Vanguard glitching so Fidelity has a new customer

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jebmke
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Re: Vanguard glitching so Fidelity has a new customer

Post by jebmke »

LadyGeek wrote: Fri Sep 24, 2021 9:07 am jebmke wrote: ↑Thu Sep 23, 2021 9:21 am
The forum is filled with VG complaint threads so you are not alone.

Perhaps they could all be consolidated into the mother of all VG complaint threads.

Sorry, but it's simply too difficult and confusing to do so.
Not surprised. Some of them are "I am trying to do xzz and I can't seem to get it done." and others are pure whine/rants. Would be hard to filter them all out.
Don't trust me, look it up. https://www.irs.gov/forms-instructions-and-publications
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Cheez-It Guy
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Re: Vanguard glitching so Fidelity has a new customer

Post by Cheez-It Guy »

SmileyFace wrote: Fri Sep 24, 2021 8:32 am
ruralavalon wrote: Fri Sep 24, 2021 8:27 am
SmileyFace wrote: Fri Sep 24, 2021 8:18 am
student wrote: Fri Sep 24, 2021 8:05 am
ruralavalon wrote: Fri Sep 24, 2021 7:36 am Vanguard is not the only fund firm "glitching", Fidelity website down?
Not too bad, OP reported it was fixed within two hours. Personally, I did not have major issues with Vanguard. The main reason that I moved away was they do not have 24 hours customer service. Getting rid of secure messaging doesn't help.
People were reporting it back up in 30 minutes. And at least during this after hours outage the OP had the option of picking up the phone and calling Fidelity. You can't say the same for Vanguard.
These glitches get fixed pretty fast, are inconvenient but not a big deal it seems.

Whenever I see a post saying there is some problem with the Vanguard website or app I login to check, and there is no problem.

Perhaps there was a problem that got fixed by the time got there, or perhaps there was no problem in first place. I don't know. This hasn't inconvenienced me one bit.
Someone here (can't find the post) reported seeing a $0 balance in their Vanguard accounts over an entire weekend - life savings seemingly gone. Since Vanguard support shuts the lights out for the weekend they had to wait until Monday morning business hours to call Vanguard and get the problem worked on. It's comforting to know that the holder of my lifetime savings will be around to answer my call on a weekend if there is a weekend long glitch or problem with my account.
Oh, really?

https://www.consumeraffairs.com/news/fi ... 22020.html

"Could you imagine if you went to bed last night with $1,000,000+ in your Fidelity accounts and woke up this morning to a total account balance of $0.00 with all Fidelity customer support methods down?" Adam Tutusko wrote in a Twitter posting. "So scary!"
student
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Re: Vanguard glitching so Fidelity has a new customer

Post by student »

SmileyFace wrote: Fri Sep 24, 2021 8:32 am
ruralavalon wrote: Fri Sep 24, 2021 8:27 am
SmileyFace wrote: Fri Sep 24, 2021 8:18 am
student wrote: Fri Sep 24, 2021 8:05 am
ruralavalon wrote: Fri Sep 24, 2021 7:36 am Vanguard is not the only fund firm "glitching", Fidelity website down?
Not too bad, OP reported it was fixed within two hours. Personally, I did not have major issues with Vanguard. The main reason that I moved away was they do not have 24 hours customer service. Getting rid of secure messaging doesn't help.
People were reporting it back up in 30 minutes. And at least during this after hours outage the OP had the option of picking up the phone and calling Fidelity. You can't say the same for Vanguard.
These glitches get fixed pretty fast, are inconvenient but not a big deal it seems.

Whenever I see a post saying there is some problem with the Vanguard website or app I login to check, and there is no problem.

Perhaps there was a problem that got fixed by the time got there, or perhaps there was no problem in first place. I don't know. This hasn't inconvenienced me one bit.
Someone here (can't find the post) reported seeing a $0 balance in their Vanguard accounts over an entire weekend - life savings seemingly gone. Since Vanguard support shuts the lights out for the weekend they had to wait until Monday morning business hours to call Vanguard and get the problem worked on. It's comforting to know that the holder of my lifetime savings will be around to answer my call on a weekend if there is a weekend long glitch or problem with my account.
Yes. If this happens, I guess one wants to know whether it is a glitch or fraud. So weekend support would be helpful.
student
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Re: Vanguard glitching so Fidelity has a new customer

Post by student »

Cheez-It Guy wrote: Fri Sep 24, 2021 10:12 am Oh, really?

https://www.consumeraffairs.com/news/fi ... 22020.html

"Could you imagine if you went to bed last night with $1,000,000+ in your Fidelity accounts and woke up this morning to a total account balance of $0.00 with all Fidelity customer support methods down?" Adam Tutusko wrote in a Twitter posting. "So scary!"
I remember this. The article mentioned that "Fidelity used Twitter to reassure many customers, although some posted complaints that the company could have responded a lot sooner." I wonder how soon did Fidelity post it after the glitch. A big difference between 1 hour and 10 hours.
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Jimbo Moneybags
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Re: Vanguard glitching so Fidelity has a new customer

Post by Jimbo Moneybags »

bgvg wrote: Thu Sep 23, 2021 11:15 am If something like this happens, it wouldn’t hurt to let Vanguard know so they’re at least aware of it and can have someone look into fixing it.

Many people try and give up without reporting these kind of problems.

Maybe people just aren’t complaining enough directly to Vanguard.
This has been a problem with Vanguard's website for six weeks and they are well-aware of it...

viewtopic.php?p=6201559#p62015599
Cheez-It Guy wrote: Fri Sep 24, 2021 10:12 am
SmileyFace wrote: Fri Sep 24, 2021 8:32 am
ruralavalon wrote: Fri Sep 24, 2021 8:27 am
SmileyFace wrote: Fri Sep 24, 2021 8:18 am
student wrote: Fri Sep 24, 2021 8:05 am

Not too bad, OP reported it was fixed within two hours. Personally, I did not have major issues with Vanguard. The main reason that I moved away was they do not have 24 hours customer service. Getting rid of secure messaging doesn't help.
People were reporting it back up in 30 minutes. And at least during this after hours outage the OP had the option of picking up the phone and calling Fidelity. You can't say the same for Vanguard.
These glitches get fixed pretty fast, are inconvenient but not a big deal it seems.

Whenever I see a post saying there is some problem with the Vanguard website or app I login to check, and there is no problem.

Perhaps there was a problem that got fixed by the time got there, or perhaps there was no problem in first place. I don't know. This hasn't inconvenienced me one bit.
Someone here (can't find the post) reported seeing a $0 balance in their Vanguard accounts over an entire weekend - life savings seemingly gone. Since Vanguard support shuts the lights out for the weekend they had to wait until Monday morning business hours to call Vanguard and get the problem worked on. It's comforting to know that the holder of my lifetime savings will be around to answer my call on a weekend if there is a weekend long glitch or problem with my account.
Oh, really?

https://www.consumeraffairs.com/news/fi ... 22020.html

"Could you imagine if you went to bed last night with $1,000,000+ in your Fidelity accounts and woke up this morning to a total account balance of $0.00 with all Fidelity customer support methods down?" Adam Tutusko wrote in a Twitter posting. "So scary!"
Very creative editing of the last sentence in his tweet, which actually read "So scary! I have brokerage accounts at 20 different firms for this reason." :?

That person didn't report that anything actually happened to them and in fact they bragged that they had accounts at 20 firms to avoid those kinds of issues. That tweet was clearly a rhetorical comment not a report of a personal experience. Fake news.
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Cheez-It Guy
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Re: Vanguard glitching so Fidelity has a new customer

Post by Cheez-It Guy »

That's not editing. It's a misleading partial quotation.
Beehave
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Re: Vanguard glitching so Fidelity has a new customer

Post by Beehave »

I've experienced zero problems with Vanguard with all kinds of pre- and post tax accounts, with all kinds of regular and one-off contributions, and with several years of RMDs. My investments at Vanguard have vastly improved my financial security.

I've had no trouble with securing my accounts with Vanguard, whereas with Fidelity I've had my security information exposed in the address field of their mailing. I've received honest, customer-focused advice from Vanguard around the same time I received obfuscation and red-herring type logic from a Fidelity rep.

I do some business with Fidelity (I do not shun them and I do think they've improved considerably), but I have also withdrawn an account from Fidelity after bad experiences and placed the account with Vanguard from which I received excellent customer service.

I'm seeing several threads about the poor quality of what Vanguard provides, and since in this instance the OP asked for readers' experiences, I wish to reply that my experience is quite different than the OP's. There are three companies with which I do business important to me that I consider "go-to" and flat-out trustworthy, and Vanguard is one of them.
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HanSolo
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Re: Vanguard glitching so Fidelity has a new customer

Post by HanSolo »

jebmke wrote: Thu Sep 23, 2021 8:31 am
JoMoney wrote: Thu Sep 23, 2021 8:23 am but with some of the complaints I've been reading recently I'm not so sure that's the case any more.
Without knowing what the base rate is it is hard to tell. If VG has a lot more customers than in the past, even if their case-rate stays constant one would expect to see more complaints. Without aggregate data, there is no way to draw objective conclusions about whether things are better/worse or the same. I have no opinion one way or another because I have no data.
This forum includes customers of many brokerages and investment companies. We haven't seen a lot of posts like, "Fidelity/Schwab/etc. website wouldn't allow me to create an account, so I went with Vanguard." Actually, none at all.

If Vanguard broke their sign-up process, all they have to do is tell their IT staff to "get this fixed, like, yesterday, and if not, then revert to a working version, like, today."

Believe me... web design is not rocket science.
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bgvg
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Re: Vanguard glitching so Fidelity has a new customer

Post by bgvg »

Jimbo Moneybags wrote: Fri Sep 24, 2021 4:23 pm
bgvg wrote: Thu Sep 23, 2021 11:15 am If something like this happens, it wouldn’t hurt to let Vanguard know so they’re at least aware of it and can have someone look into fixing it.

Many people try and give up without reporting these kind of problems.

Maybe people just aren’t complaining enough directly to Vanguard.
This has been a problem with Vanguard's website for six weeks and they are well-aware of it...

viewtopic.php?p=6201559#p62015599

The poster noted that the website was “glitching” and that it “crashed.” I assumed he meant that the browser froze or quit on him, which would be rather strange, rather than giving him an error message from the Vanguard website. Maybe he used wrong terminology and meant that it gave him an error like it was mentioned in the linked thread.

Microsoft Edge is based on the same platform used by Chrome now. Maybe he should have tried Firefox?

But yeah, that is pretty frustrating that there’s been some issue for weeks now.
cegibbs
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Re: Vanguard glitching so Fidelity has a new customer

Post by cegibbs »

Smart move switching to Fidelity. Vanguard’s customer service and representative knowledge is pathetic.
bondsr4me
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Re: Vanguard glitching so Fidelity has a new customer

Post by bondsr4me »

smectym wrote: Fri Sep 24, 2021 1:25 am
bondsr4me wrote: Thu Sep 23, 2021 11:03 am
mrjohnanderson007 wrote: Thu Sep 23, 2021 10:48 am So I'll stay at vanguard until I have a problem with them.
I agree with that....nobody should change brokerages unless they have had problems with that broker.

We all know Vanguard has problems (as all do) and seems to be on a slide down.
Sticking with Vanguard as well—at least in the product lines they haven’t abandoned yet—but as puzzled as most at the “slide down.” Not privy to their spreadsheets, but I doubt that introducing 24/7 customer service (CS), stepping up the training of current CS, hiring 2,000 more CS, and related infrastructure moves, would crush their business model. Yes, it would be costly: but there must be more to it than that. Their competitors treat such costs as a fact of competitive life.
+1
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orthros
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Re: Vanguard glitching so Fidelity has a new customer

Post by orthros »

texasdiver wrote: Wed Sep 22, 2021 10:55 pm I don't know if anyone else experienced this. This past weekend I tried to help my young daughter open up a new Vanguard Roth IRA account. The web site was glitching and we got all the way through the new account information page, tediously entering all her information and then it crashed. Tried with Chrome and Edge so wasn't our browser. Tried again today and same result. Apparently Vanguard doesn't want her new account.

So we flipped over to Fidelity and it all went seamlessly and I discovered that Fidelity has 4 zero-fee index funds. So daughter is now the new proud owner of a new Roth IRA holding FZROK. She is 18 and will now probably be with Fidelity for the rest of her life. Vanguard's loss I guess. Little things like this can have a life-long effect.
Crazily, I had this exact same problem the exact same way, and calling in did nothing to resolve it.

Moving everything will be tedious and time-consuming but I'll probably go to Fidelity or Schwab soon. Never thought I'd say that.
nalor511
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Re: Vanguard glitching so Fidelity has a new customer

Post by nalor511 »

orthros wrote: Sat Sep 25, 2021 8:27 pm
texasdiver wrote: Wed Sep 22, 2021 10:55 pm I don't know if anyone else experienced this. This past weekend I tried to help my young daughter open up a new Vanguard Roth IRA account. The web site was glitching and we got all the way through the new account information page, tediously entering all her information and then it crashed. Tried with Chrome and Edge so wasn't our browser. Tried again today and same result. Apparently Vanguard doesn't want her new account.

So we flipped over to Fidelity and it all went seamlessly and I discovered that Fidelity has 4 zero-fee index funds. So daughter is now the new proud owner of a new Roth IRA holding FZROK. She is 18 and will now probably be with Fidelity for the rest of her life. Vanguard's loss I guess. Little things like this can have a life-long effect.
Crazily, I had this exact same problem the exact same way, and calling in did nothing to resolve it.

Moving everything will be tedious and time-consuming but I'll probably go to Fidelity or Schwab soon. Never thought I'd say that.
It's not tedious, and it took me 10 minutes. Moved 6 accounts between two people to Fidelity and Schwab. Everything done online, no phone calls. Received transfer bonuses for my "trouble", along with actual customer service. The only tedious part was waiting a few days for the transfers to complete.
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orthros
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Re: Vanguard glitching so Fidelity has a new customer

Post by orthros »

nalor511 wrote: Sat Sep 25, 2021 10:16 pm
orthros wrote: Sat Sep 25, 2021 8:27 pm
texasdiver wrote: Wed Sep 22, 2021 10:55 pm I don't know if anyone else experienced this. This past weekend I tried to help my young daughter open up a new Vanguard Roth IRA account. The web site was glitching and we got all the way through the new account information page, tediously entering all her information and then it crashed. Tried with Chrome and Edge so wasn't our browser. Tried again today and same result. Apparently Vanguard doesn't want her new account.

So we flipped over to Fidelity and it all went seamlessly and I discovered that Fidelity has 4 zero-fee index funds. So daughter is now the new proud owner of a new Roth IRA holding FZROK. She is 18 and will now probably be with Fidelity for the rest of her life. Vanguard's loss I guess. Little things like this can have a life-long effect.
Crazily, I had this exact same problem the exact same way, and calling in did nothing to resolve it.

Moving everything will be tedious and time-consuming but I'll probably go to Fidelity or Schwab soon. Never thought I'd say that.
It's not tedious, and it took me 10 minutes. Moved 6 accounts between two people to Fidelity and Schwab. Everything done online, no phone calls. Received transfer bonuses for my "trouble", along with actual customer service. The only tedious part was waiting a few days for the transfers to complete.
Did you get transfer bonuses from both Fidelity and Schwab? Did one match the other's bonus perhaps?
nalor511
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Re: Vanguard glitching so Fidelity has a new customer

Post by nalor511 »

orthros wrote: Sat Sep 25, 2021 10:20 pm
nalor511 wrote: Sat Sep 25, 2021 10:16 pm
orthros wrote: Sat Sep 25, 2021 8:27 pm
texasdiver wrote: Wed Sep 22, 2021 10:55 pm I don't know if anyone else experienced this. This past weekend I tried to help my young daughter open up a new Vanguard Roth IRA account. The web site was glitching and we got all the way through the new account information page, tediously entering all her information and then it crashed. Tried with Chrome and Edge so wasn't our browser. Tried again today and same result. Apparently Vanguard doesn't want her new account.

So we flipped over to Fidelity and it all went seamlessly and I discovered that Fidelity has 4 zero-fee index funds. So daughter is now the new proud owner of a new Roth IRA holding FZROK. She is 18 and will now probably be with Fidelity for the rest of her life. Vanguard's loss I guess. Little things like this can have a life-long effect.
Crazily, I had this exact same problem the exact same way, and calling in did nothing to resolve it.

Moving everything will be tedious and time-consuming but I'll probably go to Fidelity or Schwab soon. Never thought I'd say that.
It's not tedious, and it took me 10 minutes. Moved 6 accounts between two people to Fidelity and Schwab. Everything done online, no phone calls. Received transfer bonuses for my "trouble", along with actual customer service. The only tedious part was waiting a few days for the transfers to complete.
Did you get transfer bonuses from both Fidelity and Schwab? Did one match the other's bonus perhaps?
Bonuses from both. Fidelity won't match, but they will offer a bonus if you get the right advisor and bring in enough funds. Schwab will match.
SxSW
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Re: Vanguard glitching so Fidelity has a new customer

Post by SxSW »

bgvg wrote: Thu Sep 23, 2021 11:15 am If something like this happens, it wouldn’t hurt to let Vanguard know so they’re at least aware of it and can have someone look into fixing it.

Many people try and give up without reporting these kind of problems.

Maybe people just aren’t complaining enough directly to Vanguard.
You can always use the Secure Message Service. Oh, wait. :oops:
bgvg
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Re: Vanguard glitching so Fidelity has a new customer

Post by bgvg »

SxSW wrote: Sun Sep 26, 2021 2:37 pm
bgvg wrote: Thu Sep 23, 2021 11:15 am If something like this happens, it wouldn’t hurt to let Vanguard know so they’re at least aware of it and can have someone look into fixing it.

Many people try and give up without reporting these kind of problems.

Maybe people just aren’t complaining enough directly to Vanguard.
You can always use the Secure Message Service. Oh, wait. :oops:
They still have a phone number. They should have an option to take feedback by phone. If that fails, would that mean Vanguard is liable under any Federal regulations for failing to meet its obligations to consumers? Aren’t they a “mutual” that’s owned by its customers?
nalor511
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Re: Vanguard glitching so Fidelity has a new customer

Post by nalor511 »

bgvg wrote: Sun Sep 26, 2021 2:57 pm
SxSW wrote: Sun Sep 26, 2021 2:37 pm
bgvg wrote: Thu Sep 23, 2021 11:15 am If something like this happens, it wouldn’t hurt to let Vanguard know so they’re at least aware of it and can have someone look into fixing it.

Many people try and give up without reporting these kind of problems.

Maybe people just aren’t complaining enough directly to Vanguard.
You can always use the Secure Message Service. Oh, wait. :oops:
They still have a phone number. They should have an option to take feedback by phone. If that fails, would that mean Vanguard is liable under any Federal regulations for failing to meet its obligations to consumers? Aren’t they a “mutual” that’s owned by its customers?
Peronally, at this point, I would rather (and did) fill out an online transfer form and go to a brokerage with live chat, than hassle with trying to contact Vanguard via phone
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Re: Vanguard glitching so Fidelity has a new customer

Post by lazynovice »

student wrote: Fri Sep 24, 2021 10:45 am
Cheez-It Guy wrote: Fri Sep 24, 2021 10:12 am Oh, really?

https://www.consumeraffairs.com/news/fi ... 22020.html

"Could you imagine if you went to bed last night with $1,000,000+ in your Fidelity accounts and woke up this morning to a total account balance of $0.00 with all Fidelity customer support methods down?" Adam Tutusko wrote in a Twitter posting. "So scary!"
I remember this. The article mentioned that "Fidelity used Twitter to reassure many customers, although some posted complaints that the company could have responded a lot sooner." I wonder how soon did Fidelity post it after the glitch. A big difference between 1 hour and 10 hours.
And all Fidelity support methods did not go down that day. Phones were working just fine.
SxSW
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Re: Vanguard glitching so Fidelity has a new customer

Post by SxSW »

bgvg wrote: Sun Sep 26, 2021 2:57 pm
SxSW wrote: Sun Sep 26, 2021 2:37 pm
You can always use the Secure Message Service. Oh, wait. :oops:
They still have a phone number. They should have an option to take feedback by phone. If that fails, would that mean Vanguard is liable under any Federal regulations for failing to meet its obligations to consumers? Aren’t they a “mutual” that’s owned by its customers?
The thing is, if you want your complaint to be addressed by a supervisor, per regulations it has to be in writing. So without the message system, you're left with mailing a letter or faxing it.
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Re: Vanguard glitching so Fidelity has a new customer

Post by student »

lazynovice wrote: Sun Sep 26, 2021 4:07 pm
student wrote: Fri Sep 24, 2021 10:45 am
Cheez-It Guy wrote: Fri Sep 24, 2021 10:12 am Oh, really?

https://www.consumeraffairs.com/news/fi ... 22020.html

"Could you imagine if you went to bed last night with $1,000,000+ in your Fidelity accounts and woke up this morning to a total account balance of $0.00 with all Fidelity customer support methods down?" Adam Tutusko wrote in a Twitter posting. "So scary!"
I remember this. The article mentioned that "Fidelity used Twitter to reassure many customers, although some posted complaints that the company could have responded a lot sooner." I wonder how soon did Fidelity post it after the glitch. A big difference between 1 hour and 10 hours.
And all Fidelity support methods did not go down that day. Phones were working just fine.
Thanks for the info.
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Re: Vanguard glitching so Fidelity has a new customer

Post by Cheez-It Guy »

SxSW wrote: Sun Sep 26, 2021 2:37 pm
bgvg wrote: Thu Sep 23, 2021 11:15 am If something like this happens, it wouldn’t hurt to let Vanguard know so they’re at least aware of it and can have someone look into fixing it.

Many people try and give up without reporting these kind of problems.

Maybe people just aren’t complaining enough directly to Vanguard.
You can always use the Secure Message Service. Oh, wait. :oops:
Yes, you can.
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Re: Vanguard glitching so Fidelity has a new customer

Post by texasdiver »

bgvg wrote: Fri Sep 24, 2021 6:47 pm
Jimbo Moneybags wrote: Fri Sep 24, 2021 4:23 pm
bgvg wrote: Thu Sep 23, 2021 11:15 am If something like this happens, it wouldn’t hurt to let Vanguard know so they’re at least aware of it and can have someone look into fixing it.

Many people try and give up without reporting these kind of problems.

Maybe people just aren’t complaining enough directly to Vanguard.
This has been a problem with Vanguard's website for six weeks and they are well-aware of it...

viewtopic.php?p=6201559#p62015599

The poster noted that the website was “glitching” and that it “crashed.” I assumed he meant that the browser froze or quit on him, which would be rather strange, rather than giving him an error message from the Vanguard website. Maybe he used wrong terminology and meant that it gave him an error like it was mentioned in the linked thread.

Microsoft Edge is based on the same platform used by Chrome now. Maybe he should have tried Firefox?

But yeah, that is pretty frustrating that there’s been some issue for weeks now.
I was the original poster. It wasn't crashing. It was generating error messages from the Vanguard Web Site every time we got to the final page after pages of entering all our personal information. You enter tediously enter all your information, go through multiple pages of confirmations and digital signatures, then end with a Vanguard error message. On separate days, using different browsers.

It was just a small-balance new Roth IRA for my daughter so not enormous sums of money. We flipped over to Fidelity and the whole process was faster with a better web-interface (no scrolling up or down to find the "continue" buttons) and worked perfectly the first time.
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Re: Vanguard glitching so Fidelity has a new customer

Post by KyleAAA »

8foot7 wrote: Thu Sep 23, 2021 1:18 pm
KyleAAA wrote: Thu Sep 23, 2021 12:11 pm
8foot7 wrote: Thu Sep 23, 2021 12:07 pm
bgvg wrote: Thu Sep 23, 2021 11:15 am If something like this happens, it wouldn’t hurt to let Vanguard know so they’re at least aware of it and can have someone look into fixing it.

Many people try and give up without reporting these kind of problems. There are no free or low budget tools that can do the job.

Maybe people just aren’t complaining enough directly to Vanguard.
There are plenty of affordable solutions, and plenty of ways to do low-budget status monitoring using free tools, on the market today that can monitor a change in the pattern of results for an application. If Vanguard cared enough about maintaining uptime on the application, they'd invest in these. This is not a hard problem in IT. Expecting potential customers to function as downtime notifiers is a foolish strategy.
LOL

Every SaaS shop I've ever worked for would beg to differ that this isn't a hard problem. It's very, very hard and tooling is the opposite of cheap.
Cool. Different experiences.
It doesn't seem likely we're talking about the same thing. You can't monitor uptime by pinging a web page and looking for 200. Google wouldn't have invented an entirely new job role for runtime reliability were it cheap or easy
UpperNwGuy
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Re: Vanguard glitching so Fidelity has a new customer

Post by UpperNwGuy »

All three of my millennial kids have chosen not to invest at Vanguard for a variety of reasons. I hope Vanguard realizes that their future hinges on signing up the younger investors. In my family they have failed to do so.
roth evangelist
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Re: Vanguard glitching so Fidelity has a new customer

Post by roth evangelist »

I had a friend post on social media the other day about how they wanted to get into stock investing. I commented some basic advice and recommended Fidelity. I can't recommend Vanguard at the moment, not since they've made it next to impossible to open an account. I'm just glad this wasn't the case when I recommended Vanguard to my brother several months ago.
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Re: Vanguard glitching so Fidelity has a new customer

Post by 8foot7 »

KyleAAA wrote: Sun Sep 26, 2021 8:25 pm
8foot7 wrote: Thu Sep 23, 2021 1:18 pm
KyleAAA wrote: Thu Sep 23, 2021 12:11 pm
8foot7 wrote: Thu Sep 23, 2021 12:07 pm
bgvg wrote: Thu Sep 23, 2021 11:15 am If something like this happens, it wouldn’t hurt to let Vanguard know so they’re at least aware of it and can have someone look into fixing it.

Many people try and give up without reporting these kind of problems. There are no free or low budget tools that can do the job.

Maybe people just aren’t complaining enough directly to Vanguard.
There are plenty of affordable solutions, and plenty of ways to do low-budget status monitoring using free tools, on the market today that can monitor a change in the pattern of results for an application. If Vanguard cared enough about maintaining uptime on the application, they'd invest in these. This is not a hard problem in IT. Expecting potential customers to function as downtime notifiers is a foolish strategy.
LOL

Every SaaS shop I've ever worked for would beg to differ that this isn't a hard problem. It's very, very hard and tooling is the opposite of cheap.
Cool. Different experiences.
It doesn't seem likely we're talking about the same thing. You can't monitor uptime by pinging a web page and looking for 200. Google wouldn't have invented an entirely new job role for runtime reliability were it cheap or easy
I don't want to get into an Internet argument. I am very familiar with SRE and that yes, you can throw a lot of money and highly paid engineers at it, but there are also ways to use a little budget and elbow grease for a basic result that instruments certain actions or results in an app, monitors output from that instrumentation, compares it to statistical averages over time, and alerts if there's a diff. Is it the most sophisticated thing ever? No. Will it attempt to self-heal or route around the problem? No. But it could be the basis of a ticket or a page if VG cared enough. That's my point.

Of course, there's also the possibility they have this suite and have decided as a business it's not worth fixing a problem off-hours. That's a different issue entirely, for both VG and OP.
bondsr4me
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Re: Vanguard glitching so Fidelity has a new customer

Post by bondsr4me »

UpperNwGuy wrote: Sun Sep 26, 2021 8:32 pm All three of my millennial kids have chosen not to invest at Vanguard for a variety of reasons. I hope Vanguard realizes that their future hinges on signing up the younger investors. In my family they have failed to do so.
Young people today seem to expect instant everything.
If they can't do things on an iPhone, forget it.
Vanguard is in some ways still a dinosaur and could be missing out on their business.
From a technology perspective, I would tend to think younger people would much prefer an investment
company like Schwab.
But, that's just my view.
Only time will tell.
UpperNwGuy
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Re: Vanguard glitching so Fidelity has a new customer

Post by UpperNwGuy »

bondsr4me wrote: Mon Sep 27, 2021 8:41 am
UpperNwGuy wrote: Sun Sep 26, 2021 8:32 pm All three of my millennial kids have chosen not to invest at Vanguard for a variety of reasons. I hope Vanguard realizes that their future hinges on signing up the younger investors. In my family they have failed to do so.
Young people today seem to expect instant everything.
If they can't do things on an iPhone, forget it.
Vanguard is in some ways still a dinosaur and could be missing out on their business.
From a technology perspective, I would tend to think younger people would much prefer an investment
company like Schwab.
But, that's just my view.
Only time will tell.
And that's the way today's young folk are. Don't expect them to change.
KyleAAA
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Re: Vanguard glitching so Fidelity has a new customer

Post by KyleAAA »

8foot7 wrote: Mon Sep 27, 2021 5:42 am
I don't want to get into an Internet argument. I am very familiar with SRE and that yes, you can throw a lot of money and highly paid engineers at it, but there are also ways to use a little budget and elbow grease for a basic result that instruments certain actions or results in an app, monitors output from that instrumentation, compares it to statistical averages over time, and alerts if there's a diff. Is it the most sophisticated thing ever? No. Will it attempt to self-heal or route around the problem? No. But it could be the basis of a ticket or a page if VG cared enough. That's my point.
That's a great way to waste a lot of time and money investigating issues that aren't really issues while simultaneously missing most real problems. It certainly isn't cheaper in the long run.
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8foot7
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Re: Vanguard glitching so Fidelity has a new customer

Post by 8foot7 »

KyleAAA wrote: Mon Sep 27, 2021 12:02 pm
8foot7 wrote: Mon Sep 27, 2021 5:42 am
I don't want to get into an Internet argument. I am very familiar with SRE and that yes, you can throw a lot of money and highly paid engineers at it, but there are also ways to use a little budget and elbow grease for a basic result that instruments certain actions or results in an app, monitors output from that instrumentation, compares it to statistical averages over time, and alerts if there's a diff. Is it the most sophisticated thing ever? No. Will it attempt to self-heal or route around the problem? No. But it could be the basis of a ticket or a page if VG cared enough. That's my point.
That's a great way to waste a lot of time and money investigating issues that aren't really issues while simultaneously missing most real problems. It certainly isn't cheaper in the long run.
That's inaccurate, but tell you what -- I surrender; congratulations, you won an argument on the web.
KyleAAA
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Re: Vanguard glitching so Fidelity has a new customer

Post by KyleAAA »

8foot7 wrote: Mon Sep 27, 2021 12:53 pm
KyleAAA wrote: Mon Sep 27, 2021 12:02 pm
8foot7 wrote: Mon Sep 27, 2021 5:42 am
I don't want to get into an Internet argument. I am very familiar with SRE and that yes, you can throw a lot of money and highly paid engineers at it, but there are also ways to use a little budget and elbow grease for a basic result that instruments certain actions or results in an app, monitors output from that instrumentation, compares it to statistical averages over time, and alerts if there's a diff. Is it the most sophisticated thing ever? No. Will it attempt to self-heal or route around the problem? No. But it could be the basis of a ticket or a page if VG cared enough. That's my point.
That's a great way to waste a lot of time and money investigating issues that aren't really issues while simultaneously missing most real problems. It certainly isn't cheaper in the long run.
That's inaccurate, but tell you what -- I surrender; congratulations, you won an argument on the web.
It isn't.
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Re: Vanguard glitching so Fidelity has a new customer

Post by Alex Frakt »

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