Vanguard "We've been unable to reach you by email" letters

[RickBoglehead]

Got some a few weeks back, despite getting emails just fine. Just got them again. It appears that "Notice of transaction submission" emails come through fine, but "Your brokerage transaction confirmation is ready" emails aren't. Only one email address on my account.

Vanguard is threatening to revert to paper mail. I think they have a system issue.

Anyone else having this issue?

[bertilak]

Got some a few weeks back, despite getting emails just fine. Just got them again. It appears that "Notice of transaction submission" emails come through fine, but "Your brokerage transaction confirmation is ready" emails aren't. Only one email address on my account.

Vanguard is threatening to revert to paper mail. I think they have a system issue.

Anyone else having this issue?

I would use their message center to report this. (envelope icon near upper right of their main screen, after logging in)

[RickBoglehead]

I would use their message center to report this. (envelope icon near upper right of their main screen, after logging in)

I have done that. They then went into the system and undid the flag that would generate the mailings.

Then I again got the mailings from new email problems that they claim to have. I think their claim is bogus, so I'm looking to see if anyone else has traded in the past month and gotten these letters.

[chinchin]

Phishing attempt?

[RickBoglehead]

Phishing attempt?

No. They're not reporting any attempts to log in. Simply sending letters that they can't email confirms. But transaction submission emails go through just fine.

I tried to push them to investigate what I think is a system issue by saying I'll pull my business if they start paper mailings again.

[chinchin]

Phishing attempt?

No. They're not reporting any attempts to log in. Simply sending letters that they can't email confirms. But transaction submission emails go through just fine.

I tried to push them to investigate what I think is a system issue by saying I'll pull my business if they start paper mailings again.

I'm saying maybe the letter itself is a phishing attempt by someone other than Vanguard.

[greg24]

Got some a few weeks back, despite getting emails just fine. Just got them again. It appears that "Notice of transaction submission" emails come through fine, but "Your brokerage transaction confirmation is ready" emails aren't. Only one email address on my account.

"Notice of transaction submission" emails come to me from alerts@vanguard.com

"Your brokerage transaction confirmation is ready" emails come from vbs@vanguard.com

Maybe try adding vbs@vanguard.com to your safelist or addressbook.

[Grasshopper]

My purchase confirmation emails come from vbs@transactional.vanguard.com Cheers

[asset_chaos]

Maybe try adding vbs@vanguard.com to your safelist or addressbook.

Yes, it's likely this. Several years ago (pre-pandemic) some Vanguard email started going to the spam folder. The emails didn't bounce to generate any unable-to-reach-you letters, but I wasn't seeing the emails. Putting the particular Vanguard address that was being classified as spam into my contacts solved the issue. Give that a try.

[iwm]

I have received the same letters, but my inbox was full and Vanguard emails were truly not getting through. I changed my email address on the website. Let’s see if I keep receiving the same letters in the mail.

[uaeebs86]

Got some a few weeks back, despite getting emails just fine. Just got them again. It appears that "Notice of transaction submission" emails come through fine, but "Your brokerage transaction confirmation is ready" emails aren't. Only one email address on my account.

Vanguard is threatening to revert to paper mail. I think they have a system issue.

Anyone else having this issue?

There was another thread just a week or two ago about this same subject.

[RickBoglehead]

I'm saying maybe the letter itself is a phishing attempt by someone other than Vanguard.

It is not, it is authentic.

"Notice of transaction submission" emails come to me from alerts@vanguard.com

"Your brokerage transaction confirmation is ready" emails come from vbs@vanguard.com

Maybe try adding vbs@vanguard.com to your safelist or addressbook.

It's not an issue of me not receiving them, it's an issue of them saying they weren't deliverable.

[Blake7]

It looks like the “Notice of transaction submission” emails are sent from Vanguard directly, and the “Your brokerage transaction confirmation is ready" emails are being sent from a third-party vendor called exacttarget.com, which is now called Email Studio, and is operated by salesforce.com. I know that doesn’t help you much, but at least helps understand why there different outcomes for each email type. I’ve got these letters from my bank and credit cards before. There are many reasons for emails delivery failure, including your email provider’s server configuration or load causing an initial reject (but maybe accepts a later attempt), or there could be a reputation issue with the delivery service for some reason (which shouldn’t be as one of their functions is to ensure a high email reputation to ensure delivery). There’s no point in trying to get to the bottom of it because they’re often transient issues, but providing feedback to VG doesn’t hurt. I usually do nothing and things continue as normal moving forward.

[Mullins]

It's not an issue of me not receiving them, it's an issue of them saying they weren't deliverable.

Assuming you've confirmed Vanguard actually has received their emails bounced back to them, I'd say it sounds like it may be a server issue. Meaning on the server level itself it's flagging their emails, being unintentionally triggered by spam settings.

If you have another email address not on the same platform, try changing it in Vanguard and see if the problem goes away.

[EricJ]

It looks like the “Notice of transaction submission” emails are sent from Vanguard directly, and the “Your brokerage transaction confirmation is ready" emails are being sent from a third-party vendor called exacttarget.com, which is now called Email Studio, and is operated by salesforce.com. ...

I agree this is the issue. It is Vanguard's issue, not the customer / recipient's issue. Someone at Vanguard needs to read this article https://help.salesforce.com/s/articleVi ... 292&type=1 and take action. I am not holding my breath. This doesn't affect all Vanguard customers because some email providers ignore this misconfiguration, and others do not. Convincing any front-line rep at Vanguard of this would be an exercise in futility.

[wish]

I got this message per email months ago and logged in to confirm that my email was correct.
Ever since, every single time that I log in, I get a box requiring me to enter my correct (unchanged) email before I can proceed to the ever declining website.

Vanguard’s IT department is a problem that is getting old.

[RickBoglehead]

It looks like the “Notice of transaction submission” emails are sent from Vanguard directly, and the “Your brokerage transaction confirmation is ready" emails are being sent from a third-party vendor called exacttarget.com, which is now called Email Studio, and is operated by salesforce.com. ...

I agree this is the issue. It is Vanguard's issue, not the customer / recipient's issue. Someone at Vanguard needs to read this article https://help.salesforce.com/s/articleVi ... 292&type=1 and take action. I am not holding my breath. This doesn't affect all Vanguard customers because some email providers ignore this misconfiguration, and others do not. Convincing any front-line rep at Vanguard of this would be an exercise in futility.

Bingo!

[JB007]

Within the past few days I uploaded to their message center a PDF of one of their silly letters plus PDF examples of their email messages that successfully land in my Inbox. Hoping, of course, that the irony of sending a false letter in the mail alongside with evidence that an email was received - same day no less - will be noted and cause some serious apprehension on the part of some person at Vanguard. No answer yet, of course. When I called in by telephone I got a customer support person who knew nothing useful, but offered to submit a "Repair ticket" to IT. Sadly these people just follow their script and can think no further.

I checked with my ISP and there are NO emails sitting in spam or blocked. As others have indicated, this is a Vanguard issue and it is troubling that an organization of this "sophistication" cannot solve the problem. I see complaints about this issue go back for years. I find nothing helpful or useful at the Vanguard website about this problem - the assumption is on the customer / member / part-owner.

Has anybody been able to systematically resolve this with Vanguard or is it a problem you simply "hope" goes away by itself?
Thanks in advance for any advice, etc.

[uaeebs86]

I posted in the other thread that I found out GoDaddy was throwing away emails from Fidelity without notifying me, and I got similar letters in the mail from Fidelity. (it wasn't all emails)

The only solution was to change my domain/email provider.

[otinkyad]

I posted in the other thread that I found out GoDaddy was throwing away emails from Fidelity without notifying me, and I got similar letters in the mail from Fidelity. (it wasn't all emails)

The only solution was to change my domain/email provider.

Unfortunately, if it’s DMARC issues, as seems likely, then the problem is the sender, not your email provider. All you’ve done (albeit out of some necessity) is switch to a less spam-resistant provider. The part that makes it seem likely is that as described in the various threads, the emails that don’t go through are sent by a third party, or on a subdomain, and those are the exact scenarios where misconfigured SPF and DKIM records would cause problems.