Treasury Direct -How did this happen? Anyone else?

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camden
Posts: 414
Joined: Sun Sep 27, 2009 12:22 pm

Treasury Direct -How did this happen? Anyone else?

Post by camden »

Have had a personal TD account for many years and have never had any problems. Recently opened a TD entity account for a trust (I am sole trustee, no successor trustee) with no difficulty, and purchased an I bond. No problem.

The next investment was a purchase of a 2yr Treasury note (auctioned Nov 21). Everything seemed fine online when I arranged the purchase earlier in the month. However, when I checked the account earlier in the week, was stunned to see that my “pending transactions” included not one, but 3, 2yr notes for the same amount. The amount and purchase date of all 3 were listed as the same as the original intended correct transaction. So unintended by me, I was purchasing 3 notes, not just one. Ugh. Was too late to edit the transaction, as they had already been auctioned. Talked to Treasury Direct, but too late to stop things. According to them, the first note will be credited to the TD account, and the second and third will be rejected by my linked bank account, as I informed them that there are funds in that bank account sufficient to cover only the first note purchase.

Anyone have a similar experience? I suspect it may have been some kind of simple mistake on my part, but I have done this multiple times in the past, and cannot see what I could have done to make this error. Or could it be some glitch on the TD side?

From now on, I will be sure to double check the status of an intended purchase before the auction date (live and learn…).
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KarlJ
Posts: 403
Joined: Mon Nov 03, 2008 7:41 pm

Re: Treasury Direct -How did this happen? Anyone else?

Post by KarlJ »

The TreasuryDirect.gov website was launched in 2004 and has not been updated subsequently. I suspect your problem was due to the software, at least not confirming the amount of the order. After many years of using TD to purchase I Bonds, my frustration with using the TD website has reached the point where I want to liquidate all my holdings as soon as it makes economic sense to do so.
HomeStretch
Posts: 11419
Joined: Thu Dec 27, 2018 2:06 pm

Re: Treasury Direct -How did this happen? Anyone else?

Post by HomeStretch »

Despite TreasuryDirect’s (TD) recent website update, I don’t consider their website to be robust. Their phone customer service has been very good in the past but wait times are now long due, in part, to the high volumes of I-Bonds purchases on 2022.

Consider using a brokerage such as Fidelity (rather than TD) to buy T-Bills/Notes/Bonds in the future. You can transfer any currently held at TD to a brokerage too. I think Fidelity has a better website and better customer service. Plus you can buy and sell treasuries in the secondary market at Fidelity but you cannot do that at TD.

You will still need your TD account if you buy EE-Bonds and I-Bonds. I think they are worth it so no plans to close my TD account.
JayDee37
Posts: 263
Joined: Sun Jan 17, 2021 1:08 pm
Location: California

Re: Treasury Direct -How did this happen? Anyone else?

Post by JayDee37 »

I had a similar thing happen earlier this year with a Vanguard buy transaction that was erroneously duplicated . Vanguard was going to auto-liquidate some of my holdings (in a taxable account, so there would be tax implications) to cover the funds needed to for the duplicate buy. I was not amused (thread below).

viewtopic.php?t=381303

Luckily in my case I was able to transfer cash to cover the duplicate transaction and avoid having any of my brokerage holdings liquidated, and they were able to confirm that it was a technical glitch and "unwind" the erroneous transaction and credit my settlement fund.

But it's kind of nuts that this sort of thing can happen, given how much we all rely on websites to handle our financial transactions. This sort of glitch should not be a thing.
Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life? | ~Mary Oliver
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