I always thought Vanguard was a great company. It's low fees and clean image made it the logical choice for investing, so when I decided to roll over some 401Ks and consolidate them into one retiement account, I immediately gave them a call.
I won't even go into the hassle it was to transfer the funds. Leave it to say that the account rep was caught lying (good thing they record conversations) and it got a bit ugly. The free financial plan they provided me with had my money invested ultra concervative in some areas, and risky as a Vegas roulette wheel in others. I tore it up.
Most recently, however, I've been put through incredible acrobatics just to get my beneficiaries in order. Essentially, it's all going into a trust. That sounds simple enough. Hey, I worked out the details with my lawyer and I'm satisfied that the provisions of the trust will assure that everyone I need to care of will be taken care of. The problem was getting Vanguard to list the trust as the beneficiary of my accounts.
Now I'm sure I'm not Vanguard's only client with a trust beneficiary, but you would certainly think I was if you knew what I've been through. Phone calls, followed by two sets of duplicated paperwork followed by an estimated ten e-mails and phone calls have failed to correct the problem.
A rather incompetent, young (sounding) man, called me three times to
1.) Complain about his low wages and
2.) Suggest that he's fixing the problem even as we speak on the phone. So far, he hasn't gotten it right yet.
Now I'm not quite ready to check out of this world, but hey, this is important to me - and you never know what can happen. I explained the situation to this guy - via telelphone calls and e-mails- but he still failed to comprehend what I wanted, - i.e. list the trust as beneficiary on all of my accounts- even though I filled out the Vanguard forms correctly
I realize that my experience might be the exception. Vanguard does have an excellent reputation - but it should still serve as a reminder that even very good companies can go very bad on a case-by-case basis.
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