Personal Investments • 401k Plan Changed Employee Fee Structure but Didn't Disclose to Me: What Recourse Do I have?

I am a former employee and active participant of a 401k plan in which the employer previously paid all plan fees. Recently, and unbeknownst to me (since I was not provided any notification), the company switched the 401k plan to a new custodian. I just learned about this by logging into my account under the prior plan and seeing a $0 balance. I called the plan advisor to find out what was going on, and that's how Iearned the plan had changed. Again, I received no notification of any kind. On that call, I asked them if the employer was continuing to pay all plan expenses under the new plan, and they said "yes, nothing has changed relative to fees" in their email response.

I recently logged in to the new account and I see monthly fees are in fact being taken out of my account. I contacted them again and they said "oops, I was wrong, they are now making former employees pay admin fees."

My understanding is that 401k plans are required by law to provide advanced, written notification of plan changes including fee changes to all active participants. However, I was provided zero notification (my contact info was up-to-date), and I still don't have any documentation of the new fee schedule. Is my understanding correct that they are required to provide this beforehand? If so, do I have any recourse to recover the fees that they've already deducted from my account?

How would you recommend I approach this?

Statistics: Posted by WhitePuma — Wed Jun 19, 2024 6:07 pm — Replies 15 — Views 616

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