Fidelity "FidSafe" Free online storage of documents - is this safe?

Non-investing personal finance issues including insurance, credit, real estate, taxes, employment and legal issues such as trusts and wills.
BoomerM3
Posts: 77
Joined: Tue Aug 27, 2019 7:34 am

Re: Fidelity "FidSafe" Free online - Need improvement

Post by BoomerM3 »

I’m re-activating this thread since it gets reviewed from time to time. The thread started in 2016. I have been using FidSafe since 2017.

Fidsafe has been my repository for most important financial documents. I have tested its use with my dependents and have seen it work. I am comfortable with the security – but I’m no expert in security. My reason for this post is to surface what I consider a shortcoming and seek advice from the community.

Over the years, I have opened and closed bank accounts, CDs, credit cards, and other financial transactions. Ideally, each change would have updated FidSafe. But, my bad… that didn’t happen. Now I have a number of entries in FidSafe that are outdated and a number of documents that don’t exist in the repository.

I am looking for a way to sync my financial transactions with FidSafe. Is that possible? How have you kept your financial records up-to-date?

Thanks for your input.
tibbitts
Posts: 23588
Joined: Tue Feb 27, 2007 5:50 pm

Re: Fidelity "FidSafe" Free online storage of documents - is this safe?

Post by tibbitts »

I haven't been able to efficiently use Fidsafe so I can't answer this question. I have a 44kbyte file than I can't copy/paste into the Fidsafe text interface because it seems to add markup language that makes the file more than the 50kbyte limit. I can't readily upload the file because it's encrypted on a Linux server and I'd prefer not to expose it in plain text on my window desktop (to use the Fidsafe upload function), just because I know I'll forget to remove the plaintext copy.
Murgatroyd
Posts: 488
Joined: Sun Jan 21, 2018 7:23 pm

Re: Fidelity "FidSafe" Free online - Need improvement

Post by Murgatroyd »

BoomerM3 wrote: Thu Feb 11, 2021 3:28 pm I’m re-activating this thread since it gets reviewed from time to time. The thread started in 2016. I have been using FidSafe since 2017.

Fidsafe has been my repository for most important financial documents. I have tested its use with my dependents and have seen it work. I am comfortable with the security – but I’m no expert in security. My reason for this post is to surface what I consider a shortcoming and seek advice from the community.

Over the years, I have opened and closed bank accounts, CDs, credit cards, and other financial transactions. Ideally, each change would have updated FidSafe. But, my bad… that didn’t happen. Now I have a number of entries in FidSafe that are outdated and a number of documents that don’t exist in the repository.

I am looking for a way to sync my financial transactions with FidSafe. Is that possible? How have you kept your financial records up-to-date?

Thanks for your input.
I’ve used Fidsafe since 2016. I don’t think you can link accounts to it. You have to manually upload documents. My practice is once per year I update a summary of our holdings including account institution, number and balance as well as separately just the account title page. My daughter is authorized on Fidsafe and I give her a heads up before I make changes because she gets a notice when I do. The only time I’ve had large changes is when we update the trust.
MikeG62
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Joined: Tue Nov 15, 2016 2:20 pm
Location: New Jersey

Re: Fidelity "FidSafe" Free online storage of documents - is this safe?

Post by MikeG62 »

I use iCloud Drive. Very easy and from what I've read it's quite secure.
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aristotelian
Posts: 12262
Joined: Wed Jan 11, 2017 7:05 pm

Re: Fidelity "FidSafe" Free online storage of documents - is this safe?

Post by aristotelian »

Tough to balance security vs accessibility. I use Google Drive and put anything financial in a private shared folder with my spouse so she could log in under her Google credentials. Then its not another site and password for her to keep track of.
Bagels
Posts: 145
Joined: Mon Apr 12, 2021 9:08 am

Re: Fidelity "FidSafe" Free online storage of documents - is this safe?

Post by Bagels »

aristotelian wrote: Fri Feb 12, 2021 8:46 am Tough to balance security vs accessibility. I use Google Drive and put anything financial in a private shared folder with my spouse so she could log in under her Google credentials. Then its not another site and password for her to keep track of.
That's not a terrible idea but you might want to have redundancy. My relative lost his google account and all the email and documents with it. For that reason, I am preparing an external hard drive and a burned DVD for my wife.

I can upload the decryption password to fidsafe.
missing [b]madsinger[/b]’s monthly reports
tj
Posts: 9317
Joined: Wed Dec 23, 2009 11:10 pm

Re: Fidelity "FidSafe" Free online - Need improvement

Post by tj »

BoomerM3 wrote: Thu Feb 11, 2021 3:28 pm I’m re-activating this thread since it gets reviewed from time to time. The thread started in 2016. I have been using FidSafe since 2017.

Fidsafe has been my repository for most important financial documents. I have tested its use with my dependents and have seen it work. I am comfortable with the security – but I’m no expert in security. My reason for this post is to surface what I consider a shortcoming and seek advice from the community.

Over the years, I have opened and closed bank accounts, CDs, credit cards, and other financial transactions. Ideally, each change would have updated FidSafe. But, my bad… that didn’t happen. Now I have a number of entries in FidSafe that are outdated and a number of documents that don’t exist in the repository.

I am looking for a way to sync my financial transactions with FidSafe. Is that possible? How have you kept your financial records up-to-date?

Thanks for your input.
I didn't know FidSafe was an aggregator? I just upload PDFs into there.
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RootSki
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Re: Fidelity "FidSafe" Free online storage of documents - is this safe?

Post by RootSki »

MikeG62 wrote: Fri Feb 12, 2021 8:38 am I use iCloud Drive. Very easy and from what I've read it's quite secure.
This is how we share sensitive documents. Very secure.
Pyramid44
Posts: 81
Joined: Fri Jul 16, 2021 8:27 pm

Re: Fidelity "FidSafe" Free online storage of documents - is this safe?

Post by Pyramid44 »

We use FidSafe as part of the plan to allow the folks with our various medical/financial powers of attorney to make decisions on our behalf in case of disaster. We always travel together and a serious traffic accident could leave us unable to speak for ourselves.

Our POA folks live 2000 miles from us. So…

1. I use a medic alert bracelet to give ER/ED a number to call to identify myself, get a list of current doctors, current insurance, POA people and contacts
2. Hard copy and soft copy of POA docs went out to POA folks. Overview letter includes contact information for the group which includes health and finance professionals. Included are directions on how to enlist neighbors to care for our pets and vet contact information. Boarding options listed for pets.
3. I use FidSafe to have not only another copy of the legal docs, but info on health insurance, doctors, current household utilities, credit cards, and bank info. Brokerage is with Fidelity. Since all of out monthly utilities are on automatic billing and payment and no paper billing, this would allow POA team to ensure our household keeps running while we might be in a hospital.

Using FidSafe to keep current household information means that I do not have to send new/updated information to our POA people each time we swap Mobil phone plans, switch credit cards, or health insurance.

I use the sharing with trusted contact feature to enroll the people on our POA list. (Or unenroll them.)

In a real emergency in this current COVID age, I cannot expect anyone to travel 2000 miles to my home to sort anything out.

I hope this gives a more practical use of such a service beyond a discussion of password security.
Choose happiness.
oyster99
Posts: 89
Joined: Fri Jan 22, 2021 10:41 pm

Re: Fidelity "FidSafe" Free online storage of documents - is this safe?

Post by oyster99 »

Some FidSafe questions:
I found an FAQ that answered some of my questions below, so I've filled in the answers
Is FidSafe only for Fidelity (after-tax) brokerage customers? I have my retirement account from work with Fidelity but have not heard about this before and don't see it mentioned anywhere in the user interface I see as a retirement-account-only customer.

Earlier in this thread, someone implied you had to paste your info as text into a text window to upload it. Does that mean I cannot upload e.g. docx and xlsx files that are password encrypted? (Currently I'm mailing those back and forth with my executor using a secure USB, so FidSafe seems it would be a more convenient way to handle that but I'd prefer to keep the password encryption on the docs)
From FAQ:
I encrypt my files on my computer before storing them. Can I store encrypted files in FidSafe?

Yes, encrypted and password protected files can be stored in FidSafe, however, you may not be able to view your files in FidSafe. To view your encrypted or password protected files, you may need to download them.


Can the person you are authorizing to access the documents download the password-encrypted docx and xlsx files I've uploaded, or does the FidSafe user interface only allow them to view the documents online?
Yes, see above

I presume the people you are authorizing do not need to have a Fidelity account?
As noted by tj, neither party needs a Fidelity account for this free service. So there must be a catch to it; "free" is not a business model
Last edited by oyster99 on Sat Jul 31, 2021 2:50 pm, edited 1 time in total.
tj
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Joined: Wed Dec 23, 2009 11:10 pm

Re: Fidelity "FidSafe" Free online storage of documents - is this safe?

Post by tj »

FidSafe has nothing to do with owning Fidelity assets, anyone can create a free Fidsafe account. Not sure why Fidelity offers this for free, but they do.
fourwheelcycle
Posts: 1965
Joined: Sun May 25, 2014 5:55 pm

Re: Fidelity "FidSafe" Free online storage of documents - is this safe?

Post by fourwheelcycle »

I have posted on this thread before. We want our age thirties children, one of whom is our executor, to have access to our financial info and estate planning documents if we die. However, we are not ready to share this info with them now, so we want a cloud storage and sharing mechanism they cannot access until we die or end up unconscious in an ICU. We use Sync.com for cloud storage - it is highly rated and fully encrypted. We have a paid account, but it is free for the first 5GB of data.

Our problem with FidSafe is that once you invite someone to share your info they have access right away, as we understand it. So we use free accounts at Dashlane, which let us provide emergency access invitations to our children. Our children have no access unless they ask for it. If they ask for access, Dashlane sends us an email notice that they have requested access and we have two days to respond. No response from us after two days is considered a yes, and Dashlane will grant access to our children. The only info we actually store in Dashlane is an unlabeled password string - we have told our children the password string is or Sync.com password.
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galawdawg
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Location: Georgia

Re: Fidelity "FidSafe" Free online storage of documents - is this safe?

Post by galawdawg »

fourwheelcycle wrote: Sun Aug 01, 2021 7:25 am I have posted on this thread before. We want our age thirties children, one of whom is our executor, to have access to our financial info and estate planning documents if we die. However, we are not ready to share this info with them now...

Our problem with FidSafe is that once you invite someone to share your info they have access right away, as we understand it.
You can set up Sharing after Death instead of sharing now with your contact(s). Scroll down to that section of the FAQ to see the details: https://www.fidsafe.com/info/faq/

From the FidSafe terms and conditions
Your Content will only be accessible after your death if you enroll in the Sharing After Death feature of FidSafe and designate a person in accordance with the terms of this service. For more information about the Sharing After Death feature, please see the FidSafe FAQs – Sharing After Death
Murgatroyd
Posts: 488
Joined: Sun Jan 21, 2018 7:23 pm

Re: Fidelity "FidSafe" Free online storage of documents - is this safe?

Post by Murgatroyd »

galawdawg wrote: Sun Aug 01, 2021 7:37 am
fourwheelcycle wrote: Sun Aug 01, 2021 7:25 am I have posted on this thread before. We want our age thirties children, one of whom is our executor, to have access to our financial info and estate planning documents if we die. However, we are not ready to share this info with them now...

Our problem with FidSafe is that once you invite someone to share your info they have access right away, as we understand it.
You can set up Sharing after Death instead of sharing now with your contact(s). Scroll down to that section of the FAQ to see the details: https://www.fidsafe.com/info/faq/

From the FidSafe terms and conditions
Your Content will only be accessible after your death if you enroll in the Sharing After Death feature of FidSafe and designate a person in accordance with the terms of this service. For more information about the Sharing After Death feature, please see the FidSafe FAQs – Sharing After Death

I want to second that this feature exists and also you can designate different access for different people. Here’s how I’ve set it up. I created one document our daughter (trustee) has access to immediately. It has everything she would need immediately including all contact info in case of either an emergency or death. Lawyers, doctors, trusted friends, etc. in addition all power of attorney and health instructions are available.

The wills, trust and other post death documents are separate and must be “applied for” through fidelity - death certificate, etc. I also included those instructions with available immediately access.

One of the beauties of having both options is every time I make a change to an immediate access document, fidelity sends her a notice that there is a change. Which causes her to log in and look at it and keep top of mind that Fidsafe exists.
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