Has Vanguard lost its way?

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qqq222
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Has Vanguard lost its way?

Post by qqq222 »

6 days ago I noted that our Vanguard IRA contained an excess of 7 million dollars. The numbers were fun to observe, but there was a feeling that my money resides with a firm, Vanguard, that is not minding its accounts properly.

After countless telephone calls, the excess 7 million remains on my account site. Vanguard has assured me that it is very likely the problem will be fixed in another 2 weeks.

Apparently there is section of Vanguard which repairs errors, but can not be reached directly by Vanguard reps or Flagship reps. As the matter involves the brokerage account, the Flagship rep was of no assistance - not his department!

3 weeks to fix a 7 million dollar error! Jack, what has gone wrong?
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Post by Manbaerpig »

I would be extremely tempted to pay the 10% on a distribution here, and have them mail me a check which I would immediately deposit say in the Cayman Islands or other offshore banking enterprise

what error, in other words, harship withdrawl, you know, daddy needs a bigger yacht :P
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Post by 555 »

Post a screenshot please! :wink:
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Post by Mel Lindauer »

Perhaps you really did hit the Irish Lottery and it wasn't a Nigerian scam after all. :D :D
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Post by gkaplan »

Interesting first post.
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Post by ramsfan »

Oh the horror! I can see why this is so upseting to you. Hang in there.
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Post by bearcub »

,,,,
Last edited by bearcub on Sat Jun 18, 2011 8:58 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by NAVigator »

gkaplan wrote:Interesting first post.
First time I've seen a complaint about having an extra 7 million in the account.

I don't understand the complaint about the flagship rep. Would you rather have someone outside the appropriate department fix a 7 million dollar error? It seems that he did the right thing and had the matter sent to the correct department.

The complaint about the time it takes to resolve should rather be praise for the thoroughness that this matter deserves. Performing an analysis of the cause of this problem is non-trivial.

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Opponent Process
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Post by Opponent Process »

maybe it was not intended to be a factual statement.
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Post by esetter »

Now I know where my missing $7 million went!
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Post by radionightster »

Does Vanguard read these forums?
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Post by ResNullius »

Given the number of these anti-Vanguard messages that have been posted lately, I can't help but wonder if some of Vanguard's competitors have folks posting at least some of these messages. Just saying.
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Vanguard reads this forum

Post by Taylor Larimore »

radionightster wrote:Does Vanguard read these forums?
Yes they do. But they are not allowed to post.
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Re: Has Vanguard lost its way?

Post by YDNAL »

qqq222 wrote:6 days ago I noted that our Vanguard IRA contained an excess of 7 million dollars.
Please wire excess to:

YDNAL charities
account 9876543210
Bank of Switzerland
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dodonnell
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Re: Has Vanguard lost its way?

Post by dodonnell »

qqq222 wrote:6 days ago I noted that our Vanguard IRA contained an excess of 7 million dollars. The numbers were fun to observe, but there was a feeling that my money resides with a firm, Vanguard, that is not minding its accounts properly.

...
Skeptical.

"... our IRA" ? ... there is no such thing as our IRA.

... nice first post.

fishing?
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Post by slick_dealer_05 »

Make a Youtube video about it. I'm sure that will make Vanguard fix this issue in a day !
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Post by exoilman »

I had the same problem 6 months ago. I closed the acct. and have been enjoying the windfall (18 million) in a location outside the USA with no extradition treaty. Good luck! I miss my family but thats the way the cookie crumbles!
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Re: Has Vanguard lost its way?

Post by nisiprius »

qqq222 wrote:6 days ago I noted that our Vanguard IRA contained an excess of 7 million dollars.... After countless telephone calls, the excess 7 million remains on my account site. Vanguard has assured me that it is very likely the problem will be fixed in another 2 weeks....

3 weeks to fix a 7 million dollar error! Jack, what has gone wrong?
Taking all of this at face value, an error is an error. It shouldn't have happened for any amount of money. And you'd expect that whatever needs to take place behind the scenes to fix it might take about the same length of time no matter what the size of the error is. As I mentioned yesterday, in the last decade or so I've experienced infuriating--but, ultimately, unimportant--screwups at Vanguard, at Schwab, at Fidelity, and at TIAA-CREF. All fixed in a few weeks. That just seems to be how long it takes.

As for "Jack, what has gone wrong," he's not responsible for Vanguard today... and his personal vision was about money and investments, not customer service.

The things I admire about Vanguard have to do with index funds, low costs, and a corporate structure that aligns Vanguard's interests with its investors'. Vanguard is not a Nordstrom's or a L. L. Bean where the whole point is specifically outstanding customer service.

It's hard to parse corporate slogans, but if you look at Vanguarding I don't see the phrase "customer service," and the emphasis under "client-owned" is not "we'll treat you nicely," it's "no private owner or stockholders take a slice of your profits." Contrast Raymond James which makes a point of saying "ranked as one of the best in the country in customer service."

I'm not saying Vanguard's customer service is bad or mediocre; in my opinion and experience it's very good. Last year Kiplingers' rated 14 online brokerages and Vanguard was one of three that got five stars for customer service. But Vanguard's customer service is in the same category as many other financial companies that also have very good customer service. It's not Vanguard's special attraction.
Last edited by nisiprius on Sat Apr 16, 2011 9:07 am, edited 3 times in total.
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Re: Vanguard reads this forum

Post by tonythered »

Taylor Larimore wrote:
radionightster wrote:Does Vanguard read these forums?
Yes they do. But they are not allowed to post.
I recently met a Vanguard employee and excitedly told her that Vanguard was one of my favorite companies, and that I'm a huge fan of Jack Bogle.

Her first question, more of a statement actually, was "Ahh, you're a Boglehead?"

Seems we're pretty well-known there!
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Post by The Wizard »

In all seriousness, we should do something about the first 3 or 4 posts a newbie cranks out.
Perhaps quarantine them for mod-review before allowing them onto the intended forum?
If existing mods are busy enough already, then create a new group of mini-mods to vet newbies. Just an idea...
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Re: Has Vanguard lost its way?

Post by radionightster »

YDNAL wrote:
qqq222 wrote:6 days ago I noted that our Vanguard IRA contained an excess of 7 million dollars.
Please wire excess to:

YDNAL charities
account 9876543210
Bank of Switzerland
Dear Good Friend,

I am managing director at First Bank in Nigeria. Please to make ur acquiatence and I would like to let you know that yuo have been selected as very trustworthy. I would liek to send you $11,000,000,000,000 to help my families in Ohio. Please forward ur PIN# for account in Swiss and we can let u keep 10% of money for yoru troubles.

Thanks,
Hans Doppenheimer

:)
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Re: Has Vanguard lost its way?

Post by NAVigator »

YDNAL wrote:
qqq222 wrote:6 days ago I noted that our Vanguard IRA contained an excess of 7 million dollars.
Please wire excess to:

YDNAL charities
account 9876543210
Bank of Switzerland
Careful using that Swiss bank account.
Mr. SHULMAN: head of IRS wrote:We've had a multi-year effort to make sure that people who try to hide money offshore so they don't pay taxes get caught. We had a breakthrough agreement where the first time in history we got 4,000 names turned over to us from the Swiss government, which is a traditional bank secrecy jurisdiction. As we ramped up the pressure, we then said, if you've been hiding money, we're going to give you a last best chance to come in, pay a stiff penalty, but avoid going to jail. We had an overwhelming response to our first initiative. We had 15,000 people come in. Usually we get about 100 people come in through voluntary disclosure programs.
He went on to say that they expect to obtain billions in this program.

This is from an NPR interview;
IRS Commissioner Wants To Streamline Tax Process

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Post by Munir »

The Wizard wrote:In all seriousness, we should do something about the first 3 or 4 posts a newbie cranks out.
Perhaps quarantine them for mod-review before allowing them onto the intended forum?
If existing mods are busy enough already, then create a new group of mini-mods to vet newbies. Just an idea...
Good ideas to consider. I suspect the OP is a troll. Has he been checked out by the moderators? I haven't seen any statement by them confirming he is for real.
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Post by The Wizard »

Munir wrote:
The Wizard wrote:In all seriousness, we should do something about the first 3 or 4 posts a newbie cranks out.
Perhaps quarantine them for mod-review before allowing them onto the intended forum?
If existing mods are busy enough already, then create a new group of mini-mods to vet newbies. Just an idea...
Good ideas to consider. I suspect the OP is a troll. Has he been checked out by the moderators? I haven't seen any statement by them confirming he is for real.
Dunno, but comparatively harmless trolls are often left to whither on the vine.
Outright commercial spammers are usually shot on sight...
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Post by tibbitts »

Has he been checked out by the moderators?
What exactly does that involve?

Paul
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Post by Munir »

tibbitts wrote:
Has he been checked out by the moderators?
What exactly does that involve?

Paul
My understanding is that Alex can check if the person posting has a legitimate email address, and identify the site from which he is posting (I forgot the initials), then check if that person has made similar posts under other names. He has banned individuals after checking them out if they are fakes. I'm sure he can describe the process more accurately.
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Post by The Wizard »

Munir wrote:
tibbitts wrote:
Has he been checked out by the moderators?
What exactly does that involve?

Paul
My understanding is that Alex can check if the person posting has a legitimate email address, and identify the site from which he is posting (I forgot the initials), then check if that person has made similar posts under other names. He has banned individuals after checking them out if they are fakes. I'm sure he can describe the process more accurately.
I used to do similar on an unrelated chat room.
The IP address is the key but there are limits.
You can "usually" determine if the user is in a particular country, but tools called anonymisers can obfuscate that.
And major providers like verizon.net have large ranges of IP addresses such that a banned user coming back with a new username wouldn't be possible to identify.
That whole topic-area is a "moderately" interesting one...
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Post by fishndoc »

While I agree that it seems a significant number of first time posts are trolls, I don't think a quarantine is a good idea. As mentioned, these frauds are jumped on and beat senseless pretty quickly here.

In defense of the OP, if I had found this forum, got the religion and decided to move my accounts to Vanguard, and then a significant error occurred with what I thought was poor customer service, then this would be the first place (other than Vanguard) that I would complain.
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Post by Quesnay »

I'm very much a newbie but I have had no real problems with Vanguard thus far. Good Luck.
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Re: Has Vanguard lost its way?

Post by Chuck »

dodonnell wrote:"... our IRA" ? ... there is no such thing as our IRA.
Nice pedantic point, but my wife and I say stuff like this all the time, because everything of ours is ours, even if legally it's one or the other. It's not like I'm going to say "sorry honey, you already spent your IRA, so good luck!"
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Post by stemikger »

You didn't hear the new contest Vanguard is throwing. It's called the Vanguard Lottery.

They pick a random client and give him anywhere from $1 to 10 million.

They pick a new client every month.

Needless to say, I'm joking, but I have a feeling you are too ; )
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Re: Has Vanguard lost its way?

Post by rustymutt »

qqq222 wrote:6 days ago I noted that our Vanguard IRA contained an excess of 7 million dollars. The numbers were fun to observe, but there was a feeling that my money resides with a firm, Vanguard, that is not minding its accounts properly.

After countless telephone calls, the excess 7 million remains on my account site. Vanguard has assured me that it is very likely the problem will be fixed in another 2 weeks.

Apparently there is section of Vanguard which repairs errors, but can not be reached directly by Vanguard reps or Flagship reps. As the matter involves the brokerage account, the Flagship rep was of no assistance - not his department!

3 weeks to fix a 7 million dollar error! Jack, what has gone wrong?
Slow day at Fidelity?
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Post by Munir »

Wasn't there a spammer a couple of years ago with the letters QQQ in his name or am I getting forgetful and/or paranoid? :roll: .
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Post by Parthenon »

Several years ago I noticed a deposit into my Prime Money Market account for $13,000 which I had not originated. After several days I called Vanguard to find the source of this deposit. The flagship desk couldn't come up with a specific answer but told me not to worry about it eventually they would take care of the error and in fact several days later it was gone.

Apparently they do have an auditing process that works, eventually!

Ed
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Post by retcaveman »

Been with Vanguard since '92 with no serious complaints. With the growing popularity of V and Bogleheads, I have wondered if that growth has or might negatively affect service/quality.

There seems to be a pattern whereby a company develops a reputation for outstanding product/service and as the word gets out, they are inundated with new business which strains the companies ability to live up to it's reputation.

I had the same concern about Toyota when it seemed like they were taking over the car world.

Not saying this is happening to V, but I have wondered about it.
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Post by Majormajor78 »

fishndoc wrote:While I agree that it seems a significant number of first time posts are trolls, I don't think a quarantine is a good idea. As mentioned, these frauds are jumped on and beat senseless pretty quickly here.

In defense of the OP, if I had found this forum, got the religion and decided to move my accounts to Vanguard, and then a significant error occurred with what I thought was poor customer service, then this would be the first place (other than Vanguard) that I would complain.
Very true.

I love vanguard funds. I consider them to be the best investing decision I've ever made and the greatest thing since sliced bread. Vanguard itself though I'm a little ambivalent about. Quirky rules and ristrictions that are usually (not always) reasonable and not always very user friendly.

It's unfortunate that I've found that I have to be very careful about posting anything that is critical of Vanguard. While most here are extremely helpful and knowledgable there are a number of Diehards that truly believe that Vanguard can do no wrong and this tone undermines the credability of some of the truly great knowledge that they have to offer.

Come on people, yes mistakes happen... No accounting errors are not acceptable... Yes I'd be ticked to if my balance were incorrect because if it's sloppy to the positive it could just as easily be sloppy in the other direction... More that a day or two to get it corrected is not acceptable either. Just because somebody is not thrilled with Vanguard does not mean they are a troll. It only means that there is one more person out there who has had life happen to them and probably will not be benefitting from this forum in the future due to the responses he got from posting a perfectly reasonable gripe.
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Post by woof755 »

Opponent Process wrote:maybe it was not intended to be a factual statement.
I think I know what you're referring to (but neither of us is allowed to say) and I think your post is hilarious!!!!!!!
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Post by Alex Frakt »

Munir wrote:
tibbitts wrote:
Has he been checked out by the moderators?
What exactly does that involve?

Paul
My understanding is that Alex can check if the person posting has a legitimate email address, and identify the site from which he is posting (I forgot the initials), then check if that person has made similar posts under other names. He has banned individuals after checking them out if they are fakes. I'm sure he can describe the process more accurately.
We can check the e-mail address and the IP address. The former only helps with really dumb or naive sock puppets (people who pretend to be someone else to praise their own business or attack a competitor), otherwise they use a throwaway free e-mail account to cover their tracks. But it does happen occasionally with real estate and insurance agents.

The IP address shows us which router the page request originally came from. When we look up the IP address, we can tell who the ISP is, the approximate location and, if it's from a large enough organization, even the company name. You can see what we see by going to http://whatismyipaddress.com. The forum software also tells us if any other members have also posted from that IP address. This isn't foolproof either, if people have a dialup account, post from their smartphones or use an anonymous proxy server, the information is pretty useless.

FWIW, the OP's e-mail and IP addresses don't tell us anything positive or negative.
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Post by steve roy »

tibbitts wrote:
Has he been checked out by the moderators?
What exactly does that involve?

Paul
For starters, a rectal exam.
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Post by KyleAAA »

Bugs happen everywhere. You could move your money elsewhere, but these bugs happen those places too.
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Post by NAVigator »

Alex Frakt wrote: FWIW, the OP's e-mail and IP addresses don't tell us anything positive or negative.
However, what the poster says in their first post and the tone of the message says a lot about them.

You only have one chance to make a first impression.

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Post by sport »

NAVigator wrote:
Alex Frakt wrote: FWIW, the OP's e-mail and IP addresses don't tell us anything positive or negative.
However, what the poster says in their first post and the tone of the message says a lot about them.

You only have one chance to make a first impression.

Jerry
The title of the thread tells even more.

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Post by Norris »

jsl11 wrote:
NAVigator wrote:
Alex Frakt wrote: FWIW, the OP's e-mail and IP addresses don't tell us anything positive or negative.
However, what the poster says in their first post and the tone of the message says a lot about them.

You only have one chance to make a first impression.

Jerry
The title of the thread tells even more.

Jeff
Indeed, the thread title is rather bold/presumptive for a first time post.

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Re: Has Vanguard lost its way?

Post by sscritic »

qqq222 wrote: After countless telephone calls,
That wouldn't be 7 million phone calls, would it?
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Post by Alex Frakt »

NAVigator wrote:
Alex Frakt wrote: FWIW, the OP's e-mail and IP addresses don't tell us anything positive or negative.
However, what the poster says in their first post and the tone of the message says a lot about them.
And the lack of followup. Also new posters tend to say something to introduce themselves, even if it's just "I've been lurking here for a while..."

It's not proof of anything, but readers can certainly draw their own conclusions.
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Post by LonePrairie »

If this were Facebook I'd have clicked 'like' after several posts in this topic. Thanks for making me laugh after a tiring day, you guys!
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Post by Steelersfan »

Maybe in his second post (if there ever is one) he'll take off his mask so we'll know who threw the stink bomb into the room and escaped into the night.
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Post by BigFoot48 »

Maybe the guy who is missing his IRA's 7 million will do a first post here and tell us how he/she feels about Vanguard!
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Post by Steelersfan »

BigFoot48 wrote:Maybe the guy who is missing his IRA's 7 million will do a first post here and tell us how he/she feels about Vanguard!
Symmetry - always a good thing. It establishes balance. :lol:
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Post by HomerJ »

Manbaerpig wrote:I would be extremely tempted to pay the 10% on a distribution here, and have them mail me a check which I would immediately deposit say in the Cayman Islands or other offshore banking enterprise

what error, in other words, harship withdrawl, you know, daddy needs a bigger yacht :P
Of course, you'll want to leave the country and never come back...

But with $7 million.... Hmmm.. maybe... :)
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