Anyone ever leave Vanguard?

[almost there]

Have had account's with Vanguard for about 20 years now. (Roth IRA's)
Rolled the 401K into an IRA about 4 yrs ago using Vanguard.
Closed my trading accounts with other Co's over the years
Now that I am retired, I am noticing how antiquated their web site is. Non intuitive & everything just seems really slow?...

Was drawn to them by low fees, but am now wondering others have caught up & maybe surpassed?? Ok to invest with them, but transactions seem stodgy for some reason. Maybe that's a good thing? LOL LOL
Just thinking about making a change. Thanks in advance...........

 

[Major Tom]

I am not an active trader. I make one trade, or less, a year. The Vanguard site works fine for me, but bear in mind that I am not exactly a power user.

 

[2017ish]

Many discussions at bogleheads on this, including one active one.

If you invest in their funds, you can do that elsewhere (maybe via ETFs). Much personal preference disputing over whether that is preferable or not.

If you don't invest primarily in their funds, the consensus seems to be that it is not the place to be.

Schwab, FIDO, TDameritrade are worth looking at. (I am thinking more about taking our vanguard accounts elsewhere, because of their glacial response whenever we make any changes whatsoever, and the dreaded Medallion signature issue. Just added an Ally Account to the banks to which I can make transfers. Took 10 days--versus the immediate response from Bank of America in adding the same Ally account.)

E.T.A.--the 10 days was despite the fact that I confirmed the micro-deposits the very next morning....

 

[almost there]

Not a power user, but a user none the less.
Yep. Started an IRA transfer out on the 9th. Slow as molasses.
Maybe today? Maybe Monday? ($250k floating around somewhere in the mail) Also found when selling one of there funds not long ago the sell cancelation request has to be in 2 hrs. prior to the market close? Things like that just bug me. Will start looking around............

 

[MrFlish]

Many discussions at bogleheads on this, including one active one.

If you invest in their funds, you can do that elsewhere (maybe via ETFs). Much personal preference disputing over whether that is preferable or not.

If you don't invest primarily in their funds, the consensus seems to be that it is not the place to be.

Schwab, FIDO, TDameritrade are worth looking at. (I am thinking more about taking our vanguard accounts elsewhere, because of their glacial response whenever we make any changes whatsoever, and the dreaded Medallion signature issue. Just added an Ally Account to the banks to which I can make transfers. Took 10 days--versus the immediate response from Bank of America in adding the same Ally account.)

E.T.A.--the 10 days was despite the fact that I confirmed the micro-deposits the very next morning....

Any value to staying with the existing Vanguard account for Vanguard funds and using another firm for other investments?

 

[45th Birthday]

I had a large amount of money at Vanguard and left them completely several years ago. They provided no service of value, were slow to do anything, have a poor website, and ridiculous rules. Happy at FIDO.

 

[Alan]

"Anyone ever leave Vanguard?" -

I've checked and am surprised to find that leaving Vanguard is not against the Community Rules.

 

[almost there]

Alan just nailed it...............

 

[tuckeverlasting]

Happy Vanguard investor here. I find the customer service and website quite responsive and easy to use. YMMV.

 

[MRG]

Sure people leave Vanguard or any other fund company. I have been with Fidelity for many years and they're great.

I recently moved my remaining 401k to Vanguard from Megacorp's provider. Yes they have issues, as long as you keep the ball in the middle of the fairway things seem ok. Best not to get in the weeds.

Fidelity has a better sight, with more frequent changes. Is that a good or bad thing?

Do check out Fidelity and Schwab both have low fees.

One counter to frequently updates to the sight and new features is who's paying for them. Given Vanguard's corporate structure maybe the existing interface is good enough?

 

[euro]

I have moved my IRAs because I wanted to roll to a self-directed IRA (which the big discount brokers don't offer). My DW's IRAs are still with Vanguard and for those I see no reason to move. Yes, the website is a bit clunky, but it does what we need.

 

[Sunset]

I like the Vanguard solo-401K , yes there was paperwork involved, but phone help was available to make it easy, and I have both IRA and ROTH versions.
These accounts are extremely low activity, meaning I put the $$ in and leave them there.

For my other Vanguard account, I dislike the non-realtime prices displayed for stocks, it's not a good account for trading.

 

[Fedup]

Customer service at Vanguard is just awful. We made two transfers last year and they messed up multiple times. We made a request for solo 401k and they messed up again. Many times over. But once the money is there and you don't need them then it's ok. I do lots of trading on all my accounts so I know. I mean the trades went through ok, maybe a little slow.
My other account is with Scottrade. I was tempted to open an account at Fidelity, but I left them a few years ago and swore at the time to never come back there. I forgot the reason. I think they must make it hard to transfer and charge all kinds of fees. This was a while back. Perhaps 10 years ago.

 

[almost there]

All good advice. If I do make a change I will plan for the lethargic 2 week transfer out.
If I want slow, I will just log onto a bank website and watch a CD. lol lol
The feeling I get with VG these days................
Was fine while working. Just auto dep. money in and forget about it.
But now? Not so much.

 

[ShokWaveRider]

On another note, sites that keep changing and updating can also be tedious for some.

 

[MRG]

On another note, sites that keep changing and updating can also be tedious for some.

+1
Since the last Fidelity update I can't find anything. Nice website, but it is frustrating to navigate through like I've never been here before.

 

[Lsbcal]

I'm afraid the answer for me is that investing is not really an action game. It's all about having a plan and sticking to it.

VG seems to work for that. My plan involves some trading of index funds, but it works best with a minimum amount of trades.

I'd be interested to know if there is more information available at Fido. I have an old Schwab account and have not noticed things there that provide investment insights. But I'll go back now and check out the Schwab site for articles.

 

[Gill]

I've been with Vanguard for over 30 years and have never had a problem. I use their Website almost daily and it certainly meets my needs. I'm very happy with the low costs and good investment performance.
Gill

 

[2017ish]

Any value to staying with the existing Vanguard account for Vanguard funds and using another firm for other investments?

If you want vanguard funds, rather than ETFs, keeping an account there is IMO a very easy choice, as you will have difficulties/costs in adding to funds elsewhere--assuming you can. No need to have everything at one place. A bit more work in keeping track of things, but not much. And if you run into password/website issues at one place, you have access to your money through the other.

 

[jim584672]

"Anyone ever leave Vanguard?" -

I've checked and am surprised to find that leaving Vanguard is not against the Community Rules.

That would be the rule over at Bogelheads.

 

[jim584672]

I am super not impressed with Vanguard. Platform is way old, rules are weird. Too lazy to move my ancient IRA with them.

 

[W2R]

I am not an active trader. I make one trade, or less, a year. The Vanguard site works fine for me, but bear in mind that I am not exactly a power user.

+1 I don't really have to deal with them much at all any more.

Every dealing I have ever had with Vanguard has been completely top notch. Frank deals with them too, and they were wonderful with him yesterday, going above and beyond the level of service one might expect.

So no, the idea of leaving Vanguard would be absolutely, totally insane in my case. But in a forum this large, there are going to be people whose opinions vary and who probably aren't totally insane... I guess.


Edited to add: One caveat; I should probably mention that the reason I found the Early Retirement Forum was Vanguard. I followed the Morningstar Vanguard Diehards forum years ago, before the Bogleheads split off from it. On Diehards somebody mentioned an Early Retirement Forum had just been started, and I began reading over here. Then Bogleheads once it was started, instead of Vanguard Diehards. Then eventually I registered here. So, Vanguard is really why I am here at all.

 

[LOL!]

I've been a Vanguard customer for 35 years.

But I have most of my portfolio at other places.

Vanguard is fine and many other places are just as fine. Each place has their own quirks. It is probably too much trouble (that is, no trouble at all) to move accounts around among different financial institutions just to find another place with annoying quirks.

So is the grass greener on the other side? You will only know by moving as customer testimonials are not reliable as service is pretty good everywhere.

 

[rodi]

"Anyone ever leave Vanguard?" -

I've checked and am surprised to find that leaving Vanguard is not against the Community Rules.

LOL!!!!

I had an inherited IRA at Vanguard - but at the time my dad died they were beyond incompetant. My sister (executor) was handling it and we were both beneficiaries. They lost not just 1 death certificate - but 4 or 5.... they death certificates were sent certified mail with the appropriate forms... and Vanguard would acknowledge they received the forms but somehow were losing the death certificates in the same envelope. It took 3 months to finally get it all processed. My sister rolled her money to Schwab immediately because she was so disgusted... I waited another year... but ended up moving to Schwab.

Schwab has cheaper ERs on their index funds these days and cheaper trades.

I still have my sons' 529s at Vanguard... My dad started these. Despite Vanguard having *finally* received the death certificate for the inherited IRA - they could not transfer that information to the 529 group. And you guessed it - they lost the first one I sent so I had to send a 2nd one. Since these have to be certified copies - the hassle factor went up.

My husband has been slowing moving his IRA money to Vanguard... He's super conservative so it's been like pulling teeth to get him out of CDs and into Wellesley. Fortunately, their customer service is decent for getting the money *into* vanguard... just not so good if you die or want to roll out of vanguard.

 

[EastWest Gal]

I've been with Schwab for 24 years. Their platform is easy to use. They just lowered their expense ratio on many of their index funds to 0.03. DS just opened a a Roth IRA this week; it took 10 minutes. I have two step authentication to log in. It takes less than 2 days to move money into my checking account. I have my IRA, taxable portfolio, and an inherited IRA with them.