Fidelity Investments Reviews

They sent me some forms with different scenarios and I picked the 5059 joint plan unaware that it means if either one of us die we would get 50 percent of my pension that I worked for. This plan does not clearly state that. I feel this plan is very misleading and after I chose this plan someone should have reached out to me to make sure this what I wanted. One of their reps told me you should have went to the pacific plan and read it on page 108. Did not know of such thing. I simply read what they sent me, never retired before. I think Fidelity is heartless in the handling of this and had the nerve to tell me I owe them back pay after I reported my husband's death and they were the ones that did not stop the payments. Shame on you. Unhappy consuner

Family history with Fidelity: In 2005 my husband took retirement buyout from his company and received IRA money as compensation which he deposited in new IRA account at Fidelity. In 2015 I retired and created Rollover IRA stock account at Fidelity from 401K. This account was in Strategic Advisor funds and had a larger stock account and larger bond account along with many smaller accounts. In 2018 my husband passed away and I inherited his IRA as 2 large Annuities that were deposited into my IRA account. This almost tripled my IRA account. In early 2021 a new Advisor from Wealth Management was assigned to my account because our accountant created a ROTH IRA from a large income tax loss from another matter that became effective 2021.

The new Wealth Advisor funded the Roth IRA from my Rollover IRA account created in 2015. In June 2021 one of the large IRA Annuities inherited from my husband in 2018 matured and became due. I talked about it with New Advisor and the Annuity was added to my Rollover IRA stock account. This doubled amount in my IRA stock account. I think The 'Risk allocation problem' in Rollover IRA could have been created in the account at this time. Everything was OK until spring 2022 when inflation caused stocks to go down. In August 2022 I called Advisor because I felt stock was going down. He said stock would come back like it did in 2008. I called Advisor again early September 2022 to say I thought my account was still going down very quickly. It is difficult to say you think your account is losing a lot of money when everyone else is also losing money in 2022.

This call was forwarded to Advisor's 2nd line manager because (I assume) they said my advisor was on vacation for 2 weeks. The 2nd line looked at account and said there was a 'Risk Allocation' problem in account (no other specifics). The 2nd line manager also said she asked her 3rd line manager to give her permission to make correction to account right away because Advisor was on vacation and not be back for 2 weeks. However the 3rd line manager denied her request. The 2nd line told me the only other thing she could do was sell the stock, but she said the stock was low. We decided not to sell. Notes wrote written to Advisor about the situation for when he returned.

When Advisor returned he did not make correction to Risk Allocation problem, rather he created a new Investment plan for the account. I trusted Advisor this was another way to fix the problem. It took several days to complete the new plan. The new plan was not in Strategic Advisor Funds and had many smaller fund accounts. Advisor scheduled telephone meeting with Fidelity Financial Facilitator to move money from old 2015 account to fund new account Advisor just created. The Financial Facilitator on the phone had problems moving the money.

My advisor spoke up and said these are 'Fidelity Strategic Advisor' funds. The Facilitator on phone continued to have problems moving money out of original account. Eventually Facilitator asked 'Do you want to get out of Fidelity Strategic Advisor Funds? There was silence. Facilitator continued having problems. He asked again. There was silence. Eventually I said "I'm OK with it what about you?" speaking to advisor asking for his opinion over the phone. (I called into the meeting from home)--possibly COVID was still a factor.

At this point Facilitator on phone apparently assumed he had an answer and didn't wait for Advisor to respond, or didn't realize what I intended. Facilitator quickly finished up and closed the meeting. I think the meeting went long and he was short on time. It was at that moment I had a sinking feeling that something was wrong. I don't know why I said anything at the meeting. Maybe I wanted to clear Risk Allocation problem Up and get account back on track. No one else spoke up. I thought money would be transferred and all go smoothly. I didn't realize Strategic Advisor Stock required to be sold at the time. The words Facilitator used were always 'get out of Strategic Advisor stock'. In any case, I am the one who essentially agreed to sell the stock in the meeting.

After meeting ended, I looked at accounts online. IRA Rollover account was closed and money was in Money Market Fund. I was shocked by low amount in the new IRA money market account. It seemed like a lot of money was lost. I never intended to sell. I always heard wait until account recovers when stock is down before you sell. Selling at lowest point causes real loss instead of paper loss. I was dumbfounded how this happened so quickly. Risk Allocation Problem - I never got information what it was, or how it got into account. I captured this statement in the documents I went through. "The Risk Allocation Problem somehow favored bond funds in inflation environment not favorable to bond funds. This caused account to lose more money than normal in market where stocks were already declining."

I looked at Allocation Percentages of Stock and Bond Funds in monthly statements from January 2021 to September 2022 and saw bond fund increasing percentage and stock fund reducing percentage over this time. *In January 2021 stock fund had larger percentage allocation than the bond fund: -- 01/2021 Bonds 30%, Domestic Stock 39%, Foreign Stock 20%. *By September 2022 bond funds had larger percentage allocation than the stock fund: -- 09/2022 Bonds 46%, Domestic Stock 35%, Foreign Stock 16%.

-- 9/2022 Bonds higher than stock: 46% 35%

The Risk allocation problem got more noticeable as inflation and time continued. The account lost more money as Bond allocation percentage increased over stock allocation percentage. Statements show the largest amount of money was lost in September and first part of October 2022. ***HINDSIGHT*** The best fix would be if the 3rd line manager allowed the 2nd line manager to make the change in account needed to correct 'risk allocation problem' immediately, when I reported problem in Sept 2022 to 2nd line in phone call about3 weeks earlier. Risk allocation problem continued to get worse after being reported. The new advisor could have updated the 2015 Investment plan when he was first assigned to account in beginning 2021 or in mid-2021 when he added my husband's inherited annuity to my Rollover IRA stock account.

I filed written description of what happened with a another manager at Fidelity. This was for documentation/information only. I would have to take action myself if I wanted to proceed further. At that time the only way to get help was talk to your advisor. I called telephone Private Client helpline. They thought 'Strategic Advisor Funds' were older and not used any longer. I never put money market into new Investment plan Advisor created. Money remained in money market until I found new Financial Institution to invest with. I didn't have confidence to reinvest. It was upsetting period for me. This was my husband's inheritance as well as mine. I thought money left in account was low. It was hard to put all the pieces together what happened. FYI: I still have Annuity and Trust Accounts at Fidelity that are doing well.

After six phone calls, unprofessional attitudes reps at Elan Financial, then escalating the problem to Fidelity customer service management level, still no resolution and nobody willing to own the problem (Fidelity was the conduit that attached my Visa to problem-prone Elan -- read their 50% 1-star reviews, it's certainly no secret).

That is not the case with all Visas, it depends on who banks/brokers hire via a 2nd party relationship. Elan can't even manage to mail a new card after four follow-up phone calls and 'expedite' empty promises - plus bad attitude reps. To make matters worse, Fidelity refuses to own the problem that resulted from their partnership with Elan. After today's marathon running in circles with Fidelity reps, I'm transferring all accounts/assets from Fidelity Investments to Charles Schwab. After interviewing Schwab today, they don't suffer these inadequacies from Fidelity.

Spare yourself the aggravation -- don't use Fidelity's banking services -- they are Elan Financial, just hidden from customer clarity (probably in the 10 page legal jargon we accept blindly while trusting Fidelity management to do the right thing). Save yourself and go to Schwab who have their own reps doing the interfacing with all second, third parties instead of making you do it (or not be able to do it, as my case found). 1.5 stars out of 5 is far too high for Elan Financial, and by association, Fidelity Investments who now has tarnished my trust in them to manage my assets.