Fidelity Investments

My parents invested with Fidelity for 20 years through their place of employment. When my father died in January of this year my mother who was the only beneficiary needed to take out the money. It is now the end of the year and after countless months of trying to get the money out is nowhere closer than day one. She has logged all the calls she has made each month, the transfer from one department to the other, the piles of paperwork they send to fill out, each representative attempting to talk her into keeping her money in the company!

I've had accounts with Fidelity for over 20 years simply because this is the company my employer chose to use for our 401ks and pension. Over the years I've opened other accounts with Fidelity as well -- but I have learned to never trust any information given to me by Fidelity employees because they are often wrong and uninformed. On several occasions, I have had to inform the Fidelity employee about Federal rules and regulations that affect IRAs and 401ks because he/she was unaware.

Compared with opening an IRA with Vanguard, Fidelity is terrible. Poorly organized webpages and cumbersome process. Just unfortunate that Vanguard still has a 3K minimum to open a Roth. I would think that Fidelity would have this process much more user friendly.

My father passed away September 27, 2018. It's going on 3 months since the day. I've spent the last two months having to deal with the miscommunication and incorrect information given by several representatives. It's taken 9 calls and diligence on my behalf to (maybe come to a resolve). I was told there was no time requirement once a claim for payout was submitted. (Wrong.) There's 30 days to complete the necessary forms. I asked for the form to be mailed; 2 weeks later, 3 calls - no form. Come to find out the form could have been printed from their site. This alone delayed the filing process over 2 weeks. Nonetheless, the claim was received Nov. 21, 2018.

I sent in a properly filled out pension lump sum request on 11/7. I requested a rollover to an existing Fidelity IRA and included the account number. There should have been no tax withheld. I received a check at the end of November with 20 percent tax withheld. I called, Fidelity admitted the error and said it would be fixed. Yesterday I received another check for the full amount with no instructions on what to do with it.

Call hold for an hour 12/4/18. What is the problem? Need human beings to answer calls not machines!! Got through twice after long wait and none of them can answer my questions! Still have to wait and don't know how long to it takes to resolve. I have been long term customer with Fidelity but I guess I have to think it again.

Followed several "blind alleys" before giving up on the website. I was directed three time to options which then popped up as Not Available At This Time. Finally after enduring over half an hour of atrocious scratchy "on hold" music, (They should send this to the CIA, waterboarding would be immediately obsolete!) I finally was transferred to someone who seemed to know what they were talking about. A lot of time was wasted.

I am furious!!! I was clearly advised approximately two weeks ago that in order to open a Roth IRA as intended, I would have to roll-over my existing State retirement account funds into my 401K plan with my current employer first. Now that that has occurred, their representatives tell me that those funds are inaccessible and cannot be rolled over into a Roth IRA because they've been rolled over into my current 401K? I did precisely... PRECISELY what I was advised to do to ensure that I have access to those funds and now they tell me that those funds are cannot be made available to me because I did exactly what they advised me to do. All "Charlie" could do is offer an apology.

They keep giving me the runaround. I gave them my address 3 times and they still sent it to Kentucky. I give them a 0. I have never had this type of problem with any company. They're just not professional. They lie on the phone over and over again.

For starters, there is not enough employees so wait times are too long. There is no ability to look at multiple accounts on your account so you have to be transferred everywhere. Some representatives are unscrupulous so document your entire conversation. You won't get the conversation in e-mail and even though they say they record the conversations, they won't bother to go back to the date and time that you called. Their mistakes and total disregard for timely communications will make you lose money. You can only get your records by mail. My last letter from them to me took seventeen days. Use another brokerage.

Fidelity keeps clients on the phone for hours. Seems like they need more staff. When I tried to get my accounts out of Fidelity, they kept restricting them so I could not complete the transfers. I spent hours trying to straighten it out, and each time I did, I had to call back as it was not taken care of. They would also not allow me to look at my own accounts unless they mailed the statements. This caused me to be unable to look at my own money or make needed trades.

Been trying for going on 2 hours to get someone to answer the phone about my mother's IRA. All I get is a recording saying a representative will be with me shortly. I think the CEO should try using her system and then she would fix it. I was going to use Fidelity, but I probably go somewhere else that will answer the phone.

Every single interaction has resulted in hours of extra stress and time! It took 2 weeks to set up an account due to their errors. Today I am finding that a wire transfer committed to Last Week has not gone through "because the agent did not have authority for that amount!" Are you kidding me!!! Another wanted hour to handle, and, their policy is not to apologize. Do you really want this in your life? I don't! Total incompetency.

Started with Fidelity in 1994 - promises promises. Promised that I was “on track “ for a long time... Then fell off - all from THEIR advisement a couple of years ago. Pulled my money out - horrible terrible company to trust. Watch out for getting involved with the annuity account - that’s only good for Fidelity - can’t wait for 3.5 years to pull my money out!! Thanks Fidelity for absolutely NOTHING! The worst investment company!

Had a 401k loan that I am tried to pay off. I read the instructions online and called to speak to a Fidelity representation who gave me incorrect information on the payoff amount. Sure enough I have a balance after my payoff was received. Spoke to two Fidelity representatives who acted like this is MY fault I did not pay off the entire amount. Said I should consider interest with the payment. I told them they obviously don't value me as a customer because I received incorrect information from them in the first place. They are unapologetic and don't care. I was treated rudely by the representatives as well.

I had called Fidelity a couple of times to get the timelines of when funds would be available to me when I close my 401K account so that I could roll over to an IRA in a different vendor. Both the times, they told me that I would have the funds in 2 days of closing if I went for the expedited processing. I had closed my account on 10/22 and according to them I was supposed to have the funds with me on 10/24. When I called on 10/24, they tell me that I will not have the funds till 10/30. I need these funds in another company by 10/29, barring which I have a financial impact of around $30K. I had called them on 10/24, 10/25 and 10/26 and each time they give me a different response. Also they do not give anything in writing. Even though they have had issues on their end, they just DO NOT DO anything to expedite it. They just DO NOT care about their customers. Stay away from them.

Been with them 5 years and have pure hell. “Advisors” are call center employees with a daily phone quota. There is not a worse company in the world than Strategic Advisors... They lied to me about investing in a fund and later denied it. Poor returns, no advice. The phone consultants have a standard line if you disagree with them and that is "we don’t understand what you are asking”. Absolutely disgusted with them. I was told by three different people that Strategic Advisors does not talk to customers. Only a call center employee can talk to you. Fees are high, non informative reports and generally they are not interested in customers. Too big, I guess. Please do not use them. Wasting your time and risking your savings. They do not care about your security.

This has to be the 80's all over. This company has it scheduled. If my 401K does ever show an increase, the week a scheduled deposit is due habitually it is gone times 2. You would think that with the employer contribution it would be semi-safe. Forget that too. I am down thousands of dollars this year. Oh and get this they have the audacity to show a positive percentage increase on the top of the page - only when you mine down to the very bottom is reality shown! Pick something - anything else.

My doctor says I need a simple surgery to fix a problem with my toes, otherwise I could get an infection and therefore lose my toe, my foot, or my leg. I don't have the money for this surgery and my insurance says they won't cover it unless I pay $1,000 upfront plus 20% of the bill. I don't have that kind of money, I BARELY pay rent as it is. It's bad enough they take money out of my pay for this idiotic 401K, and now that I NEED money for foot surgery, I can't even get any of MY OWN MONEY from MY OWN ACCOUNT!!! They want to give me a LOAN (!!!), which I can't afford because I make a low wage as it is, and having all these medical deductions for insurance is a huge strain on my pay in the first place!!!

My father passed away on 9/19 and had a Trust for my Mother at Fidelity Investments. I talked to the Inheritor Service Group (ISG) on 9/20 and they let me know everything -- I thought -- I would need to provide in order to transfer the Trust in my name as Trustee. After waiting to receive the death certificate, I sent all specified documentation to the ISG electronically on 10/1. I confirmed they had received the documents and that they looked okay. I tried to get them to do a one time transfer from the trust to my parent's linked checking account so my Mom would have some money to pay bills, but they said they couldn't because it was a trust.

I used Fidelity for the longest time and one day I woke up and they froze my account for no reason other than they thought my account was suspicious. They steal several thousand dollars from me and won't release it. Do not trust these criminals. Money moves in but it doesn't move out. You cannot trust them with even $100.

I had been using Full View for many years when Fidelity rolled out the new "Improved" version a few months back. I used it to track everything financial, Cash flow, income, expenses, etc. Now all of my history is gone except for about 12 months worth. The expense logged have errors (many duplicates). The income feature does not work at all. All of my expense categories were deleted/replaced with some default values. Now I cannot even access it using Microsoft Edge Browser!!! I have called and emailed many times. Walking the Fidelity rep through all of the issues I have encountered, they have stated they would get back to me and do not. The quality of this new release is abysmal and the customer service surrounding it is absolutely terrible. I cannot believe an institution managing billions or trillions of $ cannot deploy a financial reporting application that works.

RUN, DO NOT WALK FROM FIDELITY. They'll constantly hound you telling you how great they are at managing accounts and growing your portfolio with tailored investments. Don't fall for it, in my case the DOW and S&P are up nicely since I went with a managed account, but at the same time the return on my portfolio has been dismal. Currently my portfolio has a return that's close to 0% YTD, due to the heavy fees, and poor performance. Then when I decided to drop the management and sell I had to wait days for them to process the sale, not knowing what the sale price would be. But I was told by my account manager that I would get that day's ending price, and when I questioned it I was told, "Oh well, too bad they gave you the wrong info. You lose, nothing we can do." But they did take their final fees on the day I requested the sale. RUN DO NOT WALK FROM FEEDELITY.

Warning: After more than a decade of using "Full View" application to manage and track all our finances, Fidelity decided to BLOW EVERYTHING AWAY INCLUDING HISTORICAL DATA and replace Full View with a junk application that shows few signs of pre-release testing with real customer data. NO WARNING of the complete Replacement... Data and All! Their Technical support is slow to respond and even slower to fix problems. In addition, there are apparently NO plans to have all the features of the old system and essentially nothing new. Obviously somebody's idea of a cost reduction! I do NOT RECOMMEND!

Opened account, funded it with 100k transfer, then they closed the account (without warning or explanation). I have to snail mail them bank accounts to prove ownership of money. I assume I'll eventually get my money back.

Three weeks ago I decided to open a trading account and change my current broker. So, I thought it will be easy like any other online broker Ally, E-Trade, etc. But actually, it wasn't. My account was locked after a day. I had to call and I did. I called more than 10 times, every time for an hour behind a line, and every time everything was set to zero. I needed to explain the past phone calls with the previous agents. I faxed the requested documents more than 8 times. They never received it while I had the confirmation of the deliveries.

I would like to warn everyone about the experience I have personally had with Fidelity. I was appointed my mother’s financial conservator by the Georgia Probate Court, due to her being in long term care with an Alzheimer’s diagnosis. The court provided letters of conservatorship and a final court order. As with the rest of her financial accounts, I provided Fidelity with these documents. I went to a local office, completed the required paperwork and submitted all of the court documents via that personal visit to their office.

I opened an account online last week (brokerage account, joint account with my wife). Ordered a electronic transfer from my bank ($2,000). After I completed this, I went ahead and bought a mutual fund (it allowed me to do it right away, I assumed the order would be completed only after the funds were available in the account). Three days later, I checked the account online I saw a balance of $13. Curious about the rest of the money I called them. They said my account was “frozen” and that I needed to send a copy of my wife’s ID via fax to “remove H8” (whatever that means). I also learned they cancelled the electronic transfer because of this, so the money never left my bank. I sent the fax immediately after, and connected with them via chat to make sure all is good. They confirmed, and said issue would be resolved in 24-48 hours.

They blew my 15 years of work out of the water. I had customized the stock categories in Fidelity's Full View online banking system, and had thousands of transactions that were categorized correctly. Now, without warning, Fidelity has cut over to a new system - eMoney - and they are all re-categorized in eMoney's standard way - so an enormous amount of my information is gone. It gets worse: I had years of history in the old system. Now I seem to have nothing older than 18 months. I trusted Fidelity. They have kicked the legs out from under me. I am moving my $350,000 of investments somewhere else. I have never felt so betrayed.

They locked my accounts without saying anything. I've gave them a lot of documents they wanted, but still failed to satisfy them. It seemed like I had to give them my DNA test to prove my identity. NEVER do business with them. As soon as they got your money, they would do whatever they wanted, including locked your account without notifying you. It's not about what they verify, it's how they verify too.