Fidelity Investments

Spent the equivalent of DAYS on the phone trying to address issues. Had to drive 1 hour both ways to the branch a couple times just to get a response. In one case, made numerous Customer Service calls trying to get clarity on an open issue with no resolution. Was told that they would respond at a later date with a letter. The letter finally arrived and stated that they were still reviewing the issue and if we had any questions to call their CS department. The infinite loop was never resolved; this behavior was not atypical.

I called the next day and Fidelity told me that it could take another one to two pay periods for them to change it in their system. Now not only do I need this money for my childs medical treatment but to live on as well. This is a terrible, crooked company. I highly recommend you find a different company to do business with. They are dishonest with you about your money and have no urgency to anything in your life. I have never heard of any financial institution refusing to pay out your money when requested.

They're just like a bank with reserve limits and they invest the rest. They must assume once the transition happens, all customers will transfer everything out to cash or other institutions. So, the longer they can stall, ** and not respond the more interest/capitals gains/mutual fund mgt fees, etc. they can collect. It's a penny-pinching scam that frustrates everyone. I like their website interface and stock research, they're well established, so I was considering keeping these transitioned assets with Fidelity under my name. That sentiment is all gone now. Nice job pissing me off defuncted Funkdelity.

At over 50 years old, my wife and I have been very conservative about investing in the past. We had about half of our life/retirement savings in CD’s that were expiring in late 2020. The interest rates were close to zero at that time, so we decided to try investing. He convinced us to split our lifetime savings into three different investments. He presented us with his first proposal to invest our money into one of their VIP annuities. He displayed a spreadsheet showing our money doubling in 10 years. He called this a passive investment with a minimal management fee and very good returns. It was amazing. I jumped on it and told him to invest half of our own lifetime savings into the fund. I signed all the paperwork he gave us because I thought he had my family's best interest in mind.

Now, two years later, I realize that this was a huge mistake. The combined expense ratio and active management fee was over 1.1% and he had made a large commission by selling me this investment. We are locked into this investment until age 59.5. I could only move our money in between their limited options of VIP annuities, which have all performed horribly, and have high expense ratios. There is a surrender fee of 10% if we try to get out of the VIP club before age 59.5. After almost 2 years, the return on this investment is -7% and they had taken over $6k in expense ratio and management fees from us.

We already had about 25% of our lifetime retirement savings in a Fidelity target date IRA fund. His next proposal involved selling us on their actively managed IRA plan. He showed us a slick presentation on how they monitored business cycles to stay ahead of the market. I was blown away, and being a novice investor, did not think twice about the 1.2% management fee for doing this if they could limit my losses during down markets.

After two years of Fidelity active management and paying over $12k in expense ratio and management fees our investment return was -7%. Fidelity active managed accounts are a complete joke. They just initially split the investments into a stock/bond mix and sat on the investments, while only making minimal changes, and completely misread the market cycle. My financial advisor, and portfolio specialist, admitted this to me in a phone conversation this year. Their approach is basically to sit and wait down markets out, meet with you once a quarter to show you a nice PowerPoint presentation, ask how your family is doing and then tell you about their family. Our investments were performing so poorly in mid-2022, that they did not even bother to schedule a quarterly review with me. I had to reach out to them to get one. The first thing they did was ask me about each of my family members and how their activities are going, so I feel like they care about them.

In another conversation with their portfolio specialist in March 2022, he sold me on being more aggressive in my investments, due to the time that I had left until retirement. I, of course, deferred to the specialist’s advice and let them change our stock/bond ratio percentage split from their initial proposal of 70/30 to 85/15. Our total active management IRA investment return approached -25% during this year. The investment fee percentage had increased because they had lost so much of our money. There are total account thresholds that we had to maintain, or our fee percentage increases. Our financial advisor failed to mention this at any time. I did not realize this until I read the fine print in my quarterly statements. He had basically set his company up to collect large expense ratio and management fees from us no matter how much money they lost us.

I emailed him later asking why he did not advise me not to go more aggressive on my portfolio, he said that this was my fault, because it was ultimately my decision, and I had given him written approval in an email. His final proposal was to invest over 25% of our lifetime savings into their Individual TOD stock investments which utilized tax harvesting to help us save money on our income taxes. This would be part of my actively managed account with an additional annual fee of 0.6%. Again, I agreed, after his slick presentation, promising annual returns that beat continually beat the S&P.

Fidelity purchased over 200 stock holdings for me using my savings. They “harvested” over $22k in losses just this year, by selling off the underperforming stocks, then purchasing new ones in their place, to falsely inflate my total return on my account page. Our return on this investment has been -4% in almost two years of management and I have paid them almost $1k in management fees while never at any time beating the S&P returns. Also, tax harvesting does absolutely nothing to help us pay less income taxes during the year. The maximum annual income tax deduction is only $3k. We will be writing off these limited losses for almost the next 10 years, after almost 2 years of tax harvesting.

After I filled out a company survey regarding the services that I had received from my financial advisor, and rating him very poorly, I was contacted by the branch manager. He offered to have a more experienced person oversee my account. I agreed and he scheduled a meeting. One of the first things that he mentioned, is that if I keep investing with Fidelity then I will leave a legacy of $30M to my family. I knew at that time this was another scam and I was nothing but a "cash cow" to them.

After 2 years at Fidelity, I have absolutely no doubt, that their services are not worth the costs. I have paid almost $20k in expense ratio and management fees and my total return was -6%. I have recently liquidated my actively management account and I will probably take the hit to move my annuity, too. Looking back now, I should have invested our money into low cost (0.08%), passive index funds, or ETFs, but my financial advisor and branch manager never mentioned this option at all. One of the first things the Fidelity customer service agent told me, when I called to liquidate my investments, is that I will be charged a pro-rated portion of my management fees. This had solidified my decision and did not surprise me at all. Fidelity tries to collect as much of your money as they can while providing the least amount of service possible.

Under no circumstances should you ever use Fidelity. They have non-existent customer service. You may wake up to find your account locked up. I searched the internet and I am not alone. This has happened to many customers of Fidelity. Just type "Fidelity sucks" and start learning about this company. I beg you. Read the reviews. Listen to the horror stories. Please do not invest with this company, do not use their services and do not let any of your friends and family use this company. This has been an absolute nightmare.

I'm trying to transfer my 401K out of Fidelity as I am no longer contributing to it, but have been told that I cannot due to a.) The rep advised me to take loan instead of making a withdrawal last year, b.) I am still employed with the company (but they're contributing anything either), c.) the rep stated I can't do a payout until I'm 59 or terminate my employment with my current employer, and d.) I can't even roll any money over to an IRA. I was told by my HR benefits specialist that when I signed up for the 401k that "Employees may enroll, change or stop their contributions at any time by contacting Fidelity at www.401k.com or 1-800-835-5097." This is a lie. PLEASE, PLEASE research before you sign up. I wish I had.