For those who have brokerage account with T. Rowe Price, can you share your experience?
We invested in several TRP funds awhile back. We want to try TRP brokerage but found there is very little information on it regarding the mutual funds they carry on their no-transaction fee and transaction fee platforms. Talked with their representative and received little useful answers than those that is on their website. Comparing to Fidelity, it is really a big difference.
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But if you need serious brokerage services, go with real brokers (Fidelity, Schwab, Interactive Brokers, etc).
Think they have difficulty competing with other large brokerages. They have to give up more of the fees in order to be listed on Schwab, Fidelity and Vanguard’s NTF platforms.
TRP actively managed ETF are interesting offering even though they are a bit late to the market.
I agree it is not as accomplished as some other offerings, but you do get used to the quirks. On the "Tools" menu you can search for funds which have NTF, and combine that with a choice of sectors, minimum investment requirement, expense ratio, fund family, and so on. From that list of results you can sort by past performance, volatility, income characteristics, and so forth.
I have noticed in the last twelve months there are a lot more funds which used to have a $35 transaction fee but are now free to trade. And some funds which were previously unavailable are now on offer. Nine times out of ten I have been able to acquire the specific fund I wanted.
Whenever I have had a question I have always used the messaging facility. I have never had to make a phone call. All my questions have been answered in a timely and professional manner.
We won't be changing brokerages because we have most of our money tied up in TRP funds themselves.
" I'm writing this in hope that it will be forwarded to someone with the authority to act upon it.
My wife and I had an AB Living Trust. Upon her death, as permitted in the trust, I chose to disclaim her half of the trust value, and create an Irrevocable Trust. I received an new EIN for Trust A of the Living Trust, as recommended by my attorney.
I contacted T. Rowe Price, and after many discussions with the Life Change Events people, I was able to fill out the forms to retitle two of my accounts, valued at $500,000, to the Irrevocable Trust A. Now the fun began.
Your Ownership Change form requires a Medallion Signature Guarantee. The credit union
where I do my banking could only guarantee up to $100,000. Of the five commercial banks I tried, four turned me away outright because I didn't have an account, the fifth said they could, but their limit was $250,000. I came home unsuccessful after spending the entire afternoon in the rain.
I called T. Rowe Price, and got to speak to a very sympathetic Jenna Johnson. I explained my anger and frustration over the situation. I said I was able to retitle accounts worth $2,000,000 at Vanguard, online and on the phone, in less than an hour, without even a notary. Jenna put me on hold for a short time, then came back to say Price would waive the Medallion Guarantee and accept a notarized signature. She gave me a case number to write on the form.
Why does T. Rowe Price still ask for a Medallion Signature Guarantee in an era when many people bank at CU's, or online entirely, and can't qualify for one? It's an archaic form of identification in the 21st century. If Vanguard can do business without it, why can't Price?"
It's been a week, and I haven't received an acknowledgement, let alone a response.
If there is fraud, the Notary doesn't have any monetary liability. He/she may lose Notary license at best, or may just get a warning/reprimand from state.
Signature Guarantee, which is SAME as Medallion Signature Guarantee, has monetary liability with it. In case of fraud, the Signature Guarantor at credit union/bank/broker is liable for up to the insurance.
You may not care when things work fine. But if someone swindled you out of your $500K, you may think differently.
Actually, the Rep at Price did you a HUGE favor after talking to her superior(s) and also being reassured that you were really YOU. Just give it a few days.
Each firm has its own policies and limitations. Next time for Signature Guarantee, try banks or brokers (credit unions don't handle half-million worth of transactions routinely).
As I understand it, that's $35 to buy or to sell, as opposed to Fidelity's fees, which range from a high of $75 (to buy shares of Vanguard, Schwab, and D&C funds), to $49.95 to buy most other TF funds, to $0 to sell shares of any fund. Adding to an existing TF fund position at Fidelity can be done with most funds for $5 (via automated investing).
While there are some investing patterns for which TRP would come out less expensive, for most patterns Fidelity winds up costing significantly less.
With respect to the signature guarantee requirement, changing title (ownership) of assets is tantamount to withdrawing assets and giving them to someone else. Change of control (including the ability to withdraw assets). Which is why institutions generally require POAs to be guaranteed.
As yogi said, it's all for protection, though that may be more for protection of the institution than for protection of you.
Online/phone redemption disabled. Call (800) 225-5132 to enable redemptions!
If you can't redeem online or by phone, what do you have to do? Go to their office in Baltimore? If it wasn't for the capital gains hit I would take, I'd get out of Price altogether.
The 225-5132 number allowed me to leave a call back number. The Price rep called in 20 minutes, I gave him my info, and he said "Oops, you're an "elite" customer because of the size of your account. I'll have to transfer you to a special rep". Apparently, at Price, being an "elite" customer doesn't grant you the right to a call back, so I had to listen to the music for 35 minutes while outside chopping wood waiting for the special rep!
He couldn't explain the online/phone disabled either, but he was able make the Direct Deposit happen through the back office.
Next I asked about the Irrevocable Trust. It turns out they've had all the correct paperwork for the last 2 weeks, but someone dropped the ball by not re-submitting it. The special rep said it should be done by the end of today.
PS I doubled the size of my redemption from what I originally planned. If TR Price does such a sloppy job of managing accounts, I want to leave as little money as possible with them. If it wasn't for the tax hit, I'd liquidate everything!
I was with their mutual fund side - not brokerage. Similar frustrations. Having been involved directly with about a dozen different fund houses since the early 70s, there are only two from which I literally ran away. TRP is one. The other was Strong Funds in the early 2000s, several months before they were implicated by the SEC for securities violations and generally unethical conduct. Having said that, there’s a big difference between sins of commission and those of omission. I’d place Strong in the former and TRP in the latter camp - likely due to cost constraints. And I’d agree you need to separate their struggling customer support arm from their stellar research & fund management capabilities.
Thanks for sharing.
Should add: I don’t think anyone needs to worry about the security / safety of their assets with TRP. These guys are high on integrity - just poorly trained and understaffed at the client / company interface.