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Keeping this discussion broad...I'll include financial institutions in general.
I title this experience, "When BOA constricted Free into Fee".
Sometime in August my Bank, BOA, changed the rules on fees applied to accounts with direct deposit. By the way, it should be called Bank of (Mainland) America...BOA is not located in all 50 states... no branches in HI or AK.
In the past, any direct desposit satisfied a fee waiver for my BOA account. Since (Nov, 2013) the fee waiver requires a minimum direct deposit amount of at least $250. The fee for not meeting this minimum is $12 / month...ouch. This is equilivant to 13% of the $90 direct deposit. Due to the fact that I receive electronic statements (an additional old requirement to have fees waived) I missed reading the upcoming changes.
The fee hit my account last month and going into a branch to see if a different "free" checking account was available I was told that a number of new bars would need to be hurdled for these "Fees to be Free", such as, higher balance and a larger direct deposit.
I took my business to a local credit union and was pleasantly surprised with FREE on my terms. Also, I now have access to a nationwide network of credit unions that I can do business with...in all 50 states...No fee.
I tried out Scottrade a decade ago, and gave up with them in part because they seemed to have similar problems reinvesting monthly dividends from a bond fund.
There was an even bigger mess when I tried closing the account - they sent the IRS a 1099 for the year after I closed out all positions, showing around $100 of dividends. I even wound up sending the IRS a form 4598 (1099 Incorrect).
A few months ago I finally digitized most of my docs going back many years, so I could check this easily. Why you might ask, would I spend time with these old docs? Because otherwise, who would believe some of this stuff?
I've assumed that Scottrade has gotten better since then. I hear you can even transfer money to them electronically now.
You beat me to it. It is beyond my (admittedly limited) understanding why people deal with these huge banks, which seem to be totally shameless about putting their hands in your pockets at any & all times. I deal with a small bank (well, it did just get larger by merging with another small bank, so we have nearly a dozen (small) branch offices now) for the past 15 years and before that I dealt with another small bank where I had my mortgage (in part because they never sold a mortgage, ever -- such a quaint idea). No, I do not live in the farm belt or the UP, I live in a suburb, which is actually an exurb, more or less, of DC. I can walk in for transactions, the tellers know me by name, and I enjoyed a pleasant relationship with the previous branch manager, who just recently retired.
I also belong to a credit union which I joined almost 50 years ago when I got my first "real" job. Bought my first "real" car with a loan that was just a loan: ie, paid off in half the time with no "preloaded" interest nonsense.
I could go on but you get the picture. There are banks & credit unions like this everywhere if you look, and in general they are quite healthy and did not get stuck with loans that neither they nor anyone else understood. Do business with your neighbors, not Wall St.
Very difficult to say in your specific case. I have encountered similar errors in other brokerages. Sometimes they are to my advantage and sometimes not so some of them are honest mistakes I would think. Registering the cancelation as a sell followed by a buy at a new price is SOP.
However, at the brokerage where I do my play money trading with leveraged ETFs and always have stops and limits I have had to wonder at some trades where I am stopped out at a lower price than anything reported anywhere as the lowest price for that ETF that day. Won't mention the brokerage because I don't have proof of any front running but I am watching and documenting closely.
Once at this same brokerage, it wouldn't allow me to sell a particular security I had. Took a few calls to fix it but it appeared as if that security had been used by the brokerage for other purposes e.g. lending for hedging or shorting. But one never knows because there is no transparency.
Regarding Fidelity - while their gaffs are more the exception than the rule, I've seen more than a few there as well.
A few months ago, a relative transferred an account out of Fidelity. Fidelity properly liquidated the fractional share of an ETF position prior to transfer (recorded as cash in lieu). All well and good; it was even marked on the monthly statement as FIFO (again correct).
The problem is that Fidelity recorded the sale (of the fractional share) as a sale from the last, not first, lot acquired. This rendered it a short term trade, rather than a long term one. Worse, this made the sale one of "covered" securities, meaning that Fidelity will propagate this error by reporting the cost basis to the IRS. (The first lot was "uncovered".)
More recently, she requested that Fidelity liquidate an account, and transfer the proceeds to another Fidelity account. She received electronic notification of a first partial transfer (including the dollar amount successfully transferred). She did not receive notification of the completion of the balance transfer the next day. This second transfer was still of substantial size.
So like the OP in the other thread (who didn't receive expected notification), she experienced the problem of getting notified of a particular event - creating the expectation of notification - only to have that expectation dashed in the next instance.
Comments
I title this experience, "When BOA constricted Free into Fee".
Sometime in August my Bank, BOA, changed the rules on fees applied to accounts with direct deposit. By the way, it should be called Bank of (Mainland) America...BOA is not located in all 50 states... no branches in HI or AK.
In the past, any direct desposit satisfied a fee waiver for my BOA account. Since (Nov, 2013) the fee waiver requires a minimum direct deposit amount of at least $250. The fee for not meeting this minimum is $12 / month...ouch. This is equilivant to 13% of the $90 direct deposit. Due to the fact that I receive electronic statements (an additional old requirement to have fees waived) I missed reading the upcoming changes.
The fee hit my account last month and going into a branch to see if a different "free" checking account was available I was told that a number of new bars would need to be hurdled for these "Fees to be Free", such as, higher balance and a larger direct deposit.
I took my business to a local credit union and was pleasantly surprised with FREE on my terms. Also, I now have access to a nationwide network of credit unions that I can do business with...in all 50 states...No fee.
There was an even bigger mess when I tried closing the account - they sent the IRS a 1099 for the year after I closed out all positions, showing around $100 of dividends. I even wound up sending the IRS a form 4598 (1099 Incorrect).
A few months ago I finally digitized most of my docs going back many years, so I could check this easily. Why you might ask, would I spend time with these old docs? Because otherwise, who would believe some of this stuff?
I've assumed that Scottrade has gotten better since then. I hear you can even transfer money to them electronically now
I also belong to a credit union which I joined almost 50 years ago when I got my first "real" job. Bought my first "real" car with a loan that was just a loan: ie, paid off in half the time with no "preloaded" interest nonsense.
I could go on but you get the picture. There are banks & credit unions like this everywhere if you look, and in general they are quite healthy and did not get stuck with loans that neither they nor anyone else understood. Do business with your neighbors, not Wall St.
OK enough -- my sermon for the year.
However, at the brokerage where I do my play money trading with leveraged ETFs and always have stops and limits I have had to wonder at some trades where I am stopped out at a lower price than anything reported anywhere as the lowest price for that ETF that day. Won't mention the brokerage because I don't have proof of any front running but I am watching and documenting closely.
Once at this same brokerage, it wouldn't allow me to sell a particular security I had. Took a few calls to fix it but it appeared as if that security had been used by the brokerage for other purposes e.g. lending for hedging or shorting. But one never knows because there is no transparency.
A few months ago, a relative transferred an account out of Fidelity. Fidelity properly liquidated the fractional share of an ETF position prior to transfer (recorded as cash in lieu). All well and good; it was even marked on the monthly statement as FIFO (again correct).
The problem is that Fidelity recorded the sale (of the fractional share) as a sale from the last, not first, lot acquired. This rendered it a short term trade, rather than a long term one. Worse, this made the sale one of "covered" securities, meaning that Fidelity will propagate this error by reporting the cost basis to the IRS. (The first lot was "uncovered".)
More recently, she requested that Fidelity liquidate an account, and transfer the proceeds to another Fidelity account. She received electronic notification of a first partial transfer (including the dollar amount successfully transferred). She did not receive notification of the completion of the balance transfer the next day. This second transfer was still of substantial size.
So like the OP in the other thread (who didn't receive expected notification), she experienced the problem of getting notified of a particular event - creating the expectation of notification - only to have that expectation dashed in the next instance.