I wanted to provide a general advisory about Fidelity and their overall security/fraud prevention practices. I work in this field. For me, my recent experience with them strongly suggests sticking with other brokerages.
Several employers ago, I had a 401k through Fidelity. I rolled it over in the mid 2010s, never thought about it again. Then, a few weeks ago, I noticed a series of emails in my inbox at around 3 a.m. from Fidelity, saying there was a new email and phone number added to my account, and other things had been changed. I reached out to Fidelity directly. First I spoke to someone on the brokerage side, who said they couldn't find an account related to me. They then transferred me over to the 401k team, who said they could see my old account, and someone had made updates to it causing emails to be sent out, but I should call back tomorrow when someone from their fraud team was available. They couldn't provide me any sort of case #, but the fraud team would help me.
Suffice to say, when I called back the next day, there were no notes or report, so I had to go through the whole thing again with the fraud investigator. he was thoroughly confused, saying he thought the emails I received were probably phishing attempts. I tried explaining that they were not, I had verified, and the 401k associate had told me she could see the emails had been sent by Fidelity. The fraud investigator seemed to say at one point that he didn't have privileges to see anything regarding retirement accounts, only brokerage accounts (if true, seems like a problem). He told me to call back the next day to speak to someone else. He also wouldn't give me a case #, but said this other person would know what was going on.
This next person when I called the next day did not know what was going on, of course, so I had to explain the issue again. Ultimately, what he told me was it appeared someone had opened up a new brokerage account using my email address and name, but with other information that was not mine (different SSN and physical address). I tried asking him about the 401k account and that a previous associate said changes had been made to it, but he denied that was true. He got pretty snippy with me, asking why did it matter since 1) my 401k had zero balance due to the rollover, and 2) this apparently involved someone else's account. Among other things, I noted that if the latter were actually true and someone just forgot their email address while setting up a brokerage account, wouldn't this be something that needed to be run down since I could hypothetically reset their account password via email, were I so inclined? (that caused several seconds of silence, as I assume he processed how to respond on a recorded line.)
Ultimately, I spent hours on the phone with them to have no real resolution. I have since gotten a couple of other account-related emails. I just forward them to the fraud associate with no response. I've dealt with a lot of financial institutions through my work, and Fidelity was by far the most disjointed and uncoordinated. The fraud team especially was entirely unengaged. The one associate on the retirement side was the only one who seemed concerned, bless her.
Especially in the current threat environment on ID theft, there is no way I'd put significant assets at Fidelity. FYSA and YMMV
Several employers ago, I had a 401k through Fidelity. I rolled it over in the mid 2010s, never thought about it again. Then, a few weeks ago, I noticed a series of emails in my inbox at around 3 a.m. from Fidelity, saying there was a new email and phone number added to my account, and other things had been changed. I reached out to Fidelity directly. First I spoke to someone on the brokerage side, who said they couldn't find an account related to me. They then transferred me over to the 401k team, who said they could see my old account, and someone had made updates to it causing emails to be sent out, but I should call back tomorrow when someone from their fraud team was available. They couldn't provide me any sort of case #, but the fraud team would help me.
Suffice to say, when I called back the next day, there were no notes or report, so I had to go through the whole thing again with the fraud investigator. he was thoroughly confused, saying he thought the emails I received were probably phishing attempts. I tried explaining that they were not, I had verified, and the 401k associate had told me she could see the emails had been sent by Fidelity. The fraud investigator seemed to say at one point that he didn't have privileges to see anything regarding retirement accounts, only brokerage accounts (if true, seems like a problem). He told me to call back the next day to speak to someone else. He also wouldn't give me a case #, but said this other person would know what was going on.
This next person when I called the next day did not know what was going on, of course, so I had to explain the issue again. Ultimately, what he told me was it appeared someone had opened up a new brokerage account using my email address and name, but with other information that was not mine (different SSN and physical address). I tried asking him about the 401k account and that a previous associate said changes had been made to it, but he denied that was true. He got pretty snippy with me, asking why did it matter since 1) my 401k had zero balance due to the rollover, and 2) this apparently involved someone else's account. Among other things, I noted that if the latter were actually true and someone just forgot their email address while setting up a brokerage account, wouldn't this be something that needed to be run down since I could hypothetically reset their account password via email, were I so inclined? (that caused several seconds of silence, as I assume he processed how to respond on a recorded line.)
Ultimately, I spent hours on the phone with them to have no real resolution. I have since gotten a couple of other account-related emails. I just forward them to the fraud associate with no response. I've dealt with a lot of financial institutions through my work, and Fidelity was by far the most disjointed and uncoordinated. The fraud team especially was entirely unengaged. The one associate on the retirement side was the only one who seemed concerned, bless her.
Especially in the current threat environment on ID theft, there is no way I'd put significant assets at Fidelity. FYSA and YMMV
Statistics: Posted by themesrob — Thu Aug 29, 2024 10:03 am — Replies 3 — Views 194