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Very first person to person Schwab contact

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  • edited February 19
    @msf, series 6,7 or 112 doesn't matter that much. The facts at least for me over the years is that all the Fidelity reps who contacted me tried cookie-cutter ideas and pushed their agenda which would cost me money. Schwab never did, and my rep is willing to put the extra effort my way, still for free.
    TT and the rest are peanuts...I saved hundreds and sometimes thousands.
    1) Every time I buy I share funds, Schwab waives the fee which is $50 (49.95). I usually deal with I share funds. I have 5 accounts. At least 4 trades per year per account = 20 * $50 = $1000.
    At fidelity, the next day I must buy the remaining 10% and that doubles the amount to $2000.
    2) Every time I sell a fund, I buy the next fund on the same day, it takes me less than one minute at Schwab and I buy at 99.5% of the selling proceeds. At Fidelity, I have to call a rep, half refuse to do it. It takes 15-20 minutes with annoying reps and they finally do it. But wait, I can only buy 90% of the sell proceeds. Fidelity reps lie saying it's a SEC rule.
    So, I sell at least one million, at Fidelity they will buy only $900K. Most times the switch is pretty good and I make just an extra 0.1-0.2%.
    0.1% on $100K is just $100. Suppose it happened only 5 times = $500
    3) This is the biggest difference. Schwab has more funds I like and most times months earlier. I invested a lot in a fund that made just 1% more than my other bond funds, it's available at Schwab but not Fidelity. Do you know how much is 1% more? in my case close to $20K. My specialty is to find small AUM newer bond funds with very smooth uptrends.
    4) Over the years, every time I transferred cash from a 401K to Fidelity and asked for one time to waive the $50 fee to buy an I share fund either it was denied or I had to spend 15-20 minutes and argue with a supervisor and I'm like "I just transferred $250K and you can't waive the $50, really?" Schwab always made an effort to work with me.
    5) I started using TaxHawk for at least 10 years. It has many options. Fed is always free. State is $15. If I want to save the $15 I can just copy from the software and mail it to my state. I don't care about $15. Maybe one day GA will have a free online e-file service.

    Other than that, Fidelity is great, the only problem, I know about Schwab.
    BTW, years ago after Charles Schwab, the LT founder and CEO, stepped down, Schwab lost its heritage after several years and fees crept up. I changed back to Fidelity. Charles came back, and mojo came back, I switched too. I keep accounts at both. I have no bone in this fight, I go where I can save/make more money for my investing trading style.
  • edited February 18
    The stuff on Shatner was fun. Just kept transitioning from one video to another. / SNL’s 1986 style humor - a nice throwback to a gentler time.

    (Reposted from @msf’s earlier comments) And get a life (Shatner, SNL):
    https://www.dailymotion.com/video/xmagzq
  • OTC trades at Schwab $6.95.
    El Grande Stinko. Guess I'll be avoiding that.
  • hank said:

    The stuff on Shatner was fun. Just kept transitioning from one video to another. SNL 1986 style humor - a nice throwback to a gentler time!

    Please disable your adblocker to view this content. Guess I did not really need that, after all. ;)
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