Badger
Thinks s/he gets paid by the post
- Joined
- Nov 2, 2008
- Messages
- 3,410
For the past 12 years my wife contributed to a 403b. The only game in town other than a insurance company was Merrill Lynch where she decided to put the money in a MM account. The reason for a MM account was ML gave her a hard sell to have them manage the money in loaded funds where they would have the athority to move the money around from one loaded fund to another depending on the market. She didn't like what could have resulted in churning and losing her retirement funds.
Once the money was deposited to ML the plan was to move the money to a TRP mutual fund where we would have liked it to go in the first place.
The idea was good and worked although with a number of problems created by ML through the years. More than 50% of the time ML would screw things up so bad it would take months to straighten out (example - fail to make the transfer for 2-3 months, make the incorrect transfer amounts, once they even closed the account when she always left a few thousand after each transfer.) Each time it would take weeks and occasionaly months and multiple phone calls to resolve their screw-up. After the first time we started documenting most of the phone conversations with ML rep names, dates, times and what was discussed (not that it did much good).
Now she is retired and trying to close the account and transfer the money to a Vanguard mutual fund. ML has once more screwed things up and made things difficult.
Fortunately Vanguard concierge services is stepping in and helping. The knowledge and professionalism of the Vanguard rep compared to the ML rep during a conference call was amazingly considerable. How ML has stayed in business so long is beyond my comprehension. We will be glad to be rid of them (hopefully) soon.
Sorry for the rant but this has been pent-up for over a decade. You can now return to your regularly scheduled program.
Cheers!
Once the money was deposited to ML the plan was to move the money to a TRP mutual fund where we would have liked it to go in the first place.
The idea was good and worked although with a number of problems created by ML through the years. More than 50% of the time ML would screw things up so bad it would take months to straighten out (example - fail to make the transfer for 2-3 months, make the incorrect transfer amounts, once they even closed the account when she always left a few thousand after each transfer.) Each time it would take weeks and occasionaly months and multiple phone calls to resolve their screw-up. After the first time we started documenting most of the phone conversations with ML rep names, dates, times and what was discussed (not that it did much good).
Now she is retired and trying to close the account and transfer the money to a Vanguard mutual fund. ML has once more screwed things up and made things difficult.
Fortunately Vanguard concierge services is stepping in and helping. The knowledge and professionalism of the Vanguard rep compared to the ML rep during a conference call was amazingly considerable. How ML has stayed in business so long is beyond my comprehension. We will be glad to be rid of them (hopefully) soon.Sorry for the rant but this has been pent-up for over a decade. You can now return to your regularly scheduled program.
Cheers!
