Vanguard Reviews

I am surprised that a company of this caliber has such poor customer service. The website is almost useless. The call center is outsourced and the associates don't know much and can do even less and it is impossible to get to a supervisor. I have been trying to make a withdrawal for over a month now and still have no resolution in sight.

Vanguard customer service has gotten to be horrible.. I used to be able to reach a person right away to conduct transactions. But now wait times are over an hour and when you indicate you want a call back either no one calls or they only call once and you better pick up. If not you have to start over. I have a significant amount of money invested with them and this is absolutely horrible service!!

I get "Request cannot be completed" errors messages every time now when I go into my Vanguard account and try to do a transaction. How does a company the size of Vanguard with the resources that that Vanguard has, have such a horrible website? The CEO should be fired.

Inaccessible, I’ve had problems from the beginning and I currently on hold with them for about an hour and 20 minutes now. Most of their websites don’t work and I recommend everyone ditch this poor excuse of a company.

I never thought I would be writing a negative review on Vanguard. I have had funds deposited with them for over 40 years. In the last 5 years, Vanguard's customer service has steadily went downhill to an unacceptable level. Not only are the customer service reps frequently rude some have no idea what they are doing. The worst case was a rep who did not know the difference between an IRA distribution and an IRA CD purchase within a IRA. I will not bore with details, just enough to say if I had not be a Tax advisor, I would have followed their advice and had a 400K taxable transaction. I no longer recommend it for anyone who cannot manage their own account on-line. Do not use their apps, they are problematic. Unfortunately, I do not have a recommendation for an alternative. They still have low fees and are ok at best if you are financial competent.

Customer service use to be great, last 3 years it has gone downhill rapidly. Have difficult time processing my RMDs with experience to complete more. Difficult every year. Also very adamantly forcing you to go paperless.

Requested a hardship loan. Approved on the 22nd, asked to wait until the 3rd. On the 5th I called in, oops the check was returned a week previous. Nobody told me. Talked to my plan admin to correct a slight address issue. Asked for priority/overnight. Was told that it would be on the 8th and be in my hands by the 10th. On the 13th I call back in (they were closed over the weekend)... oops we didn't actually send via priority... was it requested? Yes.... Do the notes show to send priority? Yes.... was it sent priority? No.... why? *shrug* I don't know.... what can you do about this? Nothing...

Absolute garbage of a website. Not user friendly at all and makes it impossible to open an account. It's almost like they don't even want anyone's business with how unclear everything is. I would use any other investing site than this one.

Unable to communicate with customer service, poor website, unable to transfer funds. Customer service was unable to locate my 401k plan funds. Apparently the account was sold to another company vet. Dissatisfied with the communication.

With Vanguard changing to brokerage they wanted to re-obtain our trust documentation which is a cost and annoyance because our lawyer is the one that has the official, clean copy and they charge for a copy. That caused me to think about selling and that caused me to look at the cost basis numbers to understand the tax hit. My funds that started in 2005 don't have cost accounting done and when I called they said they couldn't provide them. Given we had dividend and capitol gain reinvestment that is a major mess with each of the two funds having 5-10 additions each year which EACH have their own cost basis for tax.

Company cut back OT and call pay, needed to take a hardship withdrawal a couple of times. Vanguard has decided to make it as hard as possible, so I’m in a real bind and unable to pull out MY money from my own account because my proof of needing it doesn’t meet their standards- like my landlord not sending a certified letter, etc. I would close my account if this wasn’t employee sponsored. Absolutely hate this company

Vanguard has apparently lost control of a substantial amount of my money in a non-qualified plan. I have been trying for 6 months to make a permitted distribution election, and they have been almost completely non-responsive. I still have no pathway toward resolution. The problem is that they have defaulted to a state where I am due to get the entire payout in March of 2026. This defeats the whole point of a tax-deferred account. In other words, their incompetence will cost me hundreds of thousands of dollars in the long run.

Their system is absolutely pathetic. Not only do you have to wait on hold forever, but #1 - they can't get you a statement with the whole account number: 2. You have to verify your identity every time they transfer you to another service provider; 3. You cannot give them instructions to just liquidate your account and send you the money. No, you need to ask them to liquidate it today and call back the next day to send the money over! Plus, when we called today their system was conveniently down just as we were asking to liquidate the account, so they won't be able to liquidate until after market close, so we have to call back next week to liquidate and then call the following day to have the money sent over. Can customer service be any worse than this?!?

I just made a withdrawal from my Vanguard account. Jakeer helped me with my withdrawal. He was awesome and explained everything thoroughly. All the Vanguard associates I've interacted with have all been wonderful.

The company has no customer service and no supervisors to assist. The customer calls to close the account, and representatives keep the customer on hold and do not transfer to a supervisor. I had to be with them for 2 days on the phone, and each representative said the same thing: that they will not transfer to a supervisor and will keep you on hold while not capable of assisting. Maybe they don't have supervisors, and customer service cannot assist. In addition, Vanguard is putting a hold on 401K money with no disclosure to the customer. I will never be a customer of Vanguard after this.

Poor customer service. I was transferred to 5 times because no one knew how to resolve a simple issue. The agents provided wrong information, and it went downhill from there. It was difficult to get a live person to talk to.

Horrific customer service. Had question about a surprise fee I wanted clarification on and so far it's taken up an ridiculous amount of time. I'm definitely talking to someone offshore and have been mostly on hold for 30 minutes so far. If my employer wasn't tied into this company I would run fleeing. The strategy seems to be to keep you waiting long enough that you just give up.

Rude and Racist Customer service Agent Kayce. Kayce was rude falsely claiming that my wife was coaching me to verify our address. Then she stated that she had to end the call. We then asked for a supervisor who was not available. We are leaving Vanguard and will never return! Fidelity is waaaay better.

Vanguard is a total SCAM. They have done this to us twice now. Here is how it works. You download the app to pay for parking. You give all your credit card information.... No receipt will be given for proof of purchase-you will be under the assumption you have paid and all is well. 1-2 weeks later you will receive a late fee parking ticket in the mail for every day you parked there. They do not process your original payment right away so you don't have a receipt or show any charges on your credit card statement for that day. By the time you received your new late fee ticket in the snail mail 7 more days have already passed. Parking started out at $30.00/day is now $85.00/day with the fine. Most people will pay this without looking into it. This is what Vanguard is banking on (literally).

They suck. Customer service is a joke. The website is broken. Move your money, it's not worth the hassle you will have to go through to make a few dollars. Use Fidelity like a grown-up and you won't have this issue.

I have been a customer of Vanguard for 30 years. Recently I retired and decided to move my investments to a company with a good local presence. The person my investment guy and I talked to was very rude and terribly unhelpful. She had a strong accent which was not easy for me to understand. Based on the noise in the background, this was probably an example of customer service being farmed out to a foreign country. Not only would she not give us a transaction number but she would only give us a single name "Kim". She was so unprofessional that I would probably have lost my temper if not for the fact that, at this moment in time, she controlled a large chunk of my retirement account. This from a company that everyone has at least heard of if not an actual customer. I am glad I will never, ever have anything to do with this company.

It is a full scam intentionally to defraud the public and long-term long years workers money being delayed for Vanguard benefits, it starts by the customer services and the poor quality, intentionally disconnected phones calls and then you have to start again calling for hours ,and hours and hours. The amount of money is variable and a lot of hidden fees, regardless to how much you read about the rules, it is a clear thieving and abuse. Huge scam and public is unaware of TILL THEY RETIRE. Simply see their review I mean the Vanguard at any website of app, it is not even above 3 stars.

Terrible customer service. If AI can not help you, you have a terrible uphill battle ahead. When you do have customer service on the line, they are less than helpful. It is all overseas and there is a translation issue. I honestly want to move my money somewhere else. Terrible does not begin to explain the experience.

There is no guidance on how to change beneficiaries on the weekend. I get sent by customer service to new people and they send me to someone else until I just become frustrated and never get my question answered

Do not invest with them. Fidelity is much better. I withdrew all my money May 5th and I still have not received my check. They claim to have reissued it 4 times. I changed my address and received a letter within 3 days confirming my address change but still no check. So I’m going to call Monday and request another check. This is so ridiculous. I’m going to contact my attorney to see if I have a case.

This company is a joke. I've been trying to get someone from there to send me an IRA adoption form for 26 days. They assigned my case to a a Anna ** and we were told on June 16 we would get a call back within 4 days. 6 more calls later and still nothing. Mrs. ** lack of concern and effort only prove that they have zero concern for their clients.

I am so thankful for my company putting me in Vanguard in 1973. My Wellington Admiral Shares have safeguarded our savings still today. We have realized nearly 9% growth and have weathered the 2008 crash unscathed. Now they supply us with a complete investment history going back many years.

I am stuck in Vanguard login hell! When I attempt to log in I receive a message telling me that I will receive a confirmation code to my phone. I click to receive the code and none comes. I click "Send a new code". I wait and wait and wait and...Nothing comes. Without the code I can't even access customer service online to get help. I'm forced to get any help with a direct call. I am a longtime very satisfied Vanguard investor until now. I can't figure out what has happened to the old customer service that was direct, prompt , and problem solving. Now, Vanguard makes it impossible for me to post my unfavorable review. What is going on?

I have been a loyal Vanguard customer since 20 years. Founder John C. Bogle will be ashamed of the current administration. They have removed the personal messaging feature through the account. You just can not communicate with them. It takes 45 minutes to reach any customer service person. They have changed the rules for check writing and it is very difficult to get a checkbook. Your investment choices are limited and you can not invest in any leveraged funds, Gold or Crypto. They decide what is best for you and we have no choice. They do not have research platform or decent stock screener to know more about stocks and mutual funds. Too many limitations on margin trading coupled with high interest rates. Just get out of Vanguard as soon as you can.

So far the Vanguard Advisor has cost me over $128,000 dollars. Wouldn't let me buy gold at $1200 an ounce, won't buy stock at $12 a share that is now $39, won't let me convert 401k assets over to Roth when DJ market was at 28,000 & now it is near 43,000. That would have been at 15,000 point gain tax free. Vanguard is only in this for them not for you.

They have a poor infrastructure and thus a lack of customer support. I needed to update a phone number on my profile, due to some technical issue, all I got was an error message. When I tried to contact customer service to update my phone number instead, I was told they could not do it and I would need to mail in a form and wait several weeks for my information to be updated, furthermore this form requested copious amounts of personal identifying information to in an unsecure fashion. Thus, they have now lost my entire family's business (7+ figures).

I have several investments with Vanguard and have always trusted them until I redeemed an investment. They quoted how much I would receive and the market climbed the next day yet I received less than I was quoted. Contacted customer service and got passed around.

I had a Vanguard account for 3 3/4 years Personal Advisor Account. It had low fees .30 but I didn’t make any money. The only money I made was from the dividends. In 3 3/4 years, I made less than 8 percent total. It had a Domestic and a International Stock and Bond fund. The gains all got absorbed in their hidden fees because they were all Vanguard funds.

Their site is difficult to use. Difficult to see balances and make trades as well as just being overall unappealing. Customer service is inadequate and rude. When I tried to leave they blocked the first transfer request and made it difficult to move my money. I would recommend using a different bank to do your business.

Customer service people there don't speak English, everyone gives different info, and it's 24 hours to speak to a supervisor who is worse than the customer service people. I was denied a hardship loan to save my house because they input information wrong on the forms saying the amounts don't match and because of the loan company I put down whatever that means, they are the ones who filled out the forms. Now house is being repossessed and I have $300,000 in 401k that I can't use to save my house. Complete failure of a company. On top of it all they sent the small withdrawal that they let me take to the wrong address so that money was lost in the mail. Another 35k just gone.

I've been denied access to my GNMA account of 45+ yrs. When I've tried, repeatedly to create an account "log in", Vanguard won't recognize any of my info tho I've received a monthly check for decades. I have no ability to manage my money! My husband just passed away after 7 yrs of suffering dementia. Our Vanguard account has been in our revocable trust for 31 yrs & I've sent copious documents by USPS to the company, over the last year, to prove my authentic ownership but received no response.

The customer service experience with Vanguard has been atrocious. I've never experienced anything so poor with any other firm. It started with my account being locked down for what appeared to be an incorrect password. The website gave a phone number to call in to a call center where it is clear the staff is not trained to adequately understand procedures and answer questions. I spoke to two people there before being transferred to a person who was, from the moment she got on the call, impatient. While I spoke with her, she was huffing as though she could not be bothered to hear my situation. She said things like, "I will refer this to my TL" and when I asked what a TL she got a tone like I was stupid for not knowing. I asked her if there was another phone number related to fraud concerns I could call. For some reason, I had to ask her three times before she gave me the phone number.

I've been a Vanguard customer for over thirty years investing in one of their mutual funds. They used to have excellent customer service with a live, competent American agent available within a few minutes. The customer service has deteriorated massively making it exceedingly difficult and time-consuming to resolve problems, many transfers between department in which one has to repeat the same information over and over again. They adopt arbitrary policies affecting customers without any customer input that create significant problems in accessing funds or modifying transactions. It is as if top management no longer cares about customers and pays no attention to feedback or online customer complaints. Sad to see what has happened to the company since Bogle left.

The company I used to work for set up my retirement plan through Vanguard. I left that job and have been trying to rollover my retirement fund into my new retirement account through the new company I work with. It's been a nightmare since I requested in August 2024 (now it is April 2025). The company I used to work for provides the wrong contact number for Vanguard. Apparently, the number they give is an individual participant number, when I'm supposed to have be contacting a different number. In total, there are 3 numbers I can call. The individual plan continuously hangs up instead of transfers. The other two work.

Don’t do it!!! Transferred entire portfolio OUT due to an outdated website & bad customer service. They charge a $100 transfer out fee….per account. I had $300 in fees to leave a horrible experience. They refused to refund anything. I said I’m posting this all over social media, the rep said “go ahead”….nice.