TreasuryDirect Painfully Slow

[Ian S]

Just a heads up to anyone thinking of using TreasuryDirect to convert paper Savings Bonds into digital entries. I sent in ten bonds in late August and they only now have been added to my account there. I had checked back in September and got a reply that conversion takes about 12 weeks. I had sent them certified mail and so was able to check when they were received. Interestingly, they were forwarded from the address I was instructed to send them to someplace in another state.

It only takes minutes to cash a Savings Bond at a bank; it shouldn't take 11 weeks at TreasuryDirect.

 

[easysurfer]

I went through a similar thing sending in 48 bonds for conversion. I had sent them in priority mail and saw the tracking showing address forwarding then finally the bonds showing up as converted. My first bond doesn't mature until June of 2016. Glad I gave plenty of time in between converting and redeeming.

 

[Dash man]

This must be a new issue because it only took about two weeks when I sent in my paper bonds about 5 or 6 years ago.


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[JoeWras]

I wonder if it is a start up issue? I remember the first stack of bonds I sent took a while, more like a month, not three. This was about 8 years ago. They had to set up the linked account along with the original conversions.

Last summer I found a dusty old bond I forgot about and sent it in. It was converted (actually automatically cashed since it matured) in 2 weeks.

 

[Rosie]

Wow, what a timely thread, yesterday I prepared the paperwork to convert my paper I-bonds.

I wasn't able to get to the post office today so I won't mail them until Monday (I'll be sending them via priority mail as well).

But it looks like a few days won't make much difference in the long run.

 

[harley]

That's nothing. When my Mom died she left a bequest to the Army Quartermaster School in memory of her deceased husband. I contacted them about it in March, and they still haven't told me where to send the check. Luckily they deploy faster than they do paperwork.

 

[ziggy29]

I sent some in via certified mail on October 30. They were forwarded from the West Virginia address indicated on the manifest on November 6. No activity since.

 

[JoeWras]

Wow, what a timely thread, yesterday I prepared the paperwork to convert my paper I-bonds.

I wasn't able to get to the post office today so I won't mail them until Monday (I'll be sending them via priority mail as well).

But it looks like a few days won't make much difference in the long run.

Well, that was my feeling. I mean, if you need the cash RIGHT NOW, don't do it. Otherwise, it is a nice system.

Since I've converted, I'm very happy. They are in the system at great rates and when they mature, they'll cash them out. I'm OK with that. I know the dates and I'm ready for the maturity income. It is much better than having them lost in some folder somewhere. And as I mentioned, I actually found an old one I got for a birthday way back when... Better to have them in the system than collecting dust somewhere obscure.

 

[Dash man]

That's nothing. When my Mom died she left a bequest to the Army Quartermaster School in memory of her deceased husband. I contacted them about it in March, and they still haven't told me where to send the check. Luckily they deploy faster than they do paperwork.

Back around 1990 a rancher tried to leave a piece of ground used as a drop zone for training to our unit. At the time we found the law said land can only be left to the Federal government, not a specific unit. Of course that meant there was no guarantee that unit would be allowed to continue using it for their training. I think the end result was the land was put in a trust with enough money to pay the taxes for a long period of time. Lesson learned was don't ever leave anything to the government.


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[ziggy29]

Well, that was my feeling. I mean, if you need the cash RIGHT NOW, don't do it. Otherwise, it is a nice system.

Since I've converted, I'm very happy. They are in the system at great rates and when they mature, they'll cash them out. I'm OK with that. I know the dates and I'm ready for the maturity income. It is much better than having them lost in some folder somewhere. And as I mentioned, I actually found an old one I got for a birthday way back when... Better to have them in the system than collecting dust somewhere obscure.

I agree. I'd just feel a lot better if I'd finally see the "delivered" on the tracking status of the certified mail I used to send them in. It's been 8 days since the forward from Parkersburg, WV to what is apparently the new address in Minnesota (the manifest still says to send to Parkersburg), and no updates at all.

If I at least knew they received the bonds I'd feel a little better about this. I know I can replace them if they are lost but I don't want to deal with the hassle and the paperwork and getting them notarized or whatever the hell you have to do at a bank to get them replaced. I'm in no hurry, I just want to know there won't be an additional hassle factor. These are I-bonds issued in 2000 with a 3.4% fixed rate, so there's no way in hell I'll be redeeming them early.

 

[Ian S]

I agree. I'd just feel a lot better if I'd finally see the "delivered" on the tracking status of the certified mail I used to send them in. It's been 8 days since the forward from Parkersburg, WV to what is apparently the new address in Minnesota (the manifest still says to send to Parkersburg), and no updates at all.

If I at least knew they received the bonds I'd feel a little better about this. I know I can replace them if they are lost but I don't want to deal with the hassle and the paperwork and getting them notarized or whatever the hell you have to do at a bank to get them replaced. I'm in no hurry, I just want to know there won't be an additional hassle factor. These are I-bonds issued in 2000 with a 3.4% fixed rate, so there's no way in hell I'll be redeeming them early.

It took mine 8 days from when it was forwarded to when it was delivered in Minnesota. When I inquired several weeks later they responded with the 12 week timeframe. Mine finally were in my account at the 11 week mark.

 

[easysurfer]

I'm going from memory, but I say the timeframe took about 3 weeks from when I first sent the bonds in, to them forwarded to Minnesota to finally showing up as converted on Treasury Direct.

 

[easysurfer]

Well, that was my feeling. I mean, if you need the cash RIGHT NOW, don't do it. Otherwise, it is a nice system.

Since I've converted, I'm very happy. They are in the system at great rates and when they mature, they'll cash them out. I'm OK with that. I know the dates and I'm ready for the maturity income. It is much better than having them lost in some folder somewhere. And as I mentioned, I actually found an old one I got for a birthday way back when... Better to have them in the system than collecting dust somewhere obscure.

When the bonds mature, are they automatically cashed for you? Or do you have to sign in and indicate you wish a redemption?

 

[JoeWras]

I agree. I'd just feel a lot better if I'd finally see the "delivered" on the tracking status of the certified mail I used to send them in. It's been 8 days since the forward from Parkersburg, WV to what is apparently the new address in Minnesota (the manifest still says to send to Parkersburg), and no updates at all.
.

Hang in there, Ziggy. I've had "Two Day Express"** mail take 10 days. So you are fighting two government entities: the USPS and the Treasury.

When the bonds mature, are they automatically cashed for you? Or do you have to sign in and indicate you wish a redemption?

Automatic. If it reaches maturity, they cash it out and deposit it in your zero percent CI account.

** - Turns out that "Two Day Express" mail is a marketing term and means nothing. You get tracking, that's it. If you REALLY need two days, you want "Two Day Priority Mail". It is all there in the fine print. The USPS drives me crazy.

 

[easysurfer]

Nice. I like the automatic CI account deposit. One less thing to think about. Thanks.

 

[ziggy29]

Automatic. If it reaches maturity, they cash it out and deposit it in your zero percent CI account.

Which you could then transfer into a linked bank account if you so desire. (You could also do that any time before maturity if the bonds are mature enough to be redeemed, but as I said before, there's no way I'm redeeming mine early with the sweetheart deal we got in 2000.)

 

[Rosie]

Well. I mailed my I-bonds via Priority Mail 3-Day to Parkersburg WVa on Nov 17. I've been checking the tracking number from time to time and this is what I found.

As promised, the envelope arrived in Parkersburg WVa on Nov. 20. At which point, as others have seen, its travels came to a screeching halt, showing a "forwarding or wrong zip code(?!?)" status message. O-kay.

That message remained until today, Dec. 3, at which point it shows it arrived in Minneapolis. Um, yay.

I'm in no hurry at all to cash them in so it's more amusing than aggravating. I'm just glad to see they still exist!

 

[Ian S]

O.P. here. I got an email the other day telling me that one of my old bonds had matured (has it really been thirty years?!!) Anyway, I logged into my account and had the proceeds transferred to my Credit Union account. Pretty easy and convenient. I still think the website is a bit of a mess but I'll probably send the rest of my bonds off in the near future for the convenience of redemption.

 

[Rosie]

My I-bond conversion saga continues ...

To recap, on Nov 17 I mailed the package via Priority Mail to Parkersburg WV, where they arrived on Nov 20. Then it was forwarded, via donkey train or whatever, and arrived in Minneapolis on Dec 3. Then, it was forwarded to St. Paul (huh?) and then bounced back to Minneapolis, where it came to rest on Dec 7.

The most recent tracking entry shows
"STATUS: sorting completed. All sorting has been completed at the delivery unit for today's deliveries at 6:23 am on December 7, 2015 in MINNEAPOLIS, MN 55401."
It didn't (and still doesn't) show Delivered, which made me wonder if it was stuck somewhere in the bowels of the post office.

So, yesterday (12/22), I logged on to Treasury Direct and saw no activity on my account. I clicked on "Contact Us" and used the contact form to ask them what gives.

To give them credit, they emailed me a response early this morning, confirming that my I-bonds were actually received on Dec 7 and assigned to an examiner for processing. Which was followed by a form paragraph with the usual "We are experiencing a higher volume of customer requested transactions. Please expect a 12 week delay from the receipt date in processing your request (... we apologize yadda yadda)".

Oh well. At least I know they're in the system.

 

[Rosie]

New address to mail paper bonds for conversion

FYI, TreasuryDirect has finally posted a Minneapolis address to mail paper bonds for conversion. At least paper bonds will now be spared the oh-so long, arduous journey from WV to MN.

When I logged on to TreasuryDirect yesterday, I spied a notice box in the lower-right corner of the home screen, which I'm pretty certain wasn't there when I mailed my bonds last month:

----------------

INFO DIRECT

BOND CONVERSIONS

When converting bonds, send your signed Manifest and bonds to the address below rather than the address shown on the Manifest:

Treasury Retail Securities Site, PO Box 7015, Minneapolis MN 55480-7015.

For Fed Ex or UPS mail to:
FRB Minneapolis,
90 Hennepin Ave,
Minneapolis MN 55401

----------------

That should speed things up. A little.

 

[Rosie]

Oh for cryin' out loud.

I emailed Treasury Direct to ask about the status of my I-bonds conversion.

Here is the response I received:

Hi,

Thank you for contacting Treasury Retail Securities. Please know that we are experiencing unusual delays averaging 15 to 20 weeks from the date we originally received your materials. We apologize for the delay.

Treasury Services

Up from 12 weeks, now it's 15-20 weeks?!? WTH?!?

 

[Rosie]

Well well well.

I just logged into my Treasury Direct account, and lo & behold, my I-bonds are listed in the conversion account.

TD was supposed to email me when my bonds were converted, but of course that never happened. Eh, whatever, they're there now.

To recap:

I mailed the bonds plus the signed manifest to Parkersburg WV on Nov 17, they arrived in WV on Nov 20, at which point they were forwarded to Minneapolis (via rickshaw?) where they arrived on Dec 7. Then between Dec 7 and mid-Feb they languished in some bureaucratic black hole.

All told, converting my I-bonds from paper to electronic form took about 13 weeks.

... oh, wait, I may have spoken too soon. Their status is listed as "Restricted Securities". I guess that means they're still in the black hole, but at least they exist.

They won't mature for another dozen years or so, hopefully the process will be completed by then.

 

[Radicalfil]

Well this is all so familiar. I wish I was following this thread when Jan 25 I decided to place my Ibonds in the custody of the USPS via certified mail. Arrived in Parkersburg W.V. PO on Jan 28 the forwarded and on Feb 6 returned to Parkersburg. Then sat for 7 days and off again onto a forwarded address and finally to Minneapolis on Fed. 13. In 23 days I could of drove them there several times. The pisser was when I printed the manifest that stated Parkersburg, but when I went back to the TreasuryDirect website it showed an address of Minneapolis,WTF! I tried to find out what happened to my shipment at the USPS and all I got "it don't work like that at the P/O", "but Mister Postman I got a tracking number". So my guess is that I should not expect to see any acknowledgement for TREASURYDIRECT until early May. The way I see it this is like double jeopardy when you send document through the USPS to the US Treasury. It is simply a miracle if anything get done with our current governmental systems. I sent a package to Vanguard and it arrived on time with a receiving signature and the financial matter completed within 48 hours as a comparison. Whew! I thought I was the only one this happened to and now I know I am in good company.

 

[easysurfer]

The 13 weeks sounds about right . That's about how long the escaping the black hole took for me when I sent in my EE bonds for conversion. My theory is the re-routing from WV to MN is on purpose as a stall tactic .

 

[powerplay]

These stories are not comforting. I have some bonds that mature in October so I do need to get an account set up with TD. Perhaps I better do it soon so hopefully it will be ready when the bonds mature. I wonder if any banks or credit unions still redeem bonds?