My Vanguard account blocked or site down?

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Petdoc51
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My Vanguard account blocked or site down?

Post by Petdoc51 »

Anyone else having problems accessing their Vanguard account? My problem started yesterday when the app wouldn't let me complete a transaction. Today I can't get into my account through the app nor online.
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Doc
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Re: My Vanguard account blocked or site down?

Post by Doc »

Petdoc51 wrote: Sat Apr 10, 2021 9:32 am Anyone else having problems accessing their Vanguard account? My problem started yesterday when the app wouldn't let me complete a transaction. Today I can't get into my account through the app nor online.
Access has been "iffy" for several days. Access comes and goes.
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Re: My Vanguard account blocked or site down?

Post by lazynovice »

I logged in just now with no issues.
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Re: My Vanguard account blocked or site down?

Post by sycamore »

Petdoc51 wrote: Sat Apr 10, 2021 9:32 am Anyone else having problems accessing their Vanguard account? My problem started yesterday when the app wouldn't let me complete a transaction. Today I can't get into my account through the app nor online.
Just now I logged in via Chrome browser on Windows.

What does "can't get into my account" mean exactly? You submitted your username & password but it didn't work? How did it not work? Or the login web page didn't even load enough for you to even try to login?

Try another browser instead of your usual one, maybe that'll help narrow things down.
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Brianmcg321
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Re: My Vanguard account blocked or site down?

Post by Brianmcg321 »

I have had no issues what so ever either using the app or the website this past week. I have logged in to both multiple times and also today.
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colodane
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Re: My Vanguard account blocked or site down?

Post by colodane »

I look at it on the average of once a day on an iMac with Safari browser, and have not had any recent issues.
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Re: My Vanguard account blocked or site down?

Post by Adfmacro »

No issues in either iPhone or Android. I do not get on via desktop, so I have not tried that.
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HueyLD
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Re: My Vanguard account blocked or site down?

Post by HueyLD »

I could not access my holdings or transaction history this morning using Safari.

It works now though.
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heartwood
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Re: My Vanguard account blocked or site down?

Post by heartwood »

Petdoc51 wrote: Sat Apr 10, 2021 9:32 am Anyone else having problems accessing their Vanguard account? My problem started yesterday when the app wouldn't let me complete a transaction. Today I can't get into my account through the app nor online.
Might be the app.

I had a continuing problem with the app this week for mobile check deposit. It took pictures, but when I hit the continue button it spun and came back with a can't complete at this time message, try again later. I tried several times on Monday, then several times on Tuesday. I called and was told it's a new "upgrade" to the app that's causing a mobile check problem for several days. They had no estimate of a fix date. The solution was mail the check to them in Texas. They sent me a deposit form.

Rather than wait a week or more with mail, I mobile deposited to my BOA checking. It cleared there and I EFT'd it to Vanguard.

Right now I can access my account through the app and on line.
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Petdoc51
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Re: My Vanguard account blocked or site down?

Post by Petdoc51 »

Thanks for all responses so far. I've tried getting into my account from both the Vanguard app and online using Chrome. Basically the error message I get says access to this account denied. I spoke to a rep yesterday because I needed to start a transaction. I also told them about my problem with the app. They said as far as they know my account was not hacked and they would look into it. Yesterday I could at least see my account. Today I am locked out completely. So I was curious if Vanguard had system wide crash. Based on all your answers, that does not appear to be the case.
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Re: My Vanguard account blocked or site down?

Post by Doc »

heartwood wrote: Sat Apr 10, 2021 4:04 pm Might be the app.
I'm using Windows on Chrome desktop and have been having issues on and off for a few days. Not the app.

Also can't get in sometimes when trying to download data using Quicken.
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HanSolo
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Re: My Vanguard account blocked or site down?

Post by HanSolo »

Petdoc51 wrote: Sat Apr 10, 2021 9:32 am Anyone else having problems accessing their Vanguard account? My problem started yesterday when the app wouldn't let me complete a transaction. Today I can't get into my account through the app nor online.
Doc wrote: Sat Apr 10, 2021 1:59 pm Access has been "iffy" for several days. Access comes and goes.
heartwood wrote: Sat Apr 10, 2021 4:04 pm I had a continuing problem with the app this week for mobile check deposit.... I called and was told it's a new "upgrade"....
There's been a variety of threads about unfavorable things happening on Vanguard's site. Here's a good "bottom line" comment from another thread:
LadyGeek wrote: Wed Apr 07, 2021 8:10 am They should spend more time on Quality Assurance.
Perhaps the actionable thing in this case is to do the following (thereby encouraging them to spend more time on Quality Assurance):
pinchalik wrote: Thu Apr 08, 2021 4:23 pm I'm hoping that a *lot* of people are going to complain!
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anon_investor
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Re: My Vanguard account blocked or site down?

Post by anon_investor »

Doc wrote: Sat Apr 10, 2021 4:27 pm
heartwood wrote: Sat Apr 10, 2021 4:04 pm Might be the app.
I'm using Windows on Chrome desktop and have been having issues on and off for a few days. Not the app.

Also can't get in sometimes when trying to download data using Quicken.
Weird. I have used chrome to place orders on the Vanguard website on different days this week without issue.
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Re: My Vanguard account blocked or site down?

Post by Doc »

anon_investor wrote: Sat Apr 10, 2021 4:30 pm
Doc wrote: Sat Apr 10, 2021 4:27 pm
heartwood wrote: Sat Apr 10, 2021 4:04 pm Might be the app.
I'm using Windows on Chrome desktop and have been having issues on and off for a few days. Not the app.

Also can't get in sometimes when trying to download data using Quicken.
Weird. I have used chrome to place orders on the Vanguard website on different days this week without issue.
Access comes and goes.
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Re: My Vanguard account blocked or site down?

Post by anon_investor »

Doc wrote: Sat Apr 10, 2021 4:48 pm
anon_investor wrote: Sat Apr 10, 2021 4:30 pm
Doc wrote: Sat Apr 10, 2021 4:27 pm
heartwood wrote: Sat Apr 10, 2021 4:04 pm Might be the app.
I'm using Windows on Chrome desktop and have been having issues on and off for a few days. Not the app.

Also can't get in sometimes when trying to download data using Quicken.
Weird. I have used chrome to place orders on the Vanguard website on different days this week without issue.
Access comes and goes.
Do you have issues access other websites?
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HueyLD
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Re: My Vanguard account blocked or site down?

Post by HueyLD »

While I could not access my Vanguard accounts this morning, I was able to access other financial websites such as another brokerage and banks.

Maybe Vanguard websites are made unavailable on weekends?
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bertilak
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Re: My Vanguard account blocked or site down?

Post by bertilak »

For whatever reason, Vanguard access has been spotty for a day or so.

For future reference, here are a couple of sites that will test access for you: Both of those were reporting Vanguard down but all has been OK so far today.
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Re: My Vanguard account blocked or site down?

Post by nisiprius »

I often see weird stuff on various websites and it's hard to know whom to blame.

One detail--perhaps someone more technological can confirm and give more details, but it is pretty obvious that "the Vanguard website" is not one server, it is many different ones. What governs which you get, and how they keep synchronized, I don't know.

Another detail is that access to a website can be a function of the routing from where you are to where it is. In theory the whole point of "packet switching" is that it shouldn't matter because they can be adaptively switched along many different routes, but it is not rare for me to have a half an hour or so when lots of my commonly-used websites work perfectly and lots of them simply free or don't load.

Some of it probably has to do with "DNS lookup." It is possible for me experience "an Internet outage" sitting at my computer and trying to browse the web, while my wife watches streaming Amazon Prime video over WiFi at the TV set with not the slightest trace of a problem.

Sites like isup.me are of some value, but they are not perfect because they basically confirm that they can reach and load a home page, not necessarily log in or get anything done. Still, if the Vanguard site appears to be "down," finding out what isup.me has to say about it is one more data point.

I was on Vanguard.com sporadically all day accessing mutual fund data--not my account--and didn't notice any problems at all.
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Re: My Vanguard account blocked or site down?

Post by bertilak »

nisiprius wrote: Sat Apr 10, 2021 5:33 pm Sites like isup.me are of some value
That gets you to one of the links I posted above (https://downforeveryoneorjustme.com/). They must have "isup.me" registered as an alias.

See https://support.dnsimple.com/articles/alias-record/ for an explanation.
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Re: My Vanguard account blocked or site down?

Post by Trader Joe »

Petdoc51 wrote: Sat Apr 10, 2021 9:32 am Anyone else having problems accessing their Vanguard account? My problem started yesterday when the app wouldn't let me complete a transaction. Today I can't get into my account through the app nor online.
No, not at all.
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HanSolo
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Re: My Vanguard account blocked or site down?

Post by HanSolo »

nisiprius wrote: Sat Apr 10, 2021 5:33 pm One detail--perhaps someone more technological can confirm and give more details, but it is pretty obvious that "the Vanguard website" is not one server, it is many different ones. What governs which you get, and how they keep synchronized, I don't know.

Another detail is that access to a website can be a function of the routing from where you are to where it is. In theory the whole point of "packet switching" is that it shouldn't matter because they can be adaptively switched along many different routes, but it is not rare for me to have a half an hour or so when lots of my commonly-used websites work perfectly and lots of them simply free or don't load.

Some of it probably has to do with "DNS lookup." (snip)
I think (let's say it's an "educated guess") that the bolded part is more the issue, rather than packet-switching or DNS errors, as the former is more the "new wave" of technology (what with cloud servers, virtualization, etc.) while the latter are more established and solid. The resulting errors show up in different ways on different sites. Sometimes you see some parts of a website work normally, while other parts silently fail, or show a bogus error (like "you have no messages" when you certainly do), or have extremely vague errors (like one word "unavailable"). And now, "504 Gateway" errors are becoming a trend. On some sites, including Vanguard's at least once, a rotating circle is sometimes displayed and just keeps rotating forever. Also on Vanguard's site, I once looked at my balances and holdings, and in one account, where it normally shows the settlement account as having zero balance, that part of the screen was simply blank (with no error message). The normal display appeared again later. There seems to be a trend that these things happen more often, but that's just evidence of sloppy development, and what's worse is that users are being conditioned to accept it as normal. I guess it's because they don't have much choice.

Based on experience in the software industry, I'd say that different parts of the development are being handed to different teams who don't communicate much with each other, the result being that they don't pass meaningful error codes to each other, and/or the UI developers don't think it's important to tell the user what's wrong, or they think it's better to pretend nothing is wrong and not display any error. This is not how we worked back in the old days.

It's kind of sad, in a way, so much more money is being spent on tech (as someone noted in another thread, Vanguard having a $1B IT budget), yet the quality keeps going downhill. It seems that the concept of programmers and IT managers having actual discipline is a thing of the past. It's as if making money is still a thing, now more than ever, but hard work is not.

The actionable thing here is to complain. But it feels like throwing a drop of water on a forest fire.
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Re: My Vanguard account blocked or site down?

Post by secondopinion »

HanSolo wrote: Sat Apr 10, 2021 7:51 pm Based on experience in the software industry, I'd say that different parts of the development are being handed to different teams who don't communicate much with each other, the result being that they don't pass meaningful error codes to each other, and/or the UI developers don't think it's important to tell the user what's wrong, or they think it's better to pretend nothing is wrong and not display any error. This is not how we worked back in the old days.

It's kind of sad, in a way, so much more money is being spent on tech (as someone noted in another thread, Vanguard having a $1B IT budget), yet the quality keeps going downhill. It seems that the concept of programmers and IT managers having actual discipline is a thing of the past. It's as if making money is still a thing, now more than ever, but hard work is not.

The actionable thing here is to complain. But it feels like throwing a drop of water on a forest fire.
I am in the software industry as well; it greatly varies on who you work with. I know I produce high-quality work and in the past I did work with others that way, but I have to now deal with a IT team that is rather poor in their skills; I outdo five such workers (maybe ten). I can look into a programming language that I have never seen before and debug it; they did not even want to touch my clearcut code because they know nothing. They are clock in and out; I am always available. They never talk to a customer; I do. Even the customers know me and speak well of me.

Sad that the IT group get paid more than me, yet I am getting laid-off soon to cut costs. Funny how it works.
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