Vanguard Letter on revoking e-delivery [Updated Sept 2024]

[texas_archer]

[This thread has new responses as of Sept 2024 viewtopic.php?p=8024701#p8024701. Moderator Pops1860]

Anyone get a letter from Vanguard this week stating that they could no longer email your proxy materials and were therefore revoking your e-delivery?

I received 4 of these documents today. Logged into my account and nothing has changed, and it says Im still signed up for e-delivery.

My email address is good, nothing in the junk folder, recently got emails from Vanguard.

I will have to wait till Monday to call them to get to the bottom of this.

[Old Goat]

I also received the letter. Called Vanguard Thursday, I was told to disregard the letter. All my edelivery settings were confirmed by the rep. The settings had never changed.

[texas_archer]

Thanks. How bizarre.

Appreciate you posting your experience.

[JoeNJ28]

Not just a vanguard issue hitting other firms to....Firm i work for had the same issue due to the size of the proxy materials email. Insane amount of phone calls.

[Miriam2]

Anyone get a letter from Vanguard this week stating that they could no longer email your proxy materials and were therefore revoking your e-delivery?

I received 4 of these documents today. Logged into my account and nothing has changed, and it says Im still signed up for e-delivery.

My email address is good, nothing in the junk folder, recently got emails from Vanguard.

I will have to wait till Monday to call them to get to the bottom of this.

Yes, our entire family received a gazillion such letters beginning in 2021, and yes, we would also continue to receive other legitimate emails from Vanguard and had no problems with any accounts. I could not resolve this issue by logging into the accounts and changing email preferences because everything looked good. The only suggestions from a rep were (1) these letters all refer to a certain subject, ie. the delivery of "reports, prospectuses, and proxy materials" (as opposed to statements, transactions, etc.), meaning they come from a certain department that was the problem. Try checking if e-delivery applies to the delivery of those documents also, there might be a different section for that. And yes, we had started receiving prospectuses in the mail.

Also, (2) checking your Vg email preferences online is specific to your profile, ie. the U & P you used to sign in, and if you sign in under the wife's profile for a joint account, for example, you might not be able to change the preferences for the husband. As I recall, this was one of our problems.

Also, I am convinced that we had everything set for e-delivery years earlier and that "somehow" that was changed to non-email. Later I found non-email selections and changed them back.

So this is NOT a new problem. I have their letters to us from 2021 in my Vg files right now in case the problem returns

[Helodriver]

I received this notice in 2022.
And shortly thereafter I received several sets of proxies and annual reports from individual stocks held in my brokerage account.

I logged in and confirmed that everything was set for e-delivery. I thought it was strange so I called Vanguard.
I was told that perhaps I didn't open a e-mail containing proxy, prospectus or annual report information. I was told these e-mails contain some type of read receipt.
If they are not opened and therefore considered read and are instead just sent to trash or junk prior to opening they consider that a inability to contact you.

Since then I have opened all proxy and prospectus information e-mails and have not been "reset" to mail since.

[anagram]

I received this notice in 2022.
And shortly thereafter I received several sets of proxies and annual reports from individual stocks held in my brokerage account.

I logged in and confirmed that everything was set for e-delivery. I thought it was strange so I called Vanguard.
I was told that perhaps I didn't open a e-mail containing proxy, prospectus or annual report information. I was told these e-mails contain some type of read receipt.
If they are not opened and therefore considered read and are instead just sent to trash or junk prior to opening they consider that a inability to contact you.

Since then I have opened all proxy and prospectus information e-mails and have not been "reset" to mail since.

More misinformation from Vanguard.

[anagram]

Thanks. How bizarre.

Appreciate you posting your experience.

Not bizarre at all. Vanguard told me they are having problems with the third party provider than sends out these emails for proxy materials.

[Katietsu]

Not Vanguard. But, I had a similar problem about a year ago. In the end, it appeared that my email provider had blacklisted the source of the email. Nothing shows up in your spam/junk folder because the email never makes it that far. In my case, I had to switch my email address temporarily until the bigger issue was addressed.

[workerbeeengineer]

Family members have recently received the same type of letters from Fidelity.

[jcpct]

[Thread merged into here --admin LadyGeek]

Today I received 3 mailings from Vanguard telling me "Your delivery preferences have been changed to U.S. mail" and they were revoking my consent for e-delivery. I don't recall changing anything (from electronic delivery) and when I went into the Vanguard site the delivery preferences still were all checked for electronic delivery. Do I need to do anything else or just ignore the letters?
Thanks for any guidance on this.

[mailman781]

Today I received 3 mailings from Vanguard telling me "Your delivery preferences have been changed to U.S. mail" and they were revoking my consent for e-delivery. I don't recall changing anything (from electronic delivery) and when I went into the Vanguard site the delivery preferences still were all checked for electronic delivery. Do I need to do anything else or just ignore the letters?
Thanks for any guidance on this.

I believe I would call them tomorrow to confirm things.

[cranberrycrash]

Yes, definitely call. Or they will start charging you their new $20 per account fee for providing statements by mail.

[barnaclebob]

I randomly got a tax statement (1099-R) for one account by mail even though it was (and still is) set for e-delivery. No other notifications and no other tax statements by mail. Maybe the delivery system has some bugs.

[Makefile]

There was another thread with recent activity (viewtopic.php?t=213849) so maybe that is your issue.
Email is very flaky due to all the anti-spam infrastructure in the pipeline. There is even a technique called "graylisting" where an email server intentionally refuses an email on the first try, knowing that a legitimate sending server will try again later while a spammer might not. So I can understand Vanguard flipping you back to paper if there is any doubt that your e-delivery is getting through. Maybe they have some internal compliance initiative going on.

[exodusNH]

Yes, definitely call. Or they will start charging you their new $20 per account fee for providing statements by mail.

It's $25 now.

The emails probably weren't getting through. After a certain number of failures, they will revert you to mailed statements. You can read through the thread linked above to get more information.

[RetiredAL]

It's not just Vanguard, I got 7 of these today from Schwab.

In review of the paper copies, they are all the same word-for-word except for the last digits of the link to PDF file at 'proxyvote.com'. One e-mail did come thru.

I suspect what we are seeing that the spam mail handlers are seeing many multiples of the same message and declaring them SPAM. The sender of the one that did come thru is id@proxyvote.com, so it would make sense that the spam handlers rejected the other 7.

IMO, the culprit is proxyvote, not Schwab, or Vanguard. Proxyvote needs have themselves better identified the the Email transport system so they don't get labled as SPAM.

Of note, Fidelity sends out a single notice of any/all new materials that includes a link to retrieve them. However, that link takes you to a Fidelity logon screen --BAD! We all know to never click on e-mail logon links purporting to be from a financial institution.

[Miriam2]

Here is another current BH thread on this same issue

Vanguard Letter on revoking e-delivery

One BH in the above thread suggested that you make sure you click on emails from Vanguard, Fidelity, etc., so it looks to them that you DID open the email and read it. "If they are not opened and therefore considered read, and are instead just sent to trash or junk prior to opening, they consider that a inability to contact you," and then you get this stuff.

[LadyGeek]

I merged jcpct's thread into the ongoing discussion.

(Thanks to the member who reported the post and explained what's wrong.)

[aaron2020]

I'm getting a similar warning when I log on: "Act now to receive your fund report alerts via e-delivery". I've been doing e-delivery since it was first available (decades?)

This is not my first experience with Vanguard doing this. I'm considering setting up a separate gmail account specifically to forward Vanguard emails to my regular account.

More generally, it's disconcerting that a financial company has trouble with basic technology.

[Rocinante Rider]

I'm getting a similar warning when I log on: "Act now to receive your fund report alerts via e-delivery". I've been doing e-delivery since it was first available (decades?)

This is not my first experience with Vanguard doing this. I'm considering setting up a separate gmail account specifically to forward Vanguard emails to my regular account.

More generally, it's disconcerting that a financial company has trouble with basic technology.

Per some of the posts above, this does not appear to be a Vanguard issue. BTW, I'm with Vanguard and haven't experienced this issue.

[jebmke]

I'm getting a similar warning when I log on: "Act now to receive your fund report alerts via e-delivery". I've been doing e-delivery since it was first available (decades?)

This is not my first experience with Vanguard doing this. I'm considering setting up a separate gmail account specifically to forward Vanguard emails to my regular account.

More generally, it's disconcerting that a financial company has trouble with basic technology.

Per some of the posts above, this does not appear to be a Vanguard issue. BTW, I'm with Vanguard and haven't experienced this issue.

me neither. Wellcare on the other hand keeps restarting paper EOBs reminding me they pay nothing (but now, neither do I ha ha).

[exodusNH]

I'm getting a similar warning when I log on: "Act now to receive your fund report alerts via e-delivery". I've been doing e-delivery since it was first available (decades?)

This is not my first experience with Vanguard doing this. I'm considering setting up a separate gmail account specifically to forward Vanguard emails to my regular account.

More generally, it's disconcerting that a financial company has trouble with basic technology.

It's a combination of overly aggressive antispam measures with certain email providers, Vanguard's outsourced email service provider, and Vanguard not having the technical leadership to fix this.

[single2019]

I'm getting a similar warning when I log on: "Act now to receive your fund report alerts via e-delivery". I've been doing e-delivery since it was first available (decades?)

This is not my first experience with Vanguard doing this. I'm considering setting up a separate gmail account specifically to forward Vanguard emails to my regular account.

More generally, it's disconcerting that a financial company has trouble with basic technology.

It's a combination of overly aggressive antispam measures with certain email providers, Vanguard's outsourced email service provider, and Vanguard not having the technical leadership to fix this.

I had the same issue with Marcus bank

[nisiprius]

Do you use a big, familiar email provider or a small one?

I used to have a "vanity" domain, which for many years came with a free email accounts, and I used it. So my email address was something like firstname@lastname.com. When they decided to charge $4.95 a month for it, I removed it and switched to gmail.

On the one hand I don't like Google and big tech's maneuvers to rule the world.

On the other hand I was amazed to find how much reduction there has been in various nuisance issues, probably related to having an "unknown" domain probably counting against me in the spam scoring systems used by email systems. It's wrong, it's unfair, but life has definitely been just a little easier since I switched to gmail.

[aaron2020]

Update: after updating email addresses several times (van1@mydomain.com, van2@mydomain.com, van3@mydomain.com) I've finally had a stop to Vanguard banning my email addresses as undeliverable. What I'm doing now is going to an email client in a web browser and loading all images in all Vanguard emails once a week. I'm not doing this on my phone, which I assume has stricter privacy restrictions that help prevent Vanguard from tracking email openings. So far, it's fixed (either by my actions or something else changed)

[smooth_rough]

Vanguard keeps coming up with new ways to annoy clients.

[CRC_Volunteer]

I too received this nasty-gram from Vanguard on 2024-06-24. Email address was flagged as undeliverable and unable to retype the same address. I called Vanguard and the Vanguard Rep was unable to override the lock once it is set. I changed the address to another one AND then changed it back to the original. Each change generated emails (old and new addresses) which let me know things are working.

Vanguard Rep stated that if Vanguard cannot use email, then the physical mailings would resume at an annual cost of $25. I let her know if that occurred, I would convert my MF to ETF and would be gone.

[rkhusky]

This is happening to us with JC Penney. We get daily email ads, but somehow they can’t send bill notifications to the same email address, which is listed in our profile. Can’t change anything because 2-factor is set to an old phone number. Will probably have to call someday.

[Monster99]

DW just received the "unable to reach you by email" letter dated July 3. She changed the email to her Google account, and got the confirmation that it had been changed.... to both the new email AND the old one they said was undeliverable.....

Fidelity is starting to be a consideration.

[CorradoJr]

Any update on this?

I wrote in another thread of the same thing happening to my parent's account (I have everything set to e-Delivery years ago and receive all of their confirmations/emails at my own email address)

And now it seems they were charged 3 separate $25 fees.

All of the criteria seems the same in my situation as well...
my email address is "working" and is correct on the Vanguard site.
My parents received physical letters informing them of the "we've been trying to contact you..." and your email address is not reachable.

I am not an IT expert, but I always understood it that a company would have no way to determine if an email they sent to a customer was opened or not. I'm fairly sure I've opened at least some of them.

This is so infuriating! So now they are charging the $25 fee for sending emails they falsely believe are undeliverable and over-riding the "e-Delivery" option I have set up years ago for their incompetence?

Is there an option for "stop bugging me'? This screams to be a cash grab.

[stan1]

Any update on this?

I wrote in another thread of the same thing happening to my parent's account (I have everything set to e-Delivery years ago and receive all of their confirmations/emails at my own email address)

And now it seems they were charged 3 separate $25 fees.

All of the criteria seems the same in my situation as well...
my email address is "working" and is correct on the Vanguard site.
My parents received physical letters informing them of the "we've been trying to contact you..." and your email address is not reachable.

I am not an IT expert, but I always understood it that a company would have no way to determine if an email they sent to a customer was opened or not. I'm fairly sure I've opened at least some of them.

This is so infuriating! So now they are charging the $25 fee for sending emails they falsely believe are undeliverable and over-riding the "e-Delivery" option I have set up years ago for their incompetence?

Is there an option for "stop bugging me'? This screams to be a cash grab.

Call Vanguard (or get parents on conference call with Vanguard if you aren't authorized to act on their behalf). Seems your issue is a little different than some: they were actually charged fees so maybe not a mistaken email blast.

Also don't get angry or become overbearing on the call. If you do that the Vanguard rep might flag the account for potential elder abuse if you seem to be dominating over your parents. Such is how things work.

[dkturner]

[This thread has been merged into this on-going discussion. Moderator Pops1860]

We received several letters from Vanguard yesterday informing us that: “we were unable to contact you at your email address”.
The letter went on to mention several things that we may have been doing wrong that was causing this problem. We were further informed that: “Please note that we’ll revoke your consent to e-delivery and begin sending your documents through U.S. mail if, after repeated attempts, we’re unable to contact you by email”

Interestingly enough we received several emails from Vanguard last month - and one again yesterday. We’re waiting to see how long it will take before we start receiving transaction confirmations, shareholder reports and prospectuses by mail. Currently we are scheduled to only receive statements and year end tax information by mail. Everything else is supposed to be by email.

Has anybody else received a similar letter?

[BogleTaxPro]

We received several letters from Vanguard yesterday informing us that: “we were unable to contact you at your email address”.
The letter went on to mention several things that we may have been doing wrong that was causing this problem. We were further informed that: “Please note that we’ll revoke your consent to e-delivery and begin sending your documents through U.S. mail if, after repeated attempts, we’re unable to contact you by email”

Interestingly enough we received several emails from Vanguard last month - and one again yesterday. We’re waiting to see how long it will take before we start receiving transaction confirmations, shareholder reports and prospectuses by mail. Currently we are scheduled to only receive statements and year end tax information by mail. Everything else is supposed to be by email.

Has anybody else received a similar letter?

see ongoing discussion on viewtopic.php?f=10&t=422075 ?

[telemark]

On a slightly related note...

I haven't seen this with Vanguard, but for three or four years now US Bank has found itself unable to send statement notifications to the email address they had no trouble with for the preceding fifteen or so years; the same email address they still use to send me marketing materials, and the same email address that Capital One, Vanguard, Fidelity, the IRS, American Express, and many others all still use with no apparent difficulty. I eventually gave up arguing and just let them send me paper in the mail once a month.

The address in question is with a smaller local ISP. I signed up with them in the 1990s, in the age of dialup modems, and have been using the address ever since. Presumably US Bank would be OK with a gmail address, but I think Google knows enough about me already.

[SmileyFace]

I am not an IT expert, but I always understood it that a company would have no way to determine if an email they sent to a customer was opened or not. I'm fairly sure I've opened at least some of them.

They won't necessarily know if a delivered email was read or not but they may know if the email was undeliverable (e.g. bad email address or ISP service outage during period of time that they attempted to deliver).
I am not saying this is the case- but if your ISP had an email server outage or other network outage that prevented delivery at the time they tried to send an email they would have a record of that in the form of an "undeliverable" message.
If it were me - I would call and ask why you were charged when they have a good email address for you from which you have received other communications and see what they say. If they say the email failed - have them give you the date and time of attempted delivery and ask if they ever reattempt delivery (I would think they would have reattempted in case of temp outages).
Of course it is possible they also had delivery issues on their end or with an ISP they use or one that was in the delivery path - But I would assume they would have then gotten thousands of failures and actually rectified the issue themselves.

[exodusNH]

We received several letters from Vanguard yesterday informing us that: “we were unable to contact you at your email address”.
The letter went on to mention several things that we may have been doing wrong that was causing this problem. We were further informed that: “Please note that we’ll revoke your consent to e-delivery and begin sending your documents through U.S. mail if, after repeated attempts, we’re unable to contact you by email”

Interestingly enough we received several emails from Vanguard last month - and one again yesterday. We’re waiting to see how long it will take before we start receiving transaction confirmations, shareholder reports and prospectuses by mail. Currently we are scheduled to only receive statements and year end tax information by mail. Everything else is supposed to be by email.

Has anybody else received a similar letter?

Vanguard messed up their DNS records for sending email. Switch to a Gmail account or find a new vendor, since Vanguard seems incapable of recognizing what they've done wrong. This is an ongoing issue.

[dkturner]

We received several letters from Vanguard yesterday informing us that: “we were unable to contact you at your email address”.
The letter went on to mention several things that we may have been doing wrong that was causing this problem. We were further informed that: “Please note that we’ll revoke your consent to e-delivery and begin sending your documents through U.S. mail if, after repeated attempts, we’re unable to contact you by email”

Interestingly enough we received several emails from Vanguard last month - and one again yesterday. We’re waiting to see how long it will take before we start receiving transaction confirmations, shareholder reports and prospectuses by mail. Currently we are scheduled to only receive statements and year end tax information by mail. Everything else is supposed to be by email.

Has anybody else received a similar letter?

Vanguard messed up their DNS records for sending email. Switch to a Gmail account or find a new vendor, since Vanguard seems incapable of recognizing what they've done wrong. This is an ongoing issue.

We receive vanguard emails for transactions and confirmations. It’s only annual and semi- annual reports and prospectuses that Vanguard says our email won’t accept. I can always look them up on line if I want to read them. I just find the situation amusing. Apparently nobody bothers to check anything after they make changes and before they start spraying the web with their reading matter (ready, fire, aim). I was only wondering if anyone else was able to receive Vanguard emails for some types of documents but not other types.

I have thought about moving our accounts to Fidelity, which we also use, but I have a large position in the Wellesley Income Fund and my wife has a large position in the Inflation Protected Securities Fund but I understand the Admiral class shares don’t travel well.

[welderwannabe]

Vanguard messed up their DNS records for sending email. Switch to a Gmail account or find a new vendor, since Vanguard seems incapable of recognizing what they've done wrong. This is an ongoing issue.

I dont have time to look into it fully, but just looked at their TXT records for vanguard.com and they should be embarrassed.

[Gaston]

We receive vanguard emails for transactions and confirmations. It’s only annual and semi- annual reports and prospectuses that Vanguard says our email won’t accept.

I'm puzzled. I receive txts and/or emails from Vanguard, according to my profile settings. But they simply notify me that a transaction confirmation or statement is available. The notifications do not include the actual document. I have to sign on to the Vanguard site to view/download the document(s). Similarly, the notifications for prospectuses and annual reports contain a link, not the actual document.

Am I understanding that others receive notifications from Vanguard that contain actual documents in PDF or some other format?

[exodusNH]

We received several letters from Vanguard yesterday informing us that: “we were unable to contact you at your email address”.
The letter went on to mention several things that we may have been doing wrong that was causing this problem. We were further informed that: “Please note that we’ll revoke your consent to e-delivery and begin sending your documents through U.S. mail if, after repeated attempts, we’re unable to contact you by email”

Interestingly enough we received several emails from Vanguard last month - and one again yesterday. We’re waiting to see how long it will take before we start receiving transaction confirmations, shareholder reports and prospectuses by mail. Currently we are scheduled to only receive statements and year end tax information by mail. Everything else is supposed to be by email.

Has anybody else received a similar letter?

Vanguard messed up their DNS records for sending email. Switch to a Gmail account or find a new vendor, since Vanguard seems incapable of recognizing what they've done wrong. This is an ongoing issue.

We receive vanguard emails for transactions and confirmations. It’s only annual and semi- annual reports and prospectuses that Vanguard says our email won’t accept. I can always look them up on line if I want to read them. I just find the situation amusing. Apparently nobody bothers to check anything after they make changes and before they start spraying the web with their reading matter (ready, fire, aim). I was only wondering if anyone else was able to receive Vanguard emails for some types of documents but not other types.

I have thought about moving our accounts to Fidelity, which we also use, but I have a large position in the Wellesley Income Fund and my wife has a large position in the Inflation Protected Securities Fund but I understand the Admiral class shares don’t travel well.

Those emails come from an third-party. Vanguard, for years, hasn't properly set up their DNS records for this to work with all providers. My guess is that Google made an exception for Vanguard given the size of both companies.

It looks like their SPF record does not include the proxyvote.com IP address range. Vanguard is using the DMARC info, which is more comprehensive.

If Vanguard updated their SPF record to end with ~all instead of -all, it likely wouldn't be an issue.

[dkturner]

We receive vanguard emails for transactions and confirmations. It’s only annual and semi- annual reports and prospectuses that Vanguard says our email won’t accept.

I'm puzzled. I receive txts and/or emails from Vanguard, according to my profile settings. But they simply notify me that a transaction confirmation or statement is available. The notifications do not include the actual document. I have to sign on to the Vanguard site to view/download the document(s). Similarly, the notifications for prospectuses and annual reports contain a link, not the actual document.

Am I understanding that others receive notifications from Vanguard that contain actual documents in PDF or some other format?

The emails advising us that Reports and Prospectuses are AVAILABLE won’t go through. The emails reporting transactions and advising us of the availability of confirmations for those transactions arrive correctly. There is obviously a serious problem here. I wonder if the new CEO will stick around and straighten things out or leave for greener pastures? Vanguard kind of makes Starbucks look like a finely tuned machine.

[Gaston]

The emails advising us that Reports and Prospectuses are AVAILABLE won’t go through. The emails reporting transactions and advising us of the availability of confirmations for those transactions arrive correctly.

Thank you for clarifying.

[CorradoJr]

Just adding a data point, my email address is a gmail address and has been for years. Vanguard is still stating they haven’t been able to reach me.

I still have to call and ask what is going on, l appreciate the suggestions but am not using a small or obscure email provider.

[CorradoJr]

After checking the various accounts for my parents, sure enough they were all reverted to paper delivery.
I had to go in and turn on e-delivery again. Need to call and see if they are willing to reverse the fees.

Reading through the eDelivery consent agreement, I came across this piece:

If an e-mail is returned to Vanguard as "undeliverable," we'll attempt to resend it. After up to three failed attempts to deliver e-mail to the e-mail address you have provided us, we will switch all of your mailing preferences back to paper delivery and begin sending your account documents via U.S. mail. This will revoke your consent to e-delivery. Therefore, please update your information immediately if your e-mail address changes by logging onto vanguard.com and following the instructions under How do I change my information? above.

So this is very ridiculous. They've sent emails to my gmail account and Vanguard themselves has stated they are unable to reach me which is incorrect. Then they have the gall to revert the accounts back to paper again and charge a fee because of their own errors.

I wonder how often this will continue to go on for? I guess this is something I'll need to check every 6 months or so until they get their act together.