Another Vanguard problem

[Texas Proud]

Well, I just got an email from Vanguard stating they are going to start charging a fee of $25 PER ACCOUNT... exceptions below...


I do not have $5 mill, so they are forcing me to either go paperless or move my money... I will choose the later on most of my accounts... heck, already moved some to Schwab...

• Clients who've elected e-delivery of statements and the annual privacy policy notice; confirmations; reports, prospectuses, and proxy materials; and notices, amendments, and other important account updates.
• Clients enrolled in an advisory program serviced by an affiliate of Vanguard (e.g., Vanguard Digital Advisor, Vanguard Personal Advisor).
• Clients with at least $5 million in qualifying Vanguard assets.
• Clients who have an organization or a trust account registered under an employee identification number (EIN).

 

[RunningBum]

Problem? I'd say it's a good solution to try to keep costs low. If you want statements and such mailed to you, you should pay for it yourself, not have the cost shared by others. $25 probably doesn't completely cover it if you're having everything mailed.

 

[Piper20]

The only paper I receive is the consolidated tax statement. If they charge $25 I’ll be moving to FIDO. The email doesn’t mention tax docs.

 

[disneysteve]

I’ve been meaning to give up paper statements from
vanguard. This will push me to finally do it. The amount of paper I get from them is really awful. Kudos to vanguard for doing this.

 

[jazz4cash]

One man’s poison is another’s pleasure.

 

[easysurfer]

Guess VG doesn't want those low life $1Millon accounts pawning off of everybody else .

 

[Sunset]

I try really hard to not get paper statements.
Too easy to have them stolen.
Too much paper to store over the years.

I don't get CC statements, bank statement, brokerage statement, etc... my mailbox is clean

 

[Whisper66]

We moved to electronic a couple years ago. Now I much prefer it. I typically download what I want to store long term and no longer need boxes of paper for my records.

 

[Walt34]

I like getting the paper statements. Downloaded ones would be okay, but if/when I pass, how would heirs know that I even had an account? And DW is not all that great with online banking and such, I'm not going to make things more difficult for her at an otherwise very stressful time.

And as far as the cost of mailing them goes, not too long ago there were no objections to that and now they want to change the rules in the middle of the game. I find that offensive.

 

[disneysteve]

I like getting the paper statements. Downloaded ones would be okay, but if/when I pass, how would heirs know that I even had an account?

I maintain a master list of all of our accounts, account numbers, passwords for online access, contact phone numbers, etc. A hard copy of the list is in our lock box with other important papers.

 

[NomDeER]

The only paper I receive is the consolidated tax statement. If they charge $25 I’ll be moving to FIDO. The email doesn’t mention tax docs.

You would go through the hassles of moving everything to FIDO just so that you don't have to click on the website's consolidated tax statement to get it and then print it yourself if you want a hard copy? I have issues with Vanguard's website, but access to my tax statements is not one of them. It's very easy. And Turbotax imports the information anyway without me having to personally input each piece of information from my tax statements.

If FIDO hasn't adopted a paperless policy yet, I would think that they will eventually. More and more companies are charging if you don't go paperless.

Guess VG doesn't want those low life $1Millon accounts pawning off of everybody else .

I'm someone with one of those lowlife $1 million accounts, and I am happy to see Vanguard do this. It not only saves paper, but saves processing and mailing costs. People who want paper mailed to them are getting an extra service that paperless customers (including the lowlife paperless customers) don't get. I don't see the problem with requiring them to pay for it themselves rather than passing on those costs to lowlifes like me.

 

[Al18]

Fidelity made paperless the default more than 5 years ago. You can still get documents mailed from Fidelity at no charge. You’ll get a reminder to switch to paperless every 2 months.

 

[RunningBum]

I like getting the paper statements. Downloaded ones would be okay, but if/when I pass, how would heirs know that I even had an account? And DW is not all that great with online banking and such, I'm not going to make things more difficult for her at an otherwise very stressful time.

And as far as the cost of mailing them goes, not too long ago there were no objections to that and now they want to change the rules in the middle of the game. I find that offensive.

You want to go back to the way things were when you started with Vanguard, with no rule changes? Probably no online transfers, so you have to mail checks to invest and get mailed checks to get withdrawals. No online access at all if you started long enough ago. More transaction fees. If you hadn't noticed VG fund expenses have mostly gone down over the years, haven't they? But let's keep them high because that would be changing the rules.

And this change you find offensive?

If this is really the magic that makes things all good for your heirs, $25 doesn't seem like much to do that. But I'm sure there are other ways.

I'm trying not to overwhelm my son or whoever has to deal with my estate with a mountain of papers, much of it out of date but how can they tell? So I have one document with all of my accounts and acct #s and web address or phone # to contact them to get things settled.

 

[jazz4cash]

The cost to mail paper statements is tiny. It's all the other mailings that get expensive and cumbersome. I like the electronic document option for both VG and Fidelity but they really should offer an option to receive a quarterly statement by mail. DW will probably struggle to access my many accounts even if I leave detailed instructions.

 

[Whisper66]

…,.., Downloaded ones would be okay, but if/when I pass, how would heirs know that I even had an account? And DW is not all that great with online banking and such, I'm not going to make things more difficult for her at an otherwise very stressful time.

Good points for folks to consider. My DW is
fine with online banking. For heirs, I have an estate book for our executor which includes a summary spreadsheet showing all our account, a hard copy of the end of year statement for each account, and contact info for our financial and legal contacts.

 

[Gulfbeach]

I did the same this week. They were getting harder and harder to deal with until it was really aggravating!

 

[MRG]

The cost to mail paper statements is tiny. It's all the other mailings that get expensive and cumbersome. I like the electronic document option for both VG and Fidelity but they really should offer an option to receive a quarterly statement by mail. DW will probably struggle to access my many accounts even if I leave detailed instructions.

Tiny * 30,000,000 is a really big number.

Actually my job requisition was approved to work on a project that combined checks when you had multiple accounts for another vendor in financial services. I was cheaper than postage.

 

[swakyaby]

I asked a Vanguard Flagship representative this very question 2 hours ago after she assisted me consolidating a Sep-IRA account. I asked her if my brokerage accounts would be individually charged $25 because I don’t have $5M invested with Vanguard? She took 30 seconds to look over my accounts, then said yes, I would be charged, and it would take place in October. She added that changing to electronic delivery would waive the fees. I said I really like receiving my quarterly statements in the mail, and the tax documents. She said that those don’t count, but the confirmations and prospectuses, etc, would need to be e-delivery. When I said I already receive those electronically, she spent another minute looking over my account. She then said that I would not be charged the fees. I thanked her and hung up, but I’m not entirely sure she knew herself. She seemed rather green, and I was surprised she was a Flagship representative.

 

[swakyaby]

This is probably a bit off-topic, but I asked a Fidelity representative if I could receive everything by e-delivery except for a mailed end-of-year statement, and mailed tax documents. He said that while tax documents could be mailed, there was no way to automatically mail an end-of-year statement. I must call and request it.

 

[Sunset]

.....
I'm trying not to overwhelm my son or whoever has to deal with my estate with a mountain of papers, much of it out of date but how can they tell? So I have one document with all of my accounts and acct #s and web address or phone # to contact them to get things settled.

+1
We have many many BOXES of papers from FIL stacked in a corner of a room we don't use. He kept all the papers.
This is after throwing out a huge pile of paper that is older than 7 years...

Of course we had to shred every frigging page, I would have a stack and shred them until the machines got too hot. We have 3 shredders

It's very confusing when people keep outdated papers around, and if a person is not shredding and throwing them away because it's too hard. Realize it will be harder for the the heirs, as they don't know off the top of their head "that account is closed/transferred" etc...

 

[easysurfer]

You would go through the hassles of moving everything to FIDO just so that you don't have to click on the website's consolidated tax statement to get it and then print it yourself if you want a hard copy? I have issues with Vanguard's website, but access to my tax statements is not one of them. It's very easy. And Turbotax imports the information anyway without me having to personally input each piece of information from my tax statements.

If FIDO hasn't adopted a paperless policy yet, I would think that they will eventually. More and more companies are charging if you don't go paperless.



I'm someone with one of those lowlife $1 million accounts, and I am happy to see Vanguard do this. It not only saves paper, but saves processing and mailing costs. People who want paper mailed to them are getting an extra service that paperless customers (including the lowlife paperless customers) don't get. I don't see the problem with requiring them to pay for it themselves rather than passing on those costs to lowlifes like me.

Instead of the my favorite burger place analogy in the thread about moving to brokerage instead of mutual fund only, the analogy (sticking to a restaurant) is like if you go to a favorite place and when you get a doggy bag you get charged for the plastic bag and carton. Do you feel, that's a good thing for the betterment of the restaurant you patronize or do you feel a bit nickel and dimed?

 

[RetMD21]

It's very confusing when people keep outdated papers around, and if a person is not shredding and throwing them away because it's too hard. Realize it will be harder for the the heirs, as they don't know off the top of their head "that account is closed/transferred" etc...

Looking for nonexistent accounts after someone passes is a pain in the neck

 

[disneysteve]

After my cousin died in 2021, I paid to have 10 cartons of paper shredded. He had EVERY statement and mailing and prospectus he had ever gotten for all of his accounts. It was nuts. I keep the current year and get rid of them in January and that’s it.

 

[Graybeard]

I didn't want to go paperless but the real possibility of my trust, IRA or Roth statements being delivered to the wrong address or stolen from my mailbox down by the road was a strong incentive to go paperless for everything. I print my statements and tax documents, much safer.

The odd thing is that they mail me the annual, semi annual and SAI documents for my trust account only.

Keeping costs low for us is good and for those that want to keep things as they were in 1995 then they should pay extra for that.

 

[Koolau]

Problem? I'd say it's a good solution to try to keep costs low. If you want statements and such mailed to you, you should pay for it yourself, not have the cost shared by others. $25 probably doesn't completely cover it if you're having everything mailed.

Every OTHER MF company I've ever used charged either $20 or $25/year per account. They didn't even mention "why." It was just their policy. I'm talking 20+ years ago 'til now.

I guess if Vanguard finally says "Hey, we gotta do that too" it doesn't surprise me though I'm not happy about it. BUT, I'm not gonna move my accounts over it. I save so much on fees that $25/year is trivial. (I will complain to them, however!) YMMV