I'll post a separate update to the "Geriatric asset allocation" thread, but this specific issue is bad enough to merit breaking it out for PenFed on their own thread. I'm hoping that search engines pick up on this, especially the part about PenFed employee [mod edit] in the Eugene, OR office. Yes, this time I'm naming names. He's earned it. I sure hope we hear a response from PenFed or from PenFed employee [mod edit] in the Eugene, OR office. Because PenFed employee [mod edit] in the Eugene, OR office sure went out of his way to antagonize a PenFed customer.
[Mods, feel free to delete the names if this will cause more problems than it's worth.] [done]
While we've been pursuing conservatorship, I've been piling up Dad's pension & SS checks to put into CDs. Over the coming years I'm going to liquidate most of his equity mutual funds to put his asset allocation at something like 20/20/60 stocks/bonds/cash. Now that I have a court order and a conservator's appointment letter, I've actually been trying to exert my new legal authority. Which appears to be worth a whole lot less than Dad paid for it, but that's also another [-]rant[/-] thread.
Three weeks ago I sent my conservator's appointments to USAA & PenFed to establish CDs in Dad's name. USAA let me upload it over their secure website while I had to snail-mail a copy to PenFed.
USAA phoned me a week later and said they were ready. Over the phone(!) we transferred a five-figure sum out of Dad's checking account, and another sum out of his Fidelity brokerage account. I had all the account numbers and Giselle initiated the transfers from USAA's side. They gave Dad 0.86% for a one-year CD and 1.20% for a two-year CD. They're sending me the paperwork, but I can see that the money's already left Dad's other accounts. The whole phone call was under 30 minutes. I sent a BZ to USAA thanking Giselle for her help. I'll be calling her back when we get ready to do more of this.
[Side note: You may be thinking, "Sure, he's a bigshot USAA blogger, they probably have a little asterisk next to his name in the database." Mmmm... I doubt it. Eight million members, only 22,000 USAA employees, and I'm only personally known to about a dozen of them. I doubt a blog with a few thousand monthly hits can move the needle on their public image. True, I've been with USAA for 30 years, so maybe that helps. What I think is really happening is that a significant number of those eight million members are conservators for their aging parents, and USAA has found that it's worth their assets to have a smooth-running process for handling their funds.]
In contrast, PenFed was silent. After two weeks I e-mailed a query, and they said it was still "under review". A week later they snail-mailed me an application package. It said that I had to fill it out as "guardian" (not conservator) and "joint owner". It also asked for, and this is a direct quote, "an original notarized copy of the court documents appointing me as guardian".
By coincidence, that night I got an e-mail that said my PenFed account had been switched to snail-mail statements, and it strongly urged me to switch back to online statements or else start paying the 50-cent fee. After about 10 minutes of trying to figure out the problem on their website, I realized that the e-mail was addressed to "Dad Nords" instead of to me. They'd set up Dad's account but for some reason it defaulted to snail-mail statements-- and then it threatened me. I didn't even have a freakin' login or password for Dad's account, but it was already set to start accruing a negative balance.
I e-mailed PenFed and asked them to send me the correct paperwork and not charge me for snail-mail statements. Three days later I hadn't heard from them so I called the phone number on the snail mail. I asked for the guy who signed the letter, [mod edit], and got one heck of a defense from [-]"Bob" in Bangalore[/-] the call center rep. He didn't want to pass me on to [mod edit] until I'd handed over my member number & Social Security number for ID verification and then described the full problem. I said that I'd swapped e-mail and letters with [mod edit], I was returning [mod edit] call to complete [mod edit] paperwork, and I didn't want to start all over. After 10 minutes of debate I was put on hold. After 10 minutes on hold, I was told that [mod edit] wasn't available. I asked to speak to a supervisor, and was put back on hold. 10 minutes later [mod edit] came on the line.
He hadn't read my e-mail of three days earlier. I caught him up. I explained that I was a conservator, not a guardian, and not a joint owner but merely a fiduciary.[mod edit] said "That's just the way we need you to fill out the paperwork, it doesn't matter, the courts don't care, we do it this way all the time." (Apparently PenFed's Oregon employees are also experts on Colorado probate courts.) I said that I didn't want to have any problems with the courts and that I'd be correcting PenFed's paperwork with the appropriate verbiage. He said "Our website's set up to show that you're the guardian and the joint owner. That's the way we do it."
I gave up, and I decided not to even talk to him about PenFed's request for a "original notarized copy". I said "Thanks, I think I'm going to pass on this." [mod edit] shot back "You know your conservator's letter is only good until March, so you'd have to fix that too before we let you sign up for a CD." Well, thanks for letting me know. (The appointment letters are only good for a year so that the courts will get their annual reports on time and then re-issue the letters.) I told [mod edit] that he'd been quite enough help, thanks, I wasn't going to do it. [mod edit] said "Well, OK, but we do this all the time and that's how the system works." Yeah, fine, noted. They were offering 1.16% on the one-year CD and 1.25% on the two-year, but there's no way I'm going to sign on for that hassle.
So I'm going to load Dad up with USAA CDs, and if I reach the FDIC limit I can also go back to his small-town bank for their rockin' 0.50% CDs. But I don't think I'll be calling PenFed again.
In PenFed's defense, they've always been long on good rates and short on customer service infrastructure. You get exactly what you pay for, and if you need something off the beaten path then you're unlikely to get superior staff assistance. I would have been disappointed with mere incompetence, but I wouldn't have been surprised. However I never expected a lecture.
[Mods, feel free to delete the names if this will cause more problems than it's worth.] [done]
While we've been pursuing conservatorship, I've been piling up Dad's pension & SS checks to put into CDs. Over the coming years I'm going to liquidate most of his equity mutual funds to put his asset allocation at something like 20/20/60 stocks/bonds/cash. Now that I have a court order and a conservator's appointment letter, I've actually been trying to exert my new legal authority. Which appears to be worth a whole lot less than Dad paid for it, but that's also another [-]rant[/-] thread.
Three weeks ago I sent my conservator's appointments to USAA & PenFed to establish CDs in Dad's name. USAA let me upload it over their secure website while I had to snail-mail a copy to PenFed.
USAA phoned me a week later and said they were ready. Over the phone(!) we transferred a five-figure sum out of Dad's checking account, and another sum out of his Fidelity brokerage account. I had all the account numbers and Giselle initiated the transfers from USAA's side. They gave Dad 0.86% for a one-year CD and 1.20% for a two-year CD. They're sending me the paperwork, but I can see that the money's already left Dad's other accounts. The whole phone call was under 30 minutes. I sent a BZ to USAA thanking Giselle for her help. I'll be calling her back when we get ready to do more of this.
[Side note: You may be thinking, "Sure, he's a bigshot USAA blogger, they probably have a little asterisk next to his name in the database." Mmmm... I doubt it. Eight million members, only 22,000 USAA employees, and I'm only personally known to about a dozen of them. I doubt a blog with a few thousand monthly hits can move the needle on their public image. True, I've been with USAA for 30 years, so maybe that helps. What I think is really happening is that a significant number of those eight million members are conservators for their aging parents, and USAA has found that it's worth their assets to have a smooth-running process for handling their funds.]
In contrast, PenFed was silent. After two weeks I e-mailed a query, and they said it was still "under review". A week later they snail-mailed me an application package. It said that I had to fill it out as "guardian" (not conservator) and "joint owner". It also asked for, and this is a direct quote, "an original notarized copy of the court documents appointing me as guardian".
By coincidence, that night I got an e-mail that said my PenFed account had been switched to snail-mail statements, and it strongly urged me to switch back to online statements or else start paying the 50-cent fee. After about 10 minutes of trying to figure out the problem on their website, I realized that the e-mail was addressed to "Dad Nords" instead of to me. They'd set up Dad's account but for some reason it defaulted to snail-mail statements-- and then it threatened me. I didn't even have a freakin' login or password for Dad's account, but it was already set to start accruing a negative balance.
I e-mailed PenFed and asked them to send me the correct paperwork and not charge me for snail-mail statements. Three days later I hadn't heard from them so I called the phone number on the snail mail. I asked for the guy who signed the letter, [mod edit], and got one heck of a defense from [-]"Bob" in Bangalore[/-] the call center rep. He didn't want to pass me on to [mod edit] until I'd handed over my member number & Social Security number for ID verification and then described the full problem. I said that I'd swapped e-mail and letters with [mod edit], I was returning [mod edit] call to complete [mod edit] paperwork, and I didn't want to start all over. After 10 minutes of debate I was put on hold. After 10 minutes on hold, I was told that [mod edit] wasn't available. I asked to speak to a supervisor, and was put back on hold. 10 minutes later [mod edit] came on the line.
He hadn't read my e-mail of three days earlier. I caught him up. I explained that I was a conservator, not a guardian, and not a joint owner but merely a fiduciary.[mod edit] said "That's just the way we need you to fill out the paperwork, it doesn't matter, the courts don't care, we do it this way all the time." (Apparently PenFed's Oregon employees are also experts on Colorado probate courts.) I said that I didn't want to have any problems with the courts and that I'd be correcting PenFed's paperwork with the appropriate verbiage. He said "Our website's set up to show that you're the guardian and the joint owner. That's the way we do it."
I gave up, and I decided not to even talk to him about PenFed's request for a "original notarized copy". I said "Thanks, I think I'm going to pass on this." [mod edit] shot back "You know your conservator's letter is only good until March, so you'd have to fix that too before we let you sign up for a CD." Well, thanks for letting me know. (The appointment letters are only good for a year so that the courts will get their annual reports on time and then re-issue the letters.) I told [mod edit] that he'd been quite enough help, thanks, I wasn't going to do it. [mod edit] said "Well, OK, but we do this all the time and that's how the system works." Yeah, fine, noted. They were offering 1.16% on the one-year CD and 1.25% on the two-year, but there's no way I'm going to sign on for that hassle.
So I'm going to load Dad up with USAA CDs, and if I reach the FDIC limit I can also go back to his small-town bank for their rockin' 0.50% CDs. But I don't think I'll be calling PenFed again.
In PenFed's defense, they've always been long on good rates and short on customer service infrastructure. You get exactly what you pay for, and if you need something off the beaten path then you're unlikely to get superior staff assistance. I would have been disappointed with mere incompetence, but I wouldn't have been surprised. However I never expected a lecture.
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