Why is Vanguard pushing the Advisory service so hard?

[almost there]

After 20 yrs with them, I bailed 7 years ago. Zero love loss. They used to be great. But did not keep up with the times. On another note, just think how much they saved by not updating their website.

 

[Among_Primates]

I did use VG's advisor services for a year or two. The advisor took my portfolio, put 50 percent into a stock index fund and 50 percent into a bond index fund, and called it a day. I can't really complain about the strategy, but it seemed a little silly to be paying a fee. Of course, he would have balanced it for me over time, but still.

Then came a day I wanted to sell some of it, and was told that I couldn't. Only the advisor could do that, and he would not be available for a few days to "review my case." I expressed displeasure, and was told that clients were not allowed to have control over their portfolios in order to keep them from doing stupid things, like panic selling. "But it's my money." Sorry, you signed an agreement.

Full disclosure: I am not the savvy investor that many of you reading this are. I'll go even further and confess that I'm exactly the bonehead who might panic-sell. Having said that... there was just something stick-in-the-craw-ish about being told my money was in someone else's control, and that I would be utterly impotent until that person got around to me.

So I fired the manager. And I reviewed my portfolio and decided, after deep and profound thought, to put 50 percent in a stock index fund and 50 percent in a bond index fund...

 

[nwsteve]

So I fired the manager. And I reviewed my portfolio and decided, after deep and profound thought, to put 50 percent in a stock index fund and 50 percent in a bond index fund...

AND you no longer pay any fees to be told you have to wait to use YOUR $$

 

[RobbieB]

I like the fact that I can't get my money. I don't do many transactions, 1 or 2 a year to fill the "cash bucket".

I literally can't get my money. I call the broker and he does the do and the dough is in my checking account in a couple days.

But if I can't get my own dough, I don't think any hackers will either -

 

[MRG]

I like the fact that I can't get my money. I don't do many transactions, 1 or 2 a year to fill the "cash bucket".

I literally can't get my money. I call the broker and he does the do and the dough is in my checking account in a couple days.

But if I can't get my own dough, I don't think any hackers will either -

+1

I have about 40% of our investments under PAS and can't sell crap or access anything and love it. I self manage the rest at Fidelity. If I predecease DW she'll have Vanguard take it all over. I've seen Fidelity put the hard sell on clients, I know Vanguard doesn't.

 

[tb001]

Well, we had our pitch meeting with the vanguard service. I spent a lot of time prepping and updating our plan, which needed to be done. That said, it was pretty useless for the meeting, other than to serve as a tool to illustrate how prepared we actually are. The vanguard rep said he’s never seen a spreadsheet as thorough, so I guess that’s something!

He basically ended up telling us to save our money and pay a CFA/CPA on an hourly basis to go through the spreadsheet and optimize any outstanding areas. He told us so far we’re doing everything right and gave us a few suggestions for drawdown strategies that were helpful, but was very frank in saying that the incremental help he could give us wouldn’t be worth the $ for us. His perspective was that if we signed up, we would get a decent amount out of it in the first year and then not much value add after that.

 

[Markola]

I like the fact that I can't get my money. I don't do many transactions, 1 or 2 a year to fill the "cash bucket".

I literally can't get my money. I call the broker and he does the do and the dough is in my checking account in a couple days.

But if I can't get my own dough, I don't think any hackers will either -

+100. Vanguard has voice verification, 2 Factor Authentication, passwords, security questions, and yada yada, and I am in favor of all of it.

 

[jayanu]

Move your money to Fidelity... we get free advice/reviews from the local office VP/CFP. We schedule appointments on her calendar and meet her in the office. She also has another CFP on her team who helps us with transfers etc. We were also surprised with a nice cash transfer bonus for each of us, based on size of the transfers.

My experience with Fidelity is the same. I have never been suggested to move all the funds to Fidelity.

A friend who has had all the money with Morgan Stanley for 50 years but was not ever suggested by his FA at MS to do Monte Carlo simulations. So he opened an account with Fidelity online with Zero funds in it and FIdelity did complete the Monte Carlo simulation using eMoney. The only thing he suggested is that for people with more than $10 M (which this friend had) Fidelity offers a highly individualized service of various experts and not just CFP.

MS did an Estate Planning session and the first thing they said was that the friend did not need any EP since his total assets were less than $22M. When I pressed MS for the tax issues with the State Inheritance tax he was told to move out of the state! FIdelity on the other side showed how to use some trust as a shelter and insurance etc. to minimize the tax impact.

For one year in 2019, Fidelity hired a lot of new folks and there was some drop-off in the service but it was corrected soon. With new tax laws changes coming up Fidelity is shaping up their charitable offerings.

 

[ERObjd]

I have only been with Vanguard about a year as we recently are finally able to invest at over age 60. Have vanguard balanced vbiax and star fund. about 8k in vbiax and 2 k in Star fund .glad to finally be in the 10k club.. 15 k is next goal.

These are taxable accounts because I have no earned income only Army retire pay and disable veteran pay.so we cannot have IRA.

Anyway not pleased with the way vanguard CEO and uper management has treated it's long time employees and retiree by cutting their medical benefits. CEO had to reverse that decision,but the Trust has been lost. If vanguard treats their own retirees like that that creates distrust among some investors as well and wife and I are in that camp. Mr. John Bogle would not be pleased with the way vanguard did this to it's retirees. I dont trust vanguard as much as I once did. Looking to have Fidelity do a broker to broker transfer of these 2 vanguard funds to fidelity zero fee total stock market fund fzrox.

 

[SecondAttempt]

I'd add Schwab to that list -- pretty much the same.

And .. at the bottom they are businesses. They need to sell products and services to make an annual profit. Even VG needs retained profits to pay for new things. Hence, they are certainly going to try to sell products and services to their highest potential clients; their current base. No harm, no foul, IMO.

Before I knew better I used a well-known full service broker (this was over 25 years ago). The irony is that our broker gave us the kind of advice people are talking about here. Yes, they recommended we move everything to their firm. But they did not recommend selling anything because of the tax consequences.

All-in-all I think things are better now for moderately savvy individual investors, and fees are generally lower. But the advice back then from honorable brokers might have arguably been better.