It doesn’t help that many of these accounts, because of beneficiary or co-ownership, require either a bank signature guarantee or a notary stamp (or both) on their forms.
Rolled over a 401K from T Rowe to Fidelity once upon a time when changing jobs.
Had a serious 10 day period of “holy fuck our retirement money has freaking vanished” when T Rowe said they had sent it, and could prove that Fidelity had received it, meanwhile Fidelity said they had no funds from T Rowe, and didn’t care what TR said.
Eventually Fidelity “found” it lounging in a “house” account where all funds go when they aren’t sure who they belong to. So for about 10 days my approximately 150K was lost. :eek::eek:
Partly T Rowe’s fault for neglecting to put a specific account number on the funds transfer, partly Fidelity’s fault for choosing to ignore that my freaking name was attached to the transfer, and I have a rather unique name.
So, yeah, fuck’em.
An update: all the various bits of paper have finally fallen into place for my rollovers, although I got a call from TSP yesterday about one of them. My wife’s money, however, is all in limbo while these fucking morons play catch up with the paperwork. Citibank is the worst, dragging their feet on sending a simple fax. She’s on the phone with them while I’m typing this, giving them hell. They’re making excuses and the argument is escalating. She just asked to speak to a supervisor. It takes a lot to get her past calm and rational, and a real mistake to piss her off, which they’ve now managed to do.
Honestly, if you have money with any of these institutions, find a better safe haven for it.
The Final Solution: The last piddling $10K finally made it into my wife’s account and was posted last night. The company had neglected to send the TSP form, then sent it along; nobody at TSP bothered to put the two pieces of paper together. Luckily, my wife, who is nothing if not dogged, called them every day until everything was settled or it would still be languishing out there somewhere. So two months to get this taken care of, which should be sobering to anybody who has the same situation. :rolleyes:
Mo’ money, Mo’ problems.
One way to handle it is to get a financial planner and have him/her consolidate all the accounts and do the legwork for you. Thats what I ended up doing.
I’m not paying anybody to do what I can do myself, including annuities and the like, but thanks for the suggestion.
Meh, it all depends on what you’d rather be doing. If hollering on the phone is your bag, then more power to you. If you’d rather be out making more money, or relaxing on a Tijuana beach, or anything else…
I’m 65: hollering on the phone is what I do. 
OUCH!!!
We’ve never had quite the same kind of delays, though it does take longer than it should (most of 2 weeks, during which that money ain’t earning any income at all). The annoying one was where they sent the check, made out to something like “in trust for Mama Zappa’s 401k”… to me (there was no way to say “dudes, send it directly to Billy Bob’s Brokers’n’Beer”, so I had to drive to the nearest BBBnB to hand them the check. At least they didn’t handle it in such a way that they withheld taxes!!
This last time around (Typo Knig’s former job), they at least managed to get the money wired directly to the new brokerage.
And one time at that former job, they were changing brokerages - and the money was not anywhere for a full month.
Does the interest you lose while you dick around, aggravation, and amateur bumbling trying to find decent funds/annuities offset the fee of a professional advisor?
I’m hardly an amateur. I’ve been successfully investing my own money since the mid-80s. And annuities are bullshit for someone like me, who wants to have control over his money. An annuity takes that away from you, as you can’t access the cash if you need it. Additionally, if you have an annuity and you die, the money goes to whoever is holding it for you and not to your heirs (spouse excepted, I believe).
While spending a couple of months getting this straightened out has been an aggravation, my outrage is more about how incompetent investment companies are than about losing a bit of interest. But I should trust a professional adviser to take care of business? No thanks.
Hell, I can do that now - are you saying I’ll get better at it in 20 years? 
I’m very glad to hear you finally got it all straightened out, and I get what you’re saying - you shouldn’t have to be a professional financial advisor for financial institutions to not dick you around and waste your time.
“Where’s the money, Lebowski?”
“Is it safe?”
:eek:
Sorry, it says Buttle.
Is that a Steven Banks reference?
My husband is a financial advisor. If it’s any consolation, they make as many mistakes when you want to give them money as when you want to take it away. Dealing with “back office” mistakes is one of the most frustrating parts of his business. After her third mistake in rolling over an IRA, he admonished one incompetent lady at HQ to try really hard not to piss off his clients, as that is who paid her salary.
Her response, “I don’t get paid by your client. I get paid by Corporate.”
:smack:
Call JG Wentworth!