Over at Stocktwits, a fellow had this to say, following the recent dividend distribution from ET Energy Transfer:
Just got off the Phone with Schwab....they are hand-entry entering clients back into drip program....shares were purchased at 15.79 a share but their website says 16.30....if you divide dividend amount by shares it will show the 15.79 cost.....if they bought your shares at 16.30 call them and complain and they will manually enter you into the DRIP program.
Well, my DRIP shares (reinvestment was ALREADY selected) show a reinvestment share price of $16.40.
I was just on with a chat agent, not a phone call. Easier to do, without the 16 identity questions. I showed him that precise message. He said he'd put in my request to get my own account corrected, updated. It'll take two days or so.
Next question: in effect, the chat agent and myself were doing the job of Quality Control, making sure things get ACCURATELY recorded. But nobody at Schwab is paying ME. And, will Schwab go do a re-run and correct the accounts of ALL concerned? We know the answer...
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I never paid attention to Schwab before but after migration from TD 4 mo ago, my Schwab account is now 10 times bigger and any leakage because of systems and processes can be 100 times costlier. Now the account is mostly ETPs; whereas, it was predominantly mutual funds.
Any time I call, Schwab asks 2 questions and then to repeat an easy statement and I'm fully verified.
But why complain so much, please close the account and transfer to VG. Why torture yourself?
@BaluBalu When I made an initial PHONE call the next day, following the distribution, I asked how these new, reinvested shares could possibly have been purchased at such a high per-share price. I was told that automatically reinvested shares are bought at the average cost per share based on that day's trading in the Market.
I was polite, but even if they did it that way, $16.40 is still way out of line. In this regard, I recall something an old friend had expressed to someone else:
"....OK. Let me think about that... (Moments later:) OK, I'm done thinking about that. You know what I think about that? I think you're LYING to me!"
Ya. I had a short chat follow-up today. She assured me that if a shareholder-wide error is going on, then all shareholders will be made good. But that still doesn't get us to the answer we need: is this an ever-present glitch? A system screw-up? Will Schwab's methodology cause this same junk to happen with ALL OTHER reinvested equity shares?
I am simply unable to say. Maybe you might choose to move the ball forward? ALL of us would love to get a specific response about that. I appreciate what you've offered on this thread!
OK.
I got run-around explanations... No satisfaction. The solution is simply not to trust uncle Chucky with this task, and to accept dividends as cash, and then reinvest the money at the moment and price of my own choosing. ...Frikkin' GAMES. @BaluBalu