Has Vanguard Lost its way?

I tend to get the rep who takes my short, to-the-point emailed question about a process on the web site, and types a long, no-paragraph-breaks response that boils down to "Here is how you do it on the web site."

This is service at the Flagship level.

Sometimes I think they are all bots.

Major Tom said:
I called VG yesterday, to inquire about a small discrepancy in the dollar value of about 25K of VTIAX that I sold. The actual dollar amount of the transaction was being reported as 2 separate figures in different parts of the site, with about a $91 difference between the two figures. The rep who I spoke with sounded distant and echoey, as if he was on a speakerphone in a large room, on his own. I mentioned it, and he said that he was wearing a headset, which I highly doubt. His manner was very casual. He didn't know why there was a discrepancy between the two figures as reported on the site. His only advice was to wait a few days. I also asked him about *Vanguard Voyager Services. I was under the impression that you need a million in Vanguard assets to have access to those services. He didn't know. I also asked him, if that was the case, what would happen if my assets went under the million mark. Did they take an average throughout the year, or was access to Voyager Services cut off the moment my VG assets went under a million? He didn't know the answer, but guessed that "they probably give you some slack". Seriously - that was his answer. He also said that (and I'm paraphrasing here), "They probably have some procedure that they follow".

The whole interaction was deeply unimpressive. He sounded like some middle-aged stoner who was still living in his parent's basement - and working from there.

I've been with Vanguard for something like 15 years (don't remember exactly how long). I'll probably stay with them, though I hope the customer service doesn't decline any more. Perhaps I was unlucky to get the one feller who didn't pay attention during his training. I sure hope so. On the plus side, their website is tastefully pretty, and the home page has pictures of nice-looking seniors who are quite radiant, and appear to be enjoying their lives. Who needs professional customer service when you've got nice stock photos to look at?


*For the record, I am not bothered about the supposed added value of Vanguard Voyager Services. I was just curious.
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You have to have over $5m in VG funds or ETFs to make a difference these days, it seems. Big money. I don't know what they call it now.
 
I have no issues with Vanguard. I've been with them for at least 20, maybe 25 years.

I seldom call them because I can do whatever I need to online, I even learned how to buy treasuries this year. That said, this year I probably called them 10X more than any other year. Between RMDs and taxes withheld (1st year doing an RMD) and rolling over my 401k to Fidelity then to Vanguard, I have had lots of phone conversations about how to proceed but always did these things online myself. The people I have spoken with have been knowledgeable and helpful.

They did make an absolute mess of their website but at this stage of the game I seldom look at other mutual funds other than what I own and mostly just check to see the 7 day SEC yield on the Settlement Fund.

I think Vanguard is great. I suspect Fidelity is also great. I find it surprising so many people have so much trouble when I just don't. :confused:
 
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Sunset said:
Yes, it's great that Vanguard pays high interest on the cash in the settlement fund.

I have some $$ at another brokerage, and those cheapee's don't pay anything on my cash
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Doesn't Fidelity have a premium MM fund that has a slightly higher yield? I was tempted to leave my rolled over 401k in that fund but then I'd have investments at Fidelity when I wanted it all at Vanguard.
 
W2R said:
+1
Love Vanguard, love their funds, love the way they leave me alone.
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Have to admit that Fidelity does seem 'pushier' in my limited dealings with them. But it's easy enough to just ignore.
 
To me it's all the same. If a person doesn't bother to read and think about what I wrote, but instead selects the nearest boilerplate response that doesn't actually answer my question, how are they different from a fairly dumb bot?

pdxgal said:
Even if the CS reps are humans, the CRM systems they use have boilerplate replies the reps select to cut down on typing. Kinda makes sense, but now they're hybrid bots.
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Over $5M is Flagship Select, I think. I'm just plain old Flagship.

JoeWras said:
You have to have over $5m in VG funds or ETFs to make a difference these days, it seems. Big money. I don't know what they call it now.
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Vanguard was 36% of my stash a year ago, now it is 0%. For DM it was 100% a year ago and is now 15% but will be 0% sometime soon. Good riddance. Bad service drove us away.
 
If you go active, Vanguard leaves a sour taste pretty quickly. They charge +50% more than Schwab or Fidelity on options commissions, and they restrict which ETFs you can buy. You cannot buy "ProShares Short S&P500" which is -1x the S&P 500. But if you want 10x leveraged options on a Bitcoin ETF that expires in two weeks? That's fine.

IBKR has the best margin rates (5.83% under 100k), and Schwab allows customers to negotiate lower rates. But I've heard from others Vanguard won't negotiate margin rates, even though they charge over 12% for loans under $50k.

The biggest shock for me was realizing Schwab and Fidelity both introduced $0 per stock & ETF trades first, and Vanguard only followed later. This isn't the Vanguard I've known since the 1990s.
 
And we're cut loose and adrift?
 
Sunset said:
Where did you go ?
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Schwab. There are things I like and dislike about Schwab.

The thing I like is I have a couple phone numbers for my rep who splits her time between two different offices and when I call those numbers she actually answers the phone. I have another rep, they work as a team, who is more experienced... when I call him he usually doesn't answer the phone but if I leave a message he'll call me back within the day.

The thing I dislike about Schwab is their settlement account is a pathetic 0.4% yield, so I have to keep transferring money back and forth between the settlement account, the ~4% money market account in order to get a decent yield on my dry powder. The good thing is that I can make a trade even if my settlement account has very little money in it and the settlement account will have a negative balance and then I can hop over and sell some money market fun to cover the trade. So for new issue bonds that don't settle for a few weeks, I leave the money in the money market fund until a day or so before those new issue bonds will settle.
 
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I like Vanguard, but only because I do stuff that does NOT require calling customer service. Agree the website has too much wasted space. And just buying a CD takes a lot of figuring out what they really mean with their ambiguous and inconsistent information. But I like it for what I do, which is just buy CDs. It took me a few weeks to figure the process out, however. Couldn't have done it without help from nice folks here on ER.org.
 
GravitySucks said:
How do you explain SnoopDog having eight jobs If middle aged stoners are so lazy?
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Maybe I'm stoned? Late middle age. I don't even remember the context or my reply. Far out, man! [emoji2957]
 
target2019 said:
Vanguard's logo was the HMS Vanguard (https://1000logos.net/vanguard-logo/). Now it is just the same red letters on a white background. No imagination whatsoever.
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The logo should be a ship sitting at the bottom of the sea.

I tried to add a bank to my transitioned account. "Something went wrong
A system error prevented your information from submitting. Please try again later." Three browsers, all fail. This is similar to not being able to get access to spouse's accounts on my front page. The company is an utter dissaster...
 
Just another opinion

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.
 
You may have to pick up and tell them not to contact you anymore. I had to do so with both Vanguard and Fidelity and both have honored my request.

Of course with Fidelity that put me on the "Do not give Joe the free TurboTax" list. Oh well. No big deal.
 
JoeWras said:
You may have to pick up and tell them not to contact you anymore. I had to do so with both Vanguard and Fidelity and both have honored my request.

Of course with Fidelity that put me on the "Do not give Joe the free TurboTax" list. Oh well. No big deal.
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I agree. I wouldn’t be too unhappy unless they persist. If they were smart, they’d turn this bug into a feature by letting the client specify in their profile how often to be contacted if at all. Fidelity calls me occasionally out of the blue and it gets awkward because it’s clear they are just following some mandated procedure.
 
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