CaptCurmudgeon
Dryer sheet aficionado
After heeding much advice from this forum, decided to get rid of my "objective" brokerage (their objective was to sell me stuff). I assumed moving all of our invested money from Smith Barney to Vanguard would have to be done carefully and with all the i's dotted etc. Started the process mid-August and as of today (Oct 17) not all of it has yet made it over to Vanguard. Lessons learned:
Cash out the accounts and wait to they settle in their final bucket. In my case I thought "cash" was it, but it got swept into a bank deposit fund unnoticed by me. When the "cash" transfer instructions (certified by my bank president as instructed) arrived from Vanguard, there was nothing in "cash". SB never contacted me about the transfer request, they just ignored it.
Stay on it. I finally got hold of an assertive agent at Vanguard retirement services that followed up daily. He said he had similar problems with Smith Barney at another office.
I noticed things started moving at SB after I was charged the quarterly management fee 10/1, but I am sure that was a coincidence.
Cash out the accounts and wait to they settle in their final bucket. In my case I thought "cash" was it, but it got swept into a bank deposit fund unnoticed by me. When the "cash" transfer instructions (certified by my bank president as instructed) arrived from Vanguard, there was nothing in "cash". SB never contacted me about the transfer request, they just ignored it.
Stay on it. I finally got hold of an assertive agent at Vanguard retirement services that followed up daily. He said he had similar problems with Smith Barney at another office.
I noticed things started moving at SB after I was charged the quarterly management fee 10/1, but I am sure that was a coincidence.
