I have a Fidelity Roth and rollover. It is restricted since March. I have called the local branch and they transfer me to corporate. I have tried the main phone numbers several times. People try to help me but then they get back on the phone and tell me the account is restricted they don’t know why or how long and that is all they can tell me. I was told I can sell what I have but I can’t add any new positions. The account is restricted and I can’t withdraw money. How can I get answers???
@Tina_A I am so sorry. Fidelity seems to be the most hyper-vigilant to the point of paranoia amongst all of the brokerages, although they all do it to some extent these days. Your case is exactly why late last year I did an abrupt about-face and moved from 90% Fidelity 10% Schwab to 90% Schwab 10% Fidelity.
It seems that once you get forwarded to the “backoffice security team” there is nothing the front-line telephone people and even physical investor center people can do for you.
Maybe you could set up accounts at Schwab and try full account transfers out of Fidelity? That would only work if your elective security lockdown at Fidelity is off, so be sure to turn it off.
I have heard of a law firm that represents clients who have been locked out of Fidelity. I know 0% about them, other than seeing them post on Reddit. Lakeshore Law Center. I don’t know them at all.
Do you have any inkling why this happened? Because it could happen at Schwab or Vanguard, too. Credit problems? Name and address not matching up with your government documents? Transactions that could be mis-interpreted as money laundering? Did you try to deposit a check which then bounced, no fault of your own? Did outside attackers try to login to your account (were you password sharing with other accounts which then got compromised?)
I still keep Fidelity Cash Management & HSA. The HSA because Schwab’s HSA isn’t great. The Cash Management because the default cash option is SPAXX. But I case I too get locked out of Fidelity someday, I can fail-over in an instant to Schwab Bank checking.
These days, never put all of your eggs in one basket. Lots of people want to have a single financial provider - I think that’s unsafe. I have Schwab, Fidelity, and small amounts at Ally, and local credit union, so I can fail-over to them instantly. They might get hacked, I might got locked out, they might be taken over by FDIC / FCUA and I could be out for a few days, who knows?
That’s another thing… Fidelity SPAXX isn;t FDIC insured. I could also use Fidelity FDIC option, that one sub-contracts out to program banks which are FDIC insured… but it’s a FINTECH, essentially. If one of those program banks with your money goes into FDIC receivership, it’s unknown how long it will take for things to be resolved. I’m sure there will be Fidelity and bank finger-pointing and round-around and blame-storming.
I would hope Fidelity is better run than Synapse, but… you never know.
The fintech company that collapsed and took $90m of people’s life savings with it | The Independent
Why Fidelity when you can get a Vanguard cash account insured for $500K and hold VMFXX which outperforms USGMM average?
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$500k insured by SIPC? This is not unique to Vanguard.