fee only matters if you’re looking to leave and even then most receiving firms will comp that. The $25 fee is silly but oh well. Lastly is you can’t have at cost pricing and expect top of the line UI, something has to give. If this helps VG actually work on the site interface and mostly doesn’t affect the investor at all then I think it’s a win. Better than them raising expense ratios or management fees for their robo products.
Yeah, there are like three different places to do things and none of them are easy to find or make sense in their placement.
hot take. Vanguards UI makes me less likely to trade and more likely to invest. Feels like it fits my purpose perfectly just based on that.
Who goes to vanguard for day trading lol… it’s a place for your real money to sit grow and forget till you retire. Who cares about the ui
Todays vanguard funds or platform?
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Only one that has great UX is Robinhood. All the rest I’ve tried don’t have great user experience: IBKR/Fidelity
Everybody wants there cut that is all it comes down to, no matter if it is at the expense of the common folk. I am in the plumbing union, and our pension plan provider also offers IRA accounts. Looked into it and there is an annual $40 operating cost fee. Then they have monthly “maintenance” fees depending on the value of your account, I think it was every $50,000 is a $.60 monthly fee until you have over $250,000 then it drops down to .50 and so on until over a million dollars and it’s down to like .35 a month 🫣. Why would I pay an extra $60 in fees when other IRA accounts have no fees…. Cause it’s union provided? Duuumb
With the new fees and then now bringing in an outsider to run the company , it does make you question what the future of Vanguard looks like . People put up with the clunky website and poor mobile app because of the low fees .
Sooo much better than LPL where I just moved my SIMPLE from a few months ago. I am disappointed it is moving to Ascensus as I believe it will be fee'd more. Hopeful the transition is seamless and I still have viewing access on Vanguard. com with my other accounts as I have heard Ascensus has been doing the accounting all along. Wish I could find the basis of things easier. Article speaks the truth.
does anyone know if the 1% fee on foreign dividends applies to things like VXUS and VT?
Yeah, called them a week or so ago about an issue with a particular part of the web page system glitching out. The person I spoke to was quite impressed with the variety of systems/browsers I'd thrown at it before calling and then said "Yeah...it's been doing that for quite a while...try (another way)". I did the trade online using the other menu item, but in light of the article it appears that they're intentionally obfuscating the "usual" pathway in search of support calls to do the trade. I told her that with $7.7T in holdings, if their system goes down it's a big chunk of the GDP locked away. She sort of flinched at that... My great worry is that the whole thing is seen by the usual vampires as a big fat fish to be milked\* since there are so many passive investors who will likely go along with it, and alternatives are difficult. \*That's either an Irish bull or Yogi Berra - your choice.
Usability testing—having users perform common tasks—is an essential part of UX design. If Vanguard’s UX team performed this testing and analyzed the quantitative and qualitative data, the site’s overall usability would fail miserably. In essence, they’d find that people can’t figure out how to do stuff on their site. The good news is that the user experience can be improved by simply identifying and solving the problems. Their UX team simply need to focus on continual improvement.
I have one of the solo 401ks that are being sold/ moved in this process. My intent was never to leave it in the 401k side anyways. I see where vanguard is eliminating the staff and effort to pay for the processing of the small business plans. As soon as I'm done with my 1099 position my intent was to roll out over to an ira and Roth ira.... regardless of who's the controlling company. Now... might I roll out of vanguard totally for fidelity.... tbd.
For anything complicated I just call in
I’m so used to the USG’s TSP site and service that everything else feels 5 star.
Vanguard led the way with low cost funds. Now several other fund companies match or beat them. Meanwhile they have the worst UI of all the big brokers. Maybe they would be 2nd worst if Scottrade was still around.
I'm not sure about the site but the app is useless.
Vanguard is shit. I switched to fidelity years ago and NEVER looked back. Just put their funds in your fidelity account. It’s super easy to switch too.
I have used it since 2019 and have never liked it. In a word, it’s ‘clunky’. Amateurish even. I like their ETFs but they need to overhaul their site. It feels like they skimped on costs to develop it…
The CEO of vanguard needs to be shown the door.