Started a position with them very recently, as I shared with you all here. Mailed the check from here in the Berkshires of western Massachusetts on the Thurs. before Easter. That's the 5th of April. OK, that next day was a holiday for the Markets....
.....Today is the 11th of the month. They still have no record about anything relating to my money or my existence. When I called, at least they (she, rather) did not try to blame the delay on the USPS. She told me it can take 5-7 days to "process" forms and checks, even AFTER they are already received. Mind you, the envelope I sent via USPS had to go a very long way: all the way to BOSTON, 130 miles from here. I can DRIVE it in 2 and a half hours.
That's a bunch of crap. To take so much time to "process" my form and deposit my check to buy my initial shares is to play word-games. Either they don't have enough employees to do what needs to be done in a timely manner, or they are sitting on the check, waiting until it clears the bank. (Never encountered THAT before.) But no one will admit either possibility to me. So, I have a good mind to close the account right away and stick all that new money into MAPOX instead, to go along with my MSCFX, out in St. Paul--- so VERY far away, in the vast Midwest of the USA!
I also still own Matthews funds. They use---unfortunately---Bank NY/Mellon to handle customer "service," but even they don't take so long. (And when I add to my Matthews account, the pre-printed envelope goes all the way to Rhode Island! Such a distance between Boston and Providence, eh?!) Dodge and Cox may have been up and running and making money for a long time, and its performance numbers are very good. But to run into such nonsense from the get-go makes me want to start throwing grenades in their general direction. Just thought I'd alert everyone else. ...Oh, and by the way, Mairs & Power (MSCFX and MAPOX) were utterly SWIFT to open and register my account!
Comments
Ya, MikeM: I'm quirky that way. When I still had my 403b, it was a pain to find a fund house that would even ACCEPT 403b money. Fewer and fewer, each year. And who knows whether I'd have to forego investing in a specific fund, because Fido or Van does not make it available, or available only with a FEE attached? I'm just plain allergic to the mega-huge-giant establishments. Then --- because I was lucky enough to self-direct the whole thing, I needed to find one that was worth investing in......Now I don't have to be married to any damn fund house. I can go where I please, and the form for a Trad. IRA is very simple.
The crapola, vapid explanation offered to me by D & C is no less STILL crapola and vapid. And I have no intention of letting them keep my money. But they'll probably try to charge me a fee if I pull it out before X date, due to their redemption fee aimed at limiting too-frequent in-and-out trading. And they'll dig in their heels about THAT. Pus lickers.
prinx
Like Scott said, "all (fund houses) of which handle things differently ". I think your 'quirk' is what is causing you distress
Your paperwork and check goes to the custodian/transfer agent. If agent is backlogged it will not be processed for a while. Then, they will submit your check to the bank. It can take a few more day for the check to clear after that point. I believe Banks were not processing checks on Friday. So, it might have queued over there too or backlogged. It could also be held in your own bank. Once it clears, the agent in the custodian will see that the funds transferred after a delay and finally come to process your fund purchase. This process can take a long time under some situations. It looks like you have run into this.
At this age, whenever you push paperwork you can experience these sort of delays. I think unless you have really good reason otherwise, there is no reason to hold the funds directly at your fund house. If instead you held the fund at a brokerage your monies would be instantly in the fund at the end of the day. You ask for it. Come to 21st century if you want fast processing. Almost nobody wants to do manual labor these days and if you are not using electronic systems you will be at the mercy of one or more overworked lone agent handing these paperwork.
Well, hello, again. Are you just deliberately mis-reading me? Quoting myself:
"Mailed the check from here in the Berkshires of western Massachusetts on the Thurs. before Easter. That's the 5th of April. OK, that next day was a holiday for the Markets.....Today is the 11th of the month. They still have no record about anything relating to my money or my existence."
...well: then how is it that from the same local post office, the same sort of IRA application form and check for the identical amount reached M & P in Minnesota, and I've already been in their system for 2 or 3 days? The D & C check traveled a grand total of 130 miles. And get this: Even AFTER they get it, the item "may" (that's a bullshit word) not be "processed" for 5-7 days. In other words, we are giving ourselves permission to just sit on all these items and catch up with them when we get around to it.
THAT'S unacceptable.
...Not my problem, or it shouldn't be. D & C is a mutual fund and solicits people to invest with them. I didn't create whatever handling system they all use. If there is a "transfer agent," then as far as they are dealing with my money, they represent D & C to me. The mutual fund I invested in does not belong to the Transfer Agent.
You can rationalize and explain the sort of delay I've run into, but you cannot justify it. Your insults toward me were noted, too. I'll refrain from printing here what I would LIKE to tell you.
DODIX has a record among conservative, domestic bond funds to be envied by most of the others. Its performance for shareholders---according to the M* statistics I plumbed--- show it to be a great place to invest for those who want to put money into the "space" or "niche" it covers. It is known to be a solid CORE bond fund. And so I chose it, when the opportunity finally came to me. But after what's happened, they clearly do not deserve my money, now. I will go elsewhere, as soon as I can move the money without paying a trumped-up crapola penalty, if there IS one.
But maybe you are being a little harsh with Investor- I don't believe that he was trying to insult you- I think that he just meant that the way the "system" is rigged these days the situation that you have experienced is encountered more often than not when attempting direct dealing with fund companies. I also agree that if they don't really want to adequately support direct dealing then they should damn well say so.
I've experienced this sort of thing myself- send emails asking about registration practices and some of them don't even bother to respond. I think that the folks responding above are just trying to tell us that direct dealing isn't what it should be, and brokerage accounts are a lot less trouble all around.
Well, like it or not. It is your problem since you chose to invest your money this particular way. You deliberately chose to slow path unfortunately it is just executing slower than usual. There way ways to handle this faster. Don't take it as an insult. I am trying to point out that there is no point in ranting. Things happen when humans are involved. Sometimes sh** happens. Sorry for being too honest.
American Century likes to keep reminding us that we are a "Priority Investor" (whatever that's supposed to mean), but when I asked them a simple question the other day it was quite obvious that they didn't even bother to read it. It required a rather sharp response on my part just to get a decent answer.
For those board members who trade with some frequency, I suppose that it must be common knowledge that using a broker is preferable to direct dealing. But for those of us like Max and myself who rarely invest in a new fund, this is something of a surprise.
Why didn't I think of that? We should just bend over and grab our ankles and let The System do its thing to us, without so much as a word of complaint? Without sharing such information? As if getting treated like an afterthought is the way we are SUPPOSED to be treated? Sure. That's appealing. Yes, I'm being sarcastic. I deserve better. We ALL deserve better, and it should not matter AT ALL whether you choose to invest by jumping through this flaming hoop over HERE, or that other one over THERE.
Regards,
Ted
Even if one doesn't trade often, having everything in one place and having thousands of fund options available near-instantly if one does eventually want to switch funds is (at least in my opinion) preferable both in terms of keeping things organized and ease of use (with Ameritrade, one can essentially switch funds same day.)
Dealing with several individual fund houses seems overly complicated (opening accounts, moving money this way and that, keeping track of what's where) and prone to a wide variation in service and possibly not enough people to deal with the volume. It is - as investor noted - the slower path. I think it's unfortunate what Max has dealt with both now and at Matthews before, but there is another option. He just doesn't want to go that route. It is what it is.
" I think unless you have really good reason otherwise, there is no reason to hold the funds directly at your fund house."
I agree. I really don't see the benefit of going direct to fund companies. People are welcome to do so, but I just think the all-in-one brokerage option is a better solution. It's not perfect, but I just can't imagine dealing with several different fund companies individually and I don't really understand what benefit there would be in doing so. But that's just me.
" I think that the folks responding above are just trying to tell us that direct dealing isn't what it should be, and brokerage accounts are a lot less trouble all around."
Exactly. If anything, Max's upset with D & C now, Matthews before (and I think there was another one before that) only reinforces my view and I still don't get the benefit of dealing directly.
" So, I have a good mind to close the account right away...."
So, a PITA situation becomes yet more of a PITA situation dealing with that. Not saying anything about the decision to do that, but it just now creates yet more hassle.
This HAS been very illuminating for me... not having changed fund houses in many years I had no idea that this sort of thing was fairly common.
Actually, I think that they're both right: Max has a right to expect better treatment, Investor just shrugs and goes a better route.
Maybe Max is part Italian like me... I've been known to scream when pissed too...
Max, I apologize for being harsh.
You are right you are getting poor service for account management. No doubt. I don't think it will change. It will highly likely to get worse going forward (not specific to D&C, overall). Heck you might even get charged extra to execute this option in the future instead of using other more computerized ways. There used to be a time where you would not pump your own gas. The gas station attendant would do it for you. There are only very few full service stations anymore. I don't have any in my area. I hear there are some in NE United States.
D&C is an asset/fund manager and they do a good job at it. I hope you do not give up for that. Use them for what they are stronger at i.e.. Fund management. I would rather have them do this job well and minimize other administrative overhead.
On the other hand, have the account management done at a place where you will have better service. They do not have to be at the same place. Schwab/Fidelity etc. are better in this respect. Once you get into this mode of operation you will never go back.
The only reason I would hold a fund at a fund house is that fund is not available at a brokerage house. Also some funds are semi closed such as OAKBX are only available to purchase directly from the fund house. Even so you can often buy the fund at fund house and do a trustee to trustee transfer to brokerage and add to it in the future via the brokerage system.
Sometimes, the fund is available elsewhere, but not the same best share class. Janus D shares are available only through Janus (and only for people who already invest directly through them); these generally have administrative expenses about a dozen basis points above the no load T shares available through brokers.
Some funds, when they close to sales through brokerages, also put a restriction on transferring shares to brokerages. For example, they might say that shares may not be transferred for the first 90 days after purchase.
And it's not just funds that take the slow path. As I noted in another thread, I'm experimenting now with Firstrade, and they do not accept ACH transfers to open an account. (They do accept wires, but otherwise you have to fund by check.) And once they receive the check, they'll hold it for 2-4 days before making it available. That's after they receive the check. I should know - I walked in the check, and that's what I was told. Sure enough, it took a couple of business days for the balance to show up, and I couldn't trade with it immediately.
Finally, FWIW, D&C uses Boston Financial Data Services as its transfer agent. This in turn is partly owned by State Street Corp (SSgA), which you should recognize as the sponsor of SPY and other SPDRs.
Also FWIW, full serve/self serve is a false dichotomy, as there's also mini serve. That's what you find in two states, NJ and Oregon.
Got to proof read my stuff more times, 'till I get it right.
Maybe I'm missing something here, but I would think you pick a fund company because they are a good steward handling your money. Not because they process an application slower than some other fund company or the person over the phone chooses the wrong words in conversation.
My wife and I both have a roth ira direct with Doge & Cox. I can't remember how long it took to set up the account, but we have never had a problem with their funds or their service.
I wanted to jump through the phone and eat her face. What a bunch of junk. I persisted, three times, to try to give her a chance to offer me a REASONABLE, LOGICAL explanation. There is just no way that the initial stuff I sent to them took six days to travel 130 miles. If the "transfer agent" wasn't caught up, or is just plain slow, or they dropped the ball, I would have been willing to hear it. But no. I asked her about the need to wait, in order to avoid a redemption fee before redeeming the shares. Actually I won't be cashing-out, just moving the money from DODIX to MAPOX---which is not really the same sort of animal. But OK.
There are things more important than money and profits. I deserve not to be LIED to. If she had only apologized. If she had only blamed the Transfer Agent. If she had just come up with ANYTHING...... But no. She insisted that my account was opened as soon as my stuff was received and scanned into the system. Six days from rural western Massachusetts (but actually postmarked from Springfield) to Boston? Bullshit.
And there we are. I seem to have caused a stir. I'm gratified by all the replies along this thread. I am angry no longer with anyone in here. Your comments are always worth reading. If I overreacted to Investor or anyone else, I'm sorry. Yes, OJ, we are something of a family in here.
Some of our interactions over this issue about the delay I've been telling you about reminds me of the diametrically opposed reactions to a particular circumstance exhibited by myself on the one hand and an old supervisor on the other: there was a particular injustice being done, involving a young fellow and a young woman from the same place in Africa. They planned to come and visit and make a few speeches. But the fabulous USA government approved HER visa and DENIED his. (WTF????? WHY!?) .....I asked Mr. Supervisor: "Are we not going to even say anything about this, or register a complaint?" He replied, "The government makes the decisions. It's out of our hands. There is nothing more we can do."
Talk about just bending over, grabbing your ankles, and TAKING it!!!!! Jeez!