Midpack
Give me a museum and I'll fill it. (Picasso) Give me a forum ...
We've had accounts with Vanguard for over 10 years. DW would rather I handle all our transactions including her IRAs. It's not ideal, but I doubt it's that uncommon.
We have (always had) Agent Authorization Forms on file with Vanguard giving each other full transact authority of each others accounts.
I normally log in as myself, but last week I logged in as DW, frankly to update her password & alerts. While in, I had a question and sent a message to our acct rep. Got a response the next day, thought nothing of it.
Today, DW got a polite but firm letter advising her to never share her login information with a third party, even a spouse. Told her to change her login info immediately. And we should fill out Agent Authorization Forms if we want to act on each others behalf (again, they've been in place for over 10 years).
Talked to another rep, and he acknowledged my message (you're asked to type in your name) while logged in as DW triggered the letter automatically. He acknowledged we had authorizations on file, but they still don't recommend even authorized spouses using each others logins
In the end I am OK with it all even though we had everything appropriate in place, you probably can't be too careful these days. But DW was upset, thought it was a fraud alert (someone unknown accessing her accounts).
Never dreamed something as simple as sending a message on the VG internal message system while logged in as her would trigger "a letter."
FWIW...
We have (always had) Agent Authorization Forms on file with Vanguard giving each other full transact authority of each others accounts.
I normally log in as myself, but last week I logged in as DW, frankly to update her password & alerts. While in, I had a question and sent a message to our acct rep. Got a response the next day, thought nothing of it.
Today, DW got a polite but firm letter advising her to never share her login information with a third party, even a spouse. Told her to change her login info immediately. And we should fill out Agent Authorization Forms if we want to act on each others behalf (again, they've been in place for over 10 years).
Talked to another rep, and he acknowledged my message (you're asked to type in your name) while logged in as DW triggered the letter automatically. He acknowledged we had authorizations on file, but they still don't recommend even authorized spouses using each others logins
In the end I am OK with it all even though we had everything appropriate in place, you probably can't be too careful these days. But DW was upset, thought it was a fraud alert (someone unknown accessing her accounts).
Never dreamed something as simple as sending a message on the VG internal message system while logged in as her would trigger "a letter."
FWIW...
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