Texas Proud
Give me a museum and I'll fill it. (Picasso) Give me a forum ...
- Joined
- May 16, 2005
- Messages
- 17,383
I know I'm probably not adding anything to what has been said here about Vanguard, but I had an experience today that prompted me to chime in.
First of all, I got an email a week or so back from an advisor at Vanguard indicating that he would be giving me a call soon to discuss "some options" and that I could get in touch with him by email in the mean time if I liked. That in itself kind of bothered me, as that type of unsolicited inquiry -- like so many others here would say -- is not the reason I invested with Vanguard in the first place way back when. Well, today I got a call and saw that the number was in Wayne, PA. I declined to answer and sure enough received a voice mail from a Vanguard advisor. Sounded like a pleasant enough fellow, but I have no interest whatsoever in talking with him. I would never take it out on him, but there is something about it totally offensive to me.
Not to make too big a deal out just getting a phone call, but this kind of makes it "real" for me that Vanguard is no longer the organization I first knew. I wonder if I can now expect to be getting calls on a monthly basis pushing their advisory services -- something abhorrent in relation to my lifelong no load, self-study, DIY approach to investing.
Fortunately, I have not experienced any of the bad customer service issues others here have shared -- yet. All of my interactions have been online and -- so far -- problem free. But I feel kind of sad that Vanguard seems to be abandoning the mission and type of customers for which it first came into existence.
Back when you would have a human advisor for just over $1 million my advisor would call me once a year and ask if I needed anything... I always said I was good to go... I was OK with this as he never did try and sell me on anything...
However, my Merril Edge account had a guy who was not even close cold call me to try and become my 'advisor' with an account that had $50K in it... I was really pissed as when he first started I said I did not need an advisor and he said he was not pushing that but in the end he wanted to put his name on my account... had to run it up to an EVP that I was really pissed since I told him in the first couple of minutes I was not interested... never did move my money there...