Better customer service: Vanguard or Fidelity?

[TravelinFamilyMan]

Fido is good, but their back office is difficult to deal with...

Fidelity.

20+ Years of being a satisfied customer. The reason I picked Fidelity was that they were our 401K custodian in three companies I worked in. Rolling over to IRA was a breeze. Their virtual bank is awesome and their credit card sends big cash rewards.

No reason for me to try anything else.

+1

We've been with Fidelity 401(k) and now rollover for 30 years. Now preferred client which gets a one-to-one deep dive once a year. Customer service in person and over the phone never disappoints. My fairly minor issue is trying to do traditionally "paper" transactions using their website. I recently upgraded my options trading on one account and it took THREE iterations with their office. Now trying to more a Roth IRA custodial account to her own account and the damn eSignature thing over e-mail failed miserably. Have to print it down, get ink signatures and schlep it over to the office. If you have a local Fido branch go for it - and the coffee and drinks are on the house baby! We also have their Visa card and love the 2% cash back and have debit card with ATM fee free world wide.

 

[nwsteve]

We had high hopes for Vanguard but they made everything such a struggle. And the computer systems were very primitive (at least 5 years ago they were). They kept saying how sorry they were, and they were nice about it, but it just wasn’t a good for for us. After a few months of that nonsense we just gave up and transferred it all to Fidelity. We have been really happy there. I like some of the Vanguard products, but not enough to put up with all the bull.

+1
Was Flagship at one point with V, but like you just could not get pass the repeated incidents of failure to execute basis customer service and solve any issues that were other than what the rep had been given a script.

 

[schellem]

My .02$

I'm moving away from ETrade after being a customer for 15+ years, since they seem to have lost touch with reality and keep adding bugs to the system.

Anyway I moved my IRA to Vanguard after some research. I quickly learned that the web site is horribly antiquated and their adviser services for folks with large accounts was worthless for all but 'dummies'. After some more research I tried Fidelity and after 6 months with one account kicking the tires I'm ready to move everything from ETrade over to Fidelity.

 

[stephenson]

Molly,

Did my post with Fidelity alternatives to medallion help?

 

[gwraigty]

Another big difference I've found is that Vanguard doesn't allow you to buy individual fixed income securities online, including CDs. You have to call and the process takes a ridiculously long time (even after you've done your research and decided exactly what you want to buy) vs. mere seconds with Fidelity or Schwab.

 

[molly312]

Actually, your post wasn't timely enough to help. We moved a considerable sum to Schwab because they never gave us an alternative to the medallion signature. Had they, we would not have moved such a sum. We continue to have funds at FIDO- but they are Roth and IRAs and a few other things that don't require a Medallion signature.. We were with FIDO for 30 years before this problem arose. Prior to that, we had good service. We are very happy with Schwab and have good service from them also. We have opened accts. for our kids and grandkids at Schwab because they are so helpful and easy.

I am not criticizing FIDO - because they have always been good. We live far from a FIDO office now (not a problem before) and the Medallion thing became an issue after we moved. At the time - they offered us no alternative other than to drive 120 miles.

 

[stephenson]

Hi Molly,

Sorry it wasn't in time - the folks you spoke with at Fidelity simply screwed this up - you might want to consider calling them back and explaining it all so they can make sure the rest of their folks don't give away good business.

It's too late, and Schwab has a great reputation - but, it is inexcusable on their part, particularly for a long term customer.

 

[Sanbenito1]

I have my IRAs at Fidelity, and my other stocks/bonds at Vanguard and both companies have done well by me. I prefer (especially as I get older and possibly more technology-challenged) the ability to make an appointment with someone in an office, which I can do at Fidelity. I’m also a visual person, so I like to see things sketched out on paper if I’m having trouble understanding. I also like that Fidelity calls me once a year to come in and review my accounts with an advisor (even though I don’t have any ‘managed’ accounts). That said, if I didn’t live near a Fidelity office, I’d suggest Vanguard because their fees seem to be lower, and I like their range of selections.

 

[Samething]

I retired May 31st and had a question about the distribution of my company ESOP. I had already decided to use either Vanguard or Fidelity for my IRA accounts instead of E-Trade that I have my taxable account with. Fidelity has an office near me so I gave them a call. The advisor I met with asked me how much the ESOP was for and then told me I qualify for such and such advisory service. I told him I was going to self manage my account and from that point on he just professionally answered all my questions to the point of writing down what forms I would receive from my employer and what forms I would receive from Fidelity for filing taxes. He made sure I understood the rules I had to follow to utilize NUA for part of my company stock. He set my accounts up gave me contact information for him and 2 of his assistants. He made the whole process very easy. I was highly impressed by the level of service I received.

 

[IMATERP]

We received pretty crummy service with Fidelity over the 4th quarter of 2018. A year earlier, we had been transferred to a Private Client team that were very unresponsive.

Due to our frustrations, I moved my monies and my parents accounts to TD Ameritrade. TD Ameritrade offered incentives of $5,500 (cash bonuses) for transferring.

The Pros:

A. The $5,500 cash was a nice gesture.
B. Ameritrade has an office in the city where my parents live - so they like being able to deposit a check as opposed to sending “snail mail.”
C. The customer service has been a bit better but only from an administrative aspect.
D. I was able to negotiate less expensive commissions with TDA on some of the funds that have transaction fees. For instance, I pay $17.99 to purchase Wellesley (or any other transaction fund) and this is much lower than Fidelity or TDA’s regular price.

The Cons:

A. Fidelity has a much better website & Retirement planner than TDA.
B. I personally don’t like change and the learning curve associated with it.

Anyway, multiple frustrating situations led me to making the change and now I’m glad that I moved to TDA.

FYI - Fidelity customer reps are typically new hire temp employees working for veritude. Unfortunately, the agencies have been having difficulties hiring and maintaining a competent workforce which is leading to frustrations from customers.

A buddy of mine works in their IT department and says very positive things about Fidelity’s focus on their face to face branch services. She also mentions that their Private Client group has a lot of negative issues and that their is an awareness that Fidelity needs to work on this area.

I

 

[Toddtheformeraccountant]

I was vanguard, moved to Fidelity. If you talk to a rep, probably both about the same. Problem with Vanguard is that very often you have to wait 1/2 hour to speak to someone, and if you send an email you’ll be lucky to get a response in 48 hours. With fidelity I’m able to usually reach someone right away, and get the problem solved. The website for Fidelity is much better and more intuitive, and I can see all of my accounts (savings, checking, credit card, DAF, and even connect a Wells Fargo 401K) in one place. Vanguard’s processing of paperwork is a little antiquated....for example, you have to mail certain paper forms in and you cannot just fax them in and save a couple days of processing. And when you send paper forms in it takes way too long to get them processed. Much happier with Fidelity on all of those counts. But Vanguard isn’t horrible by any means.

 

[rrandol]

Rollover problems with Vanguard

Vanguard bungled a rollover and could not find the money for six weeks... Turns out the software did not allow the money to be "seen" during the process. No one knew this, and the reps insisted they had not received it.

Never had a high level of confidence in them after that. Majority of accounts are at Fido, although I still have some managed funds at T Rowe and a relatively small taxable account at Schwab. I do have money at Vanguard, can't beat their money market rates and the missing rollover that magically reappeared is mostly in Wellington.

My wife’s company retirement was Managed by Vanguard so I thought it was going to be easy to roll it over to a Vanguard IRA. It took months and several starts and stops before it was accomplished. Experienced the missing balance during a Black Out period. I love their mutual funds.