<p>Regular poster here, new account for sensitive information.</p>
<p>This morning my husband opened the investment account statements that have accumulated in the last two weeks. For various reasons, there are a number of accounts spread among different companies/different old employers/etc. One Vanguard 401k account, from one of my husband’s previous employers, suddenly went from a balance of $300,000 to 0 this month! There is no information on what happened to the money, and this account no longer shows up online. Of course, I immediately called Vanguard, but the people who are in today do not have access to retirement accounts. I insisted that they must have a fraud department that works on weekends. This person called around, but got back to me and said that nothing could be done until Monday morning.</p>
<p>We are very worried about this. I can’t imagine what happened. When we’ve moved retirement money from one company to another, there have been many forms, notarized, etc. </p>
<p>I am very unhappy that Vanguard will not do anything this weekend. This is either fraud or a major error on Vanguard’s part.</p>
<p>I’ve seen some postings online about foreign hackers clearing out accounts. I can’t imagine how this could have happened here. The only thing I can do online is move money between Vanguard funds.</p>
<p>Mystery solved - at least the money wasn’t stolen. My husband opened another envelope, announcing that the old employer was going to move accounts from Vanguard to Fidelity. We did not open the envelope in time to prevent this from happening. I don’t understand how this could have happened without his permission. It is a 401k plan, completely funded by his contributions. He is over retirement age, and has not worked for this employer in 30 years. We don’t want the money to be at Fidelity.</p>
<p>I guess we have to be more on top of things, but life is so busy these days that we let statements accumulate for a few weeks.</p>
<p>It’s an employer managed account. The employer determines which firm will manage the account.</p>
<p>If you rolled it over into a individual run account (Vanguard Rollover IRA for example), then you would been the one to decide where it should be managed.</p>
<p>If it is still in the company 401k then they can move it to wherever they choose. Though I am surprised they would not have given you some notice that it was going to happen. We have a 401k (husband has also been retired for several years) and the company has changed who they have it with a couple of times, but we have always known in advance. </p>
<p>If you want it completely under your control where your old company cannot change investment companies then you need to roll it out of the 401k and into an IRA.</p>
<p>You can have all the control you want if you roll it over to an IRA. Otherwise, the company controls it. there is no penalty for doing so, and you could have done this years ago.</p>
<p>Thanks for the information. I know that we have the option to convert these old accounts to IRAs, but we didn’t see any reason to. Now we do.</p>
<p>What bothers us is that the notice that this was going to happen came in a plain envelope, and even if we had opened it immediately we would have had less than 2 weeks to prevent the transfer. Also, Vanguard sends me emails at least once a week, announcing new services, seminars, etc., but they did not send an email about this, either before or after it happened.</p>
<p>I’ve got all my investments in accounts at Fidelity, and I manage investments for an elderly relative at Vanguard. All things being equal, I prefer Fidelity because I think their website is better designed (I do all my trading and view statements online). Even if your funds are in a Fidelity account, you can invest in Vanguard mutual funds. You might find that leaving your 401k in Fidelity, or rolling it over into a Fidelity rollover IRA, is workable for you.</p>
<p>As mentioned…if you wanted to manage this yourselves, you should have rolled it over into an IRA when your husband left that job. </p>
<p>We open investment mail the DAY it is received. No waiting. </p>
<p>Can you still roll this account money into an IRA (I’m not an expert on this…but wonder if this option is still available to you). Otherwise the old employer will continue to manage these funds and there could be another move. They don’t need to ask your permission…they need to INFORM you…and they did.</p>
<p>You might want to give Fidelity a chance… For various personal and business reasons, I have investment and retirement accounts with several different companies. I have had very good experiences with Fidelity.</p>
<p>I have nothing against Fidelity, in fact, I have a small account with them because my current employer is offering Fidelity and not Vanguard, but we prefer Vanguard for a couple of reasons. First, I subscribe to a newsletter with advice on Vanguard funds, so I feel more familiar with their offerings, while I know nothing about Fidelity funds. Interesting that Fidelity allows investment in Vanguard funds, though. I had no idea that this was true. But our other reason for staying with Vanguard is that we have accounts at several companies now, for various reasons, and we don’t want to add yet another one. </p>
<p>I did know that we have the option to move 401k’s from former employers to an IRA, but we’ve only done this when we wanted to change investments. We were happy with how this particular account was invested at Vanguard, and we did not know that it could be pulled out from under us. I’m shocked at how casual the notification was. The letter came from Fidelity, not from the former employer, and it was in a plain envelope, not even marked, “Important! Open Immediately!” As it was, the only reason it went in the stack and not in the trash is my small account at Fidelity; otherwise, we would have assumed it was junk mail.</p>
<p>Thank you all for your comments and advice.</p>
<p>We cleared out all of those old employer ones and my SEP and rolled them into one managed investment account. You can do it at any time. Just contact them for the forms.</p>
<p>Here is what you should do. Roll all of your old employer plans into one Rollover IRA at one of the following firms. Fidelity, Schwab, Vanguard, or TD Ameritrade. Use their advisory service to help select funds or ETF’s for your account. Another alternative is to use the custodial services of one of the above and use a fee based advisor to help you manage your investment funds.</p>
<p>You fell in the trap of leaving your money in a former employer’s 401k. You do not control the account the former employer controls the account. The second item is the former employer has probability sent several mailing concerning the transfer of the 401k to Fidelity. Many of us do not read the mailings but it is important to review them and read what important.</p>
<p>You have saved a lot of money, it is incumbent on you to make the most of it and get good advice from a trusted relationship.</p>
<p>Vanguard did not want many accounts from small employers, and told employers to move the money. This happened to us. You should take your money to an IRA at your preferred financial institution, and you will always be in control. You can have an IRA at Vanguard, and get the available funds etc.</p>
<p>Many plans allow you to do an inservice rollover to an IRA if you are over 59 1/2. This way you can move your funds from Fidelity. Call Fidelity and have them mail you the form for the rollover.</p>