sophiainvests wrote: ↑Sun Nov 06, 2022 1:51 pm
thanks, Stan - I think what I'm left with now is the letter to the CEO with this kind of request. I asked them to correct the cost basis method rather than reverse the whole transaction, as I get the impression after something is cleared they can't just reverse it.. About reimbursement, they are already planning to reimburse in cash anyone who got nailed with the fees but converts by Nov. 30, so we'll only be out I guess the taxes on the transactions.
You're not alone in this. I also do not recall receiving an email warning about this fee, and I was charged $60 (three funds, all above $10k individually and electronic-only notification enabled) on November 1st for my Roth IRA account. I just logged in and realized it while doing my monthly account maintenance checks. I had to dig through my clutter folder to even find the transaction notice email. I still haven't found the email warning about the change that this thread has mentioned and I have searched my emails by date, by sender, and by keyword. I found emails from Vanguard in late August saying there are updated prospectuses available and emails in August and September asking me to take a survey, but nothing mentioning this fee. The last email mentioning account transitions was from a year ago. I also received no warning about this when I logged in last month to download the 3rd quarter statement, I see nothing in the internal Vanguard messaging system, and I see nothing on the 3rd quarter statement itself, which all seem like good ways to issue account notifications of this magnitude.
There are so many ways for email to get lost that this shows the short-comings of opting for electronic-only notification. In my case, I know there is an email filter that can silently stop email before it gets delivered to my inbox, because that has happened for some expected emails intermittently in the past. There's no way for me to know when that happens for unexpected emails though, since the filter is silent. It sends no reports to the end-users about what it blocks. Whitelisting email addresses has no effect on that particular filter, because it's a "big data" filter for all end-users, not a filter that is configurable per end-user. It doesn't go into spam. It doesn't go into clutter. If the filter doesn't like the email, it's not getting through; end-of-story. That's the only logical explanation I can see for why I cannot find any evidence of this email being delivered to my inbox.
I really hope the intention to reverse the fee for those who transition by November 30th is a blanket promise, and not something the CSRs told you specifically. I've gone through the hassle of converting the account just now, but I'd hate to find out it wasn't a blanket promise and that I'm still out $60. Then I would definitely pull up stakes and leave Vanguard, with the additional hassles that would cause. I know you personally have no way of knowing this, just something I want to put out there while I'm venting.
At the very least, I'm still going to look into switching my account to a firm that either doesn't charge for postal mail account notifications or that has the ability to list multiple email addresses per account, so I can add a backup address at a vanity domain I own in case the email filter in front of my primary address continues to block important emails. I've dug around the settings at Vanguard and can see no way to add a second email address for a single person. I did trigger a few error pages while digging around, but every entry box was just for one email address.