Vanguard Customer Complaints & Reviews 2025

Review:  Response to Duncan Foy (Vanguard) in response to his to "see how I can address any concerns you have in regard to your financial goals":

To: Duncan Foy;

"You want to talk to me about my financial goals? How about if we start with this before any talk about a future with Vanguard begins. Let's talk about the quality of people whom I've spoken to at Vanguard since COVID. Let's talk about how someone at Vanguard changed my mailing address on my statements and my statements being mailed to someone who had no business seeing them. Let's talk about me finding out after my mailing address on my statements I hadn't been receiving was corrected, me finding out that the phone number of record on my statements been changed to someone else. Then let's talk about the name of the trust I am party to being changed so the order of the names on it no longer matches the Federal ID that was issued to it. Then let's talk about how I was refused to speak to the financial advisor I was in talks with when COVID started, and being hung up on when I protested. And finally let's talk about the ridiculously inexperienced people who Vanguard hired trying to 'fake it 'til they make it' with much of my life savings. When I actually get an experienced adult on the phone and have this kind of dialogue, then, and only then will I be willing to discuss what you have to offer. Vanguard of today is clearly not the same company now that it was when I opened my accounts there."

That is the short version of what I wanted to say. In addition to all of that, I signed on to my account yesterday and in my personal accounts holdings page and I had just under $900,000 more in it than I had 2 days ago. I added up the individual accounts on that page and it was just under $900,000 less than what the banner on the page listed. The difference turns out to be that a family trust that has 3 beneficiaries has a balance of just under $900,000 in it and Vanguard added that to that to my personal account balance, something that has never occurred in the 23 year history of my account with Vanguard.

So far, Zero response from Vanguard, same as my previous contacts.

Review:  Firstly, they have to call you back in an hour or so.

Then when they did finally call, you can barely understand what the person said. The VoIP line is horrible, and the few seconds delay is intolerable.

I was trying to open a new brokerage account using my existing logon. It just wouldn't let me. And tech support (when I can understand what was said) is so bad, I'd rate them 0 if I could. Repeated words, repeated steps, a handful of please-holds, in the end, I ask my profile to be deleted. It's 2024, it shouldn't be this difficult to associate a new brokerage account with an existing user login profile. And for sure, I won't get the 45 minutes of my life back.

Review:  Customer service is terrible go to Fidelity they are way better

Review:  I have been with Vanguard since early 1990s and have a lot of investments with them. I also set up to do daily automatic investment with them. I consider myself a diehard Boglehead. Their service used to be okay (not great but just okay). Lately (like in this past few years) everything went downhill.

They could not even answer a simple question sent through their web message system after 3 whole business days! I told them if they keep up with this poor level of service, they will start sending their customers away. It is 2024 and it is a few mouse clicks before anyone can transfer everything to Schwab or Fidelity and get some decent support. This is so sad!

Review:  Wow. i can connect on-line and extract money to my checking account and in a couple days, DONE.
now it wanted to have monthly amount sent to my checking account. i started this process last September and now end of January, and after numerous calls, failed whatever s, it might happen. my wife is taking longer than i am now. how can this be screwed up so easily. mindblowing

Review:  Vanguard used to be a company I held in high regard. They have (had?) an amazing reputation.
I'm the POA for my aunt's account and I pay her assisted living bills with the money in her Vanguard accounts. Her $11,000 monthly bill was coming due again in a month, and I needed to get into her trust account for the first time. Vanguard said I had to fill out a W-9 for tax purposes. I filled it out online and *their docusign program* put my name at the top of the W-9 instead of the name of her trust. This caused it to be rejected and they sent me a hard copy to fill out and snail mail back. Fortunately I was a month ahead of her bill being due so it would be ok... or so I thought.
I called about a week later to see if they had received the snail mail. They had not. I asked for a fax number. I faxed the W-9 with an urgent note at the top and called a week later. The W-9 had still not been processed.
I faxed the W-9 2 more times with increasingly urgent notes at the top of the cover sheet.
I uploaded the W-9 to their messaging center.
I called and had to listen to their awful hold music for no less than 8 hours.
FINALLY today, one month later, I called and they said it had been processed 2 days ago. WHY DID NO ONE MESSAGE ME? Instead they had messaged me a form to designate beneficiaries (?!). I already have beneficiaries designated. Why did they feel the need to send that instead of information that would have been extremely useful?
I am completely disgusted with Vanguard- why is no one paying attention to the fax machine? Or the message center? Or the snail mail? This should not have taken a month and about 8 phone calls to resolve. Especially since it was their docusign program that populated the form incorrectly causing the issues in the first place.
Fortunately, because I have paid her bills on time every month for years, the assisted living facility has been incredibly understanding. But I am going to transfer her money to a different company because this is beyond ridiculous.

Review:  So I put a small amount of money inherited from my late mom's account in Vanguard, and don't check it very often. So I forgot my password - again- when I went to check it after a few months. I changed the password, went to log in again - AND THEN IT DECIDED I HAVE TO CALL CUSTOMER SERVICE ONLY DURING EAST COAST TIMES AND IT IS AFTER 9PM ON FRIDAY. No reason given on why I have to call them. I think I'll be moving the pittance out anyway. It wasn't making any money in this Vanguard fund. No doubt with the 3 hour time difference, I'll be sitting waiting for hours unless I get up at 4am Monday morning to make sure I'm among the first of likely thousands, given what I just went through.

Review:  I had the worst customer service experience ever with Vanguard. The resolution took many weeks to straighten out. I transferred my Vanguard funds in kind ("ACAT" transfer) to another brokerage firm. With an ACAT transfer there is no taxable sale event triggered. Most brokerage firms would be delighted to handle the transaction.

Review:  What happened to this company? They were pretty decent for the first 30 years. The last three or four have been really bad. I had a money market account with check writing for years. Then a few years ago my check writing was "turned off" because they said I needed to change my account to a brokerage account. OK, so it wasn't easy but I did it. Then, they sent me checks which I used a few times with no issues. Then just two months ago I wrote a Vanguard check for a new truck. Guess what? The check "bounced" (words of the car dealer). This news came to me two or three days AFTER I drove the truck off the lot. I went to the mobile app and all I saw was that the full amount was deducted from my account. Shortly thereafter, the amount was recredited to my account with a notice saying my transaction was voided. Why? No explanation other than some blanket statement that either I had insufficient funds (not the case as I had four times the amount of the check in the account) or that there was some other problem with my account. No phone number to call, no online chat, nothing. So I looked around the mobile app for a number to call. I cant remember if I found it there or had to go to the main website. In any case I called and the person said that indeed my transaction was denied because my check writing was "turned off". Again! No notice! Why? Well they had made changes to their "system" and I needed to get check writing reauthorized. I told the guy, "you just caused me to basically steal a truck". He had no good answer. I asked for an immediate wire transfer to the car dealer. That will be $10 for the wire transfer fee he told me. I said that I wasn't going to pay it and he said I had to. I said I wanted my account credited after the transfer went through and to make a note of it in his computer file or whatever they use to maximize incompetent customer service. He said he would not make any notes because his system didn't provide for that. I told him to hand write a note to his boss or whoever had the authority to credit me the transfer fee. He said he would not! The wire went through the next evening (later than what the guy "guaranteed") and the car dealer finally got his money. Vanguard is of course fired. BUT!!! Just try and get your money out of your Vanguard account! They make it as hard as possible. Constant "Bank Authorizations" are their latest tactic. What a shame, 30 years of good and 3 of awful. Whoever is responsible for the drastic implosion of customer service needs a new job. One that requires interacting with zero humans.

Review:  I have had funds invested at vanguard for the better part of 10 years. I recently took a loan that I have been paying on greater than the required payment and always early. A few months back their system failed to correctly update the next due date. I have requested multiple times they correct the issue. Their response has been less than what it should have been. The latest response was that my payment in excess of the due amount was what was the cause of their system not updating to the next due date. OMG, Where did this logic or lack there of come from. Perhaps if I were late or did not make a full payment, I could agree.

For me I can only say I'm glad I'm not late nor under in my payments. What issues has Vanguard created for other investors? Especially in the area of 401K loans.

Review:  What has happened to Vanguard? First, we could not get into the account to make transactions and requests. Once we had a temporary password, we still could not get into the account. It showed blocked. Finally, called to have the funds distributed in order to reinvest elsewhere in order to avoid having $25.00 / mo. Deducted. They totally messed up the distribution of funds from an IRA and sent 89% to the state! Now, after one customer service agent admitted a month ago he had seen this happen a few weeks prior, and assured us it would be corrected, we followed up today, 30 days later, and were given the run around that they listened to some call and we instructed them to send 89%, which is not true. They have no regard or respect for their investors anymore, especially those who do not have computer skills or disabilities and request numerous times to have another person noted to assist with transactions on their account. Now, the money is losing earnings every day due to their error. Run! Do not trust them with your investment. No customer service, only arrogance and refusal to take responsibility for their error and provide escalation contacts to correct the issues. Still trying to get resolution and get this corrected. As it turns out, we may have to get legal advice.

Review:  I have been with Vanguard almost 30 years I knew John Bogle we had several long talks he was a good man. But since he left the the firm has gone downhill it seems having over a million dollars is not enough to get service. I have been lock out of my accounts and today I have been on hold for 4 hours on one call almost 2 hours on another and was disconnected. Not worth the low cost imagine not being able to get into two your account for over a day. And they do not care about anyone with less than 5 million in accounts.

Review:  See all the other comments. Been a customer for 25 years because I wanted to invest in their mutual funds, and I used to recommend them to others. Never again. Recently, they've been doing everything in their power to charge me for the "privilege" of holding on to my money, from fees imposed unless I transfer everything to their brokerage platforms to charging for hard copies of tax forms. Exploring other options as I write this.

Review:  Beware…Just learned from the special edition of AARP magazine that Vanguard will NOT honor your POA. They insist on their own. However, you don’t find this out until it’s too late.
This is one more reason to move to another company.

Review:  Vanguard customer service is a misnomer. It is the worst customer service I have ever experienced. Starting with the phone tree - it is not helpful and not intuitive; you can't get a human being on the phone. When you do get a human, you're in the wrong dept and multiple transfers are required. Most representatives answering the phone are inexperienced and/or rude. It takes too many phone calls to get someone who can actually help me. I have to set aside 2 hours to get a question answered. I honestly don't think they want my money, and they don't appear to respect that this is my life savings. Pros: great, low-fee investment vehicles. Cons: immature trading platform, worst customer service ever. Looking to move my $$ back to Fidelity.

Review:  The worst company ever delt with. They refuse to give money in account had to hire a lawyer and on the 3rd call. They take your money and refuse to give it back.

Review:  Been a Vanguard client for 30+ years. They are supposed to be a client owned firm, but radical decisions are made without owner input/approval. Their recent move to an all digital platform is an example of customer service at its worst. All contacts names, phone numbers and addresses have been scrubbed from the site, info that was critical to clients regarding their specific transactions also gone. An example is recent credits to your account; used to be you could click on a fund payout or pending transaction and a box would pop up showing you the origin of that transaction. NO more, now you have to wait 2-3 days to see where it came from. Used to be your fund info page would show you recent transactions. That's gone, replaced with fund propaganda. Used to be if you had a certain amount invested with them you had your own personal advisor name and number at the top of your page. No more. Now you must pay for that.
I recently spent 30 minutes on the phone trying to get an address where to send info in the event of my death; it's a new address, not published in El Paso Texas. If it confuses me, a 30 year client, imagine how confusing it would be to my beneficiaries to figure out. Don't waste your time with these guys, they've surrendered their core beliefs in the individual investor to the alter of institutional investments. Move your money now.

Review:  Reaching anyone at Vanguard is easily the worst experience I have had with any business. The phone system shoots you to multiple places, repeating information, and never really connecting you to a live person. They will not give out direct numbers or emails for your sales rep or advisor, so you cannot reach them directly. They also state that they will take care of tasks, only to advise you later that is your responsibility, wasting your time and putting more demands on you so they can hold YOUR money. Horrible customer service. I am thinking about moving my money away from them to save myself any more of this stress.

Review:  Customer for 30+ years. Recent slide downhill.
This is small potatoes compared to some other folks problems--but an enormous waste of time and effort.

Went to our account a week ago to make a routine transaction. A popup said they would charge me $200/year unless we converted two fund accounts to brokerage accounts. (Have one; don't need 2 or 3.)

Clicked the link on the site. Said I had to CHANGE our address which would freeze our transactions for a week. Called them to prevent that. Took 90 minutes to fix that on a line (to where?) that kept dropping out. IRA fixed. Taxable account then still incomplete.

Three days later, the site provided a form to convert our major account. Filled in 18 page form. Lost data when exceeded time limit. Repeated, saving as I went. Signed with Docusign. Joint account needs 2 signatures. Not easy to do. Between us, we have spent 8+ hours TRYING to do this. Finally succeeded.

Wouldn't it have been easier to provide a box to check for each account saying: "DO IT!/NO DATA HAS CHANGED"?

NOW: They have changed my settlement money market fund (no choice at all).
Had to do double Docusign again to reestablish check writing. Don't know if previous MM checks are still good. NO REPLY TO ANY MESSAGES AFTER 6 DAYS.

Web site format also degraded in the last month or so. Many more pages to get things done.

Review:  The short story short: If you're trying to move 401K money WITHIN Vanguard, it'll be easier to move it OUT OF VANGUARD. They have become incompetent. I've been a cheerleader for years. Now, I can't wait for everything to settle and get away from Vanguard. I'm "still" trying to ROLL over a portion of my 401K into a Vanguard trading account (from a company that has a separation date in the docs!). Yes, KEEPING the money at Vanguard. July 6th I called to understand the process. I was told, "No problem, we can do that when you're ready, just give us a call, probably do it on the phone." Monday the 10th I called to move forward. Turns out they had to send paperwork... NOT overnight, vis USPS, "7-10 Business days". (it's 2023, USPS, 7-10 days? Really? How progressive!) Not surprising it showed up on day 10... It was WRONG. I called again, yes sir, we see the error, we'll send new paperwork..." After about an hour someone finally agreed they saw where I corrected the paperwork they could move forward. Next day, nothing. Second day I see the money was moved OUT of my 401K but not into the IRA! Another call. "That takes 3-5 business days once we get the paperwork..." That's no where on the paperwork, and conveniently not mentioned in any prior conversation. I requested a manager, "sorry, none are available... can we schedule a call for you?" I scheduled the call, no one called. My docs arrived at Vanguard for processing on the 25th... It's now August 2nd. I'm holding now. They explained there was an error on their end, "Im trying to see when that money is due to settle in your IRA... Today is day 6." By the way, all this time, the money moved, not earning any interest, in limbo , it shows up nowhere. I left out a lot and multiple calls because it's incompetence throughout the process... Moral of the story; if you're going to move money from 401K to IRA, simplify your life, move it OUT of Vanguard. ...and it gets better. She just came back on the line (it's been 45 minutes now. That's 9 calls in 2 weeks, all over 40 minutes just to find my own money!). She now wants to know if I'm still with that company. "I see a separation date..." You're kidding me right? "I see a separation date/Are you still with them...?" Level 20 incompetence! OK, 1 hour 12 minutes. Finally a supervisor. "It's now after hours, so I probably can't do anything with this until tomorrow---" I asked if it was still 3PM in Cali. where he is... Sounds like more bullshittery to me, but while they are treating this like a joke, I am helpless in this scenario- but once I get my money, its bye bye Vanguard! What has happened to them? Save yourself. If you have to move $, move it OUT.

Review:  ESG by Vanguard with Blackrock is criminal and destroys America and Americans. Reliable practical low cost energy is mandatory for a good economy. ESG has resulted in Record number of car repossessions, lost homes , high rents, insane food cost, totally corrupt ultra liar politicians impossible to attain goals. I was with Vanguard over 40 years but no longer. Moved everything to a conservative dealer because customer service is the worse as far as wait time and knowledge, Some customer service totally clueless, massive ill trained.

Review:  First customer service rep could not find my account info even though I spelled my name, gave her ss#, zip code, and account number. Called a second number only to speak to some one with unintelligible accent.

Review:  I have been a Vanguard Flagship customer for over 20 years. Their customer service used to be fairly good; I had a specific person as my go-to rep. That ended a couple of years ago. Then they reduced the number of call center reps and moved call centers outside the US. Today, I wanted to make an IRA withdrawal using shares in kind. You can't do that on the website. I called and had to wait 20 minutes to get a rep who told me I had to do something before I could execute that transaction. I did that and then called Vanguard back. I'm now waiting for another 1/2 hour to get a callback.

I also have accounts with Fidelity whose customer service is very good. But I don't want all my eggs in one basket so when I leave Vanguard (which I will do ASAP), I will look at Schwab or some other broker. Vanguard, you are toast.

Review:  I have been with Vanguard for over 20 years. It's a great choice for people who know what they want and do not need guidance. It's crazy that a firm this big would not take any calls on weekends, so I would never pay for assistance from them. The ETF option is the most cost effective. For example, the VOO etf has the same expense ratio as the equivalent Admiral S&P Index fund. However, the fund puts limits on when you can buy after selling (you must wait 30 days) and requires $50,000 minimums in most cases. It's like the fund group doesn't communicate with the ETF group.

Review:  I agree with all of the comments about the deterioration of customer service at Vanguard along with the declining investment performance. The registered representatives are rude and refuse to give their identification numbers. They also refuse to transfer the call to a supervisor and even claim that there is no supervisor to take the call. This raises the question of whether they are saying that they have no supervisor, which, if true, violates the federal securities laws. I had to waste my valuable time with this nonsense! The Web site is not user friendly and does not even provide a phone number --- you have to google "Vanguard Customer Service" to find a phone number. I have had a qualified account with Vanguard for over ten years and it is really disturbing to have to experience this level of shoddy service.

Review:  I reiterate strongly the other reviews about customer service. So bad I am beginning to transfer most of my business to fidelity. Latest example: I called with my question, told they will check and call back. They call back...didn't leave a message and have never heard from them again. 2 weeks.

Review:  I fell for the brokerage pressure and an not happy with it. I've been on the phone six times with various Vanguard departments and have gotten different answers to my questions. Now they are going to charge me (and my wife) for each brokerage account if we want to receive statements thru the U.S. Post Office. We have been with Vanguard for about 30 years. The costs are low, but not worth the aggravation! We signed up for a mutual fund company; we DO NOT need a brokerage! So, the research begins to take my business elsewhere.

Review:  Very very bad customer service, transferred between departments, no direct answer. The representative simply hangup in the middle of the conversation. Very rude.
Looked at previous reviews, I feel just a waste of time to express my frustration.

Review:  One star is one too many. After my last issue (see review dated 12/31/2021) I opened an account with Fidelity and started the process of moving assets - but there are tax implications, so I am moving gradually, which means I am still stuck with Vanguard for a while. In the latest mess, my Father passed away and the process of transferring his assets to named beneficiaries (my sibling and I) has been a nightmare - as you would expect. Hours of telephone time. I provided all the requested forms promptly and in perfect order. Yet Vanguard needed a second copy of one form (apparently uploading it through their portal with a Vanguard Rep on the line to confirm receipt wasn't good enough), and after repeated attempts to get a status update, I was told they needed another form that I had already provided, which was then "located" after I protested. All in all it is a disaster. And when I sent messages through the Message Center asking for an update, they were ignored for days, forcing me to call in and spend another 45 minutes on the phone. Horrible experience. And I still do not have the assets. My advice - stay away. This company is a mess from top to bottom. It is hard to believe what was once such a superior organization has become so bad. My experience with Fidelity has been 1000X better.

Review:  I am only involved in Vanguard because my deceased parent's assets are there. They are in violation of the court probate ruling and will not allow me to performed the required asset inventory of my parent's estate.

Review:  I always dreaded what I knew would happen, but I am shocked at how rapid the decline has happened. In the 'good days' I would end any call I had, or survey finished stating: "I want the company to be run as Mr. Bogle envisioned and I am used to, and if this high standard was to fall I would be on the lookout for a replacement" - That time has come. Like many of you I have been with Vanguard for decades, had recommended them to many who joined, and you could not have pried a bad word about them from me... Now I can barely say much good as I am starting to see the cracks. USAA was held in a very similar vein by myself many years ago - But now is a complete shell of themselves, lost their way and lowered their very high standards. Now they are just another crappy company.

I am a "Flagship" member, but what does this even mean anymore? Use to get a free use of TurboTax every year, use to have my own assigned advisor, use to receive an annual portfolio review from my assigned advisor, use to be able to ask questions without feeling as though you have to join their paid advisor, use to be able to email them. All of this and more is gone. I try to never call VG if possible, but the website seems disjointed, hard to find what you need, and seems what could be viewed before big changes is no longer doable. I mean how pathetic is it that I can not pull up what dividends and capital gains are/were for more than last year???

Lately I had to call a few times and what happened to being asked for my voice password? Now I have to enter multiple times basic information? Also, the quality of the reps I do get now have not been up to standard. I now get a sorta "OK bud" when I speak with these people. Used to be very business polite and effective to I hate having to call them at all with their borderline rudeness and incompetence.

Never thought I would ever consider a switch, but I am. I will be looking very hard at Fidelity and see if the service is what one would expect. Way screw up the very best their was, and I guess as you add trillions more $ the service will continue to decline. What a true shame, and an absolute joke you 'leaders' at VG allowed to happen, basically spitting in the face of the founder... I knew when ETFs started to happen and Mr. Bogel was not happy about it was the start.

Review:  When I tried to make my Roth IRA contribution for 2022, they claimed my funds were sent to the wrong Vanguard account even though I purchased it by following their automated system. It should be rock solid doing that. They confirmed they had my money “but you put it in the wrong place”. (How???). It just had to be moved. Meanwhile, I was receiving trade confirmations from them. To resolve the issue, I sent them a clearly written response to the issue within their message system. Within 6 minutes I received another trade confirmation. I thought, great, problem solved. The next day I received an email claiming insufficient funds. Vanguard, in fact, did not resolve the issue. They did not execute the buy order. The confirmations didn’t matter. The fact my funds were fully cleared didn’t matter. They said it was too late to fix, and there was nothing they could do. I was “coded out” and missed the cutoff. When I called back with my documentation about 2 hours later, the service person simply insisted it was my fault and I should have called them earlier instead of emailing. How would I would know that? And why didn’t they respond to my email with that feedback? Now it is days later and there is still no response to any of my emails to them regarding this issue. Keep in mind the email communication was within their own email system. Further, they do not provide their service phone number anymore. I had to google it. Not hard but also not conducive to me thinking it was the correct communication path. I was continually stonewalled on the phone by a minimally trained person working from home. Or, more accurately, well trained in the art of stonewalling. I missed my retirement contribution for the year. He looked into it to see if it was their fault and claimed they would fix it if it was. But he did whatever it took to avoid fixing the issue, which I have no doubt he could have easily fixed BECAUSE HE TOLD ME THEY COULD IF IT WAS THEIR FAULT. I believe they chose not to make this right in order to save their time/money.

I used to have a Vanguard phone number to call a professional if there were any issues. They would even call me if anything looked wrong. That went away and so is my business with Vanguard. Twenty five years with them and in the last 10 they have cut their service to the point of it being completely ineffective. In short, Vanguard has terrible service.

By the way, it is an easy process to switch away from them and into another investment firm. You do not need to sell and rebuy your funds.

Review:  Terrible returns on investments. Terrible customer service. Terrible security processes. When I am out of the States I cannot logon to my accounts. Finally, I just want to minimize my loses and move my investment to Fidelity !! I had it with vanguard.

Review:  Opening an account and making transactions is a pretty easy process with most online brokers. Not Vanguard, and I've been around computers my entire life. actively make transactions and trade with TDA, Schwab and Fidelity. Can't open an account with Vanguard, no one to speak or chat with, all the support they have is documents on top of documents.

Review:  The absolute worst customer service in any industry. They are rude, not trained and certainly not educated in the retail business. They decided to liquidate one of my accounts without telling me. It was as IRA that was with them for years.
One day in the mail I received a check minus taxes and penalties. I was shocked. I called and they said they wasn't anything they could do. My lawyer reached out and told them the next call was to Finra. After 3 weeks they put the entire amount back. I then said I need to get out of here so arrangement to move the account to Fidelity. Completed the rollover paperwork and was told the check would be at Fidelity in a few days. Here I am 3 weeks later and no check! They lost it!!! Now Fidelity and I are fighting with them to cancel the check and reissue. DO NOT WORK WITH THIS FIRM!!!!

Review:  We've been Vanguard clients for over 25 years. The deterioration of their customer service has been astonishing. Trying to contact a human there who knows something is a trial. Getting one who actually cares about solving your problem is nigh impossible. I used to recommend Vanguard to friends. No longer.

Review:  The account "buy and sell" webpage won't accept any preferred share tickers. I spent two hours talking to different customer service reps, who had absolutely no clue how to use the website and trade shares. They just kept saying, "not my department," and transfer me; had to "verify my identity" half a dozen times, and wait on hold indefinitely. Finally just hung up. I've been with several different online brokerages, and I've lots of experience trading preferred shares at different account websites. Vanguard is the only company that makes it impossible. And what's worse is that their customer service reps are completely clueless. Apparently they receive no training at all. They could be homeless people working with a cell phone at their outdoor camp for all I know.

Review:  Website and application are not working - will not display balances
Customer service is non-existent - cannot get anyone to address my questions because they have the wrong information in the system (or stale information)

Review:  Incompetent company full of website glitches. Terrified and harassed to get all of my hard earned money out finally to other brokerage firms

Review:  Was a Vanguard customer for over 30 years with a mid-7 figure portfolio. (See my earlier comments on 1/26/22.) Been with Fidelity for a little over a year now. I have a dedicated rep who returns all calls same day. I have a "bricks and mortar" location here in Naples, FL 30 minutes from my home where I just had an annual 2-hour, no charge "face-to-face" meeting to discuss my portfolio. If I want them to execute a transaction, I'm typically connected to a knowledgeable person in under 60 seconds. I constructed an "all passive" portfolio and saved about $300 from what I was paying Vanguard for a similar "all passive" portfolio. Switching over was the best thing I ever did and I was an idiot for not doing it sooner.

Review:  Vanguard in 34 years of investment - refused to change my name on my account. They mailed me an RMD check without advising me before sending a check. I returned the check in December to change my name and take out taxes - then send balance. I had to continually provide name change info - and last week then finally resent check -WITHOUT taking out taxes. I am doing these requests in writing in ENGLISH...... I called yesterday asking for a manager - the first person disconnected my call and the second one REFUSED to let me talk to a manager....... WHO do they think they are? This is MY MONEY...... and they don't seem to know what they are doing....... HORRIBLE.

Review:  I've had my money with Vanguard almost 40 years as a Flagship Select client. The past few years have seen Customer Service go so far South, it's unexplainable at this point. You use to have an Flagship Select Rep you could directly dial and have a relationship with....that was eliminated.... then you use to have a complimentary annual financial planner appointment... again eliminated because Vanguard went towards a more holistic approach. I won't even get into trying to call in to customer service. Time is a precious asset and Vanguard has mastered wasting it. I appreciate this forum to relay my frustrations and at this time I'm in the process of moving my assets.

Review:  I need not write this review since a majority of people said the same thing I will say. I have been with Vanguard for 40 years and with the Flagship account for over a decade but that seems to have no real meaning.

I had some important items to attend to and between the website not allowing something that should be allowed and flaws with their website, I have waited 7 calendar days for a response. Inexcusable, yes.

Vanguard has changed, in service, in user-friendly on-line service, and so on. I cannot believe that the people running the company do not do a thing about this. Like I say in my emails to them (that are supposedly taken seriously and sent off to someone who should hear this) RAISE YOUR FEES if you have to, hire more people, train people, work on the website and make Vanguard great again.

I have started moving accounts and assets to Etrade. Not great but better.

Review:  On 12/29/22 I withdraw my RMD $5,608 for the year 2022. I still did not receive my 2022 Form 1099-R. The response from Vanguard was ‘Our records indicate that your Vanguard account had less than $10 of tax-reportable investment activity during the 2022 tax year. Tax statements are not issued for amounts less than $10.’
The RMD must not be reported? What is going on at Vanguard? May I rely on their service?

Review:  Like so many of the other reviewers, I was a long time Vanguard loyalist for 30 years, bragging on this company and referring friends and family to them. In 2022, things definitely took a turn for the worse with their website, outages, long wait times, outsourcing to the Philippines, etc. I made that difficult decision to transfer my accounts to Schwab. That said, transferring my SEP IRA was a nightmare. I completed the paperwork, only to receive an email that Vanguard needed more info before completing the transfer. They made this virtually impossible by failing to include any phone number other than their general number. Aside from the long hold times, whenever I did get a live body on the phone, they did not know who to transfer the call to! This happened over and over again. The favorite trick of these Vanguard employees was to tell me they were going to transfer me to the correct department, only to instead send me to the main number so I could begin the hold time all over again! This happened over and over. I finally consulted with my attorney, who said to write Vanguard a letter telling them I had no recourse other than to file suit. I sent the CEO and 4 other officers of the company a detailed letter, certified, including the dates of all my calls, to whom I had spoken, the dismal results, etc. and informed them that if I my SEP was not immediately transferred that I would be taking legal steps. Within a few days I received a call from Vanguard, a first, I might add, and my account was speedily transferred. I suggest that if you have problems with these people that you take similar action, thereby building a paper trail. Phone calls won't hold up in court.

Review:  I have been a Vanguard customer for at least 10 years and have been delighted with their service. However, I have noticed a major problem with their website and customer service.

Recently, I spent 6 weeks trying to complete a partial rollover from my Vanguard 401(k) to my Vanguard Roth IRA. I was provided incorrect paperwork and given inaccurate advice. I asked for Vanguard to withhold part of my rollover to cover the pretax part of my withdrawal. They stated that this was impossible.

I have not been able to access my 401(k) account online for over a month. I was told repeatedly that the problem was due to uncleared cookies and cached files in my browser. Two days ago, a customer service representative admitted that there was a web issue and provided a circuitous backdoor method to access my account. I took multiple calls to get this point.

I have called so many times that I have noticed something odd. If you call and get a line with background noise and multiple voices in the background the service will be terrible. If you get a clear line, without multiple the voices in the background, you will probably receive an enhanced level of service.

Review:  Maybe I shouldn’t reply to a comment but, Laurie, I know exactly what you are complaining about. I, as well as my parents, held investments at Vanguard for a LONG time. My father passed in 2019. I am the Executor on their Wills and hold Power of Attorney as well. It could not have been more simple and straightforward. ONE primary beneficiary – his wife/widow. The chaos that ensued in handling what should have been a routine procedure was stunning. And it went on and on. When finally resolved (well, one account was never handled exactly correctly), I proceeded with my POA responsibilities in seeing to the care of my elderly mother. Not only did Vanguard have the perfectly legal Statutory Power of Attorney in their possession, they also have THEIR form Agent Authorization, all completed, executed, and filed legally – to a tee!! EVERY time I had communication with Vanguard regarding ANYTHING, I would quickly be met with almost outright rudeness and would be told that I had NO authorization and they would shut down in communication. EVERY time I had to argue and point out the legality of the documents and ultimately they would recognize my authorization. I was afraid at some point Vanguard would stand between myself and access to my mother’s funds – needed to provide for her care! The last time it happened was the last time. I moved ALL of my mother’s monies – as well as ALL of MY Vanguard investments – out and into a different investment firm. It has been smooth sailing ever since.

Review:  Both of my parents passed away and each had brokerage accounts and IRA's. They had everything spelled out for their beneficiaries. We provided them with all documentation necessary and everyone opened accounts as directed. It has been months and they still don't have funds properly distributed. It should have been easy to figure 25% to each child but NO! This mess is still screwed up and nobody can seem to figure things out. We are loosing money each day they drag this out. They are horrible and the left hand does not seem to know what the right hand is doing. They make multiple promises and never follow thru with them. DO NOT INVEST WITH THIS RAPIDLY DECLINING AND INCOMPETENT COMPANY!

Review:  I have been a Vanguard customer for nearly 40 years. I have noticed a continued dererioration of their customer service ever since Mortimer J Buckley took over as CEO. I am an ADMIRAL investor & have been for years. I hate their new account format. It is more difficult to understand & almost imposssible to print the pages. Now they want to charge me $15.00 for a wire transfere to my bank.
I will be looking to transfere my account to Schwab. The board should fire Mortimer Buckley ASAP. He will run the company into the ground.

Review:  Vanguard used to be the Cadillac of customer service, now they are the Yugo..

Took me three calls to straighten out a check writing screw-up causef by VANGUARD NOT TELLING ME I HAD TO REAPPLY FOR A NEW FEDERAL MARKET MONEY MARKET ACCOUNT AFTER THE PLATFORM SWITCH.

The off shore reps didn't know what they were doing. Sorry St. Jack Bogle I am thinking of kissing off Vanguard after 30 years.

Review:  I have been with Vanguard for over 30 years. The service WAS great. The website WAS great. All that changed in 2022. The website is so broken you're forced to try to get a representative on the line. You WILL have to hold because if you leave a call back number, no one will call back. A Transaction History report that you used to get on-the-fly, now has to be downloaded to a CSV file and reformatted. So now what used to take less than a minute takes about 15 minutes. Thanks for wasting my time, Vanguard. Try to sell your sell your entire position in a security including fractional shares. Can't do that anymore. You can sell whole shares only. Want to sell everything? Prepare to wait a half hour or more on the phone for a human and cross your fingers that you don't get "disconnected." Don't even get me started on the graphics on the new website. Everything is big, red, and in-your-face. I'm constantly scrolling to find what I need. It's distracting and juvenile. I think it was designed by a 14-yr-old for a 14-yr-old. Changing brokers in a pain in the butt, but unless Vanguard gets their act together by the end of the month, I'll be starting 2023 by moving everything out of Vanguard to a brokerage with adults/serious investors in mind.

Review:  Dreadful service. Forget calling about a problem, no one knows anything. Prior it was amazing service, now like dealing with a 2 bit used car dealership...

Review:  I've been with Vanguard for 30 or more years. Sorry to say, I am now looking for a new Company. Call customer NoService (twice), can't understand the representative, then told if I want to speak to a supervisor they will call back in a day or two. Really... So then I tried to send them an email...Yep, no longer an email address for customer service. Best to stay away from this company in my opinion.

Review:  been with Vanguard 30 years and it suddenly turned into crap. Their asinine wait time on the phone caused me a $10000 loss. I cant move my money out of there fast enough and would never recommend this company to anybody.

Review:  WORST website for consumers I've ever used. NOT customer centric, with no useful FAQ's to help guide customers, so it appears they are pressing you to hire one of their advisors because they make doing anything on your on next to impossible. Agent said once my account is set up the website experience improves. Simply not true. AVOID VANGUARD!

Review:  Vanguard has been making changes to their website for months and they continue to make changes. All the changes they have made to their website have made the user experience worse. For example: if you want to look at all transactions for a specific stock for a time range greater than 10 years, the date windows are completely screwed up. Every time I use the website, changes have been made and I have to rediscover their website. Their website was much better before they started changing it.

Don’t like that I can’t send messages to them anymore. I’m guessing they don’t want any record of communications.

Vanguard doesn’t allow changing the Specific ID from FIFO (First In First Out) of stocks within an IRA. WellsFargo Brokerage allows this for free. I bought a stock three different times. The last group of stock purchases made were the cheapest. Because I was not allowed to change this group of stocks from FIFO to a Specific ID (lot) I was unable to sell this group of stocks purchased for the least amount for a gain of 2k. This would have helped me recover losses on the other two stock group purchases made 1st for more money. Nothing is a tax event until I transfer to a Roth or withdraw from my IRA. Vanguard told me they won’t allow this because it would cost them additional money to do so. Vanguard’s website doesn’t state that they don’t allow this on IRA accounts. You have to call because you can’t successfully do so online. Taxable accounts allow Specific ID (lot) for group of stocks but not IRA accounts. Again, Wells Fargo Brokerage allows this.

Review:  I have been with Vanguard since the Early 1980’s. My only son died unexpectedly and I was the beneficiary of his IRA. I am 74 and single. My son was my only family. A clerical error was made during the process of rollover. The bank rolling the IRA over to Vanguard had the account numbers for my traditional IRA and the Inherited IRA I opened for rollover to go into. However it rolled over into my traditional IRA. Vanguard has been arrogant, and let me know they thought it was my error and therefore my problem. I have lost my only family and now am being treated horribly by a company I have been a client of for many years. My lawyer took the case on today.I would not recommend Vanguard to any one. Run the other way!!!

Review:  I have been a Vanguard customer for over 25 years. I've gotten friends, family members and even clients to switch to Vanguard. I have no idea what has happened to that place recently but I'm moving my accounts elsewhere. In the past I rarely had to call because I could handle most transactions on my own. Recently Vanguard changed their website software/platform. The new software is just plain awful in too many ways to list. I have to call a representative for the simplest things now. Getting a hold of a representative is another story. Today at 12:07pm I called about a trade. I left a call back number, and a representative was supposed to call back "within 28-37 minutes." At 1:39pm I still had yet to receive a call, so I called again. I was told on the second call that I would be receiving a call back "between 37-47 minutes." Nope. Never received that call either. I'm done.

Review:  Funds transferred from bank to vanguard account. Funds received by vanguard, but not posted to account due vanguard internal system. Funds are still missing. Called support many times and put on hold for many hours. No resolution. Nobody is able to do anything. No issue tracking system.

Have been with Vanguard for 20+ years. It is not the same firm any more. Time to move funds out.

Review:  Finding it impossible to change the beneficiaries on my mentally retarded brother's Roth IRA. (I believe our mother is the beneficiary,she died about two months ago.) Vanguard seems to have a new policy of not sending out paper forms when operations cannot be done online. In the past agent authorization on a family member's account or a Power of Attorney could be done on a paper form that required the account owner to sign and authorize. I believe with either/or a "medallion signature guarantee" or a notary public witnessed signature.
Now Vanguard seems to refuse to cooperate by not sending out the paper forms. So a catch 22 when it becomes impossible to log onto the account.
I have been with Vanguard from since Jack Bogle was the boss man there and before they had any kind of online access,business was done by mail and sending in or receiving checks.

Review:  Vanguard's website is broken and it is clear their development team is either too lazy, ineffectual, or incompetent to fix the problem. I was all in on Vanguard up until the very last step of making an account, where there is no conceivable way via the internet, customer service, etc, to finish the application. It just errors out. I have heard numerous other people complain about the same thing. Vanguard's lack of prompt problem-solving is a tell-tale sign that I cannot under any circumstances trust them with my money.

Review:  Nightmare! I've spent three hours being transferred to a dozen people, cut off, put on hold and no one comes back. Customers can never speak to the same person so each call begins at ground zero. Often I'm transferred to the wrong department. To begin, you start with an unqualified person overseas and have to demand to speak with a licensed rep in the USA. I'm still on hold now. Managed accounts are one-size fits all.

Review:  Back in 2020 I changed my Vanguard account to a managed account and I have been paying them for 2 years to do absolutely nothing. After scheduling a couple of meetings, and making it clear that I was not happy with the way Vanguard was handling my account, I receive a letter stating that they will no longer charge me for managing my account. Why were they charging me in the first place? Not only did they not make any changes to the investments, even though I was losing a significant amount of money month after month, but they were also charging me as well. Well enough was enough. I moved all of my money from Vanguard to a more customer focused firm 2 weeks ago and I'm glad I did. In one of the meetings, and after losing 20% of my account, I asked them how much money they were going to watch me lose before they made any changes to the account. They said they would not make changes because they felt my investments were the way they should be. Really? I have been extremely dissatisfied with Vanguard.

Review:  When you switch to a brokerage account, Quicken will use the value of your investments on the date of conversion as your cost basis, not the earlier purchase dates of your securities. When I asked Vanguard for help, they said I will have to work it out with Quicken. Very unsatisfactory advice given that Vanguard is insisting on this change.

Review:  I have been an investor with Vanguard since mid 80's.
The pop ups badgering to transfer to new platform were finally getting to be too much. After years of resisting, I finally succumbed two months ago to agreeing to platform change. I am an active trader looking for more tools like most other investment companies so when a "Vanguard crew member" told me there were changes I would be happy with on the horizon I caved. For me the issues with new platform a too many to list and mostly identified in previous posts.
It is clear Vanguard is actively trying to sell their clients investment services from investment counselors for a fee that most seasoned investors don't need.
Boggle is truly rolling in his grave.

Review:  Vanguard sent letter stating I must convert my 8 legacy mutual funds to Vanguard Brokerage Account or they will charge a $20 annual fee for each fund not converted. Spend 5 hours today with 3 different reps on phone asking to help me transition on line. None could help. Website instructions for this non existant. Letter said it would be easy and take a few minutes. New website design change also a failure.

Review:  when did Vanguard turn into crap: horrible phone service, horrible list of funds on web, horrible useless web and misleading web pages. I am planning to bail out. It used to be a good money managing company but not anymore

Review:  I've been at Vanguard since the late 1980's & am now ready to leave! THANK YOU to all of the others who wrote complaints b/c Vanguard tries to make you think that you are the only one. Flagship no longer has any benefits. They got rid of Flagship/Voyager representatives so there is no one to follow up. On hold for ages. Those who answer the phones are young, inexperienced & can't even understand the question, much less provide a reliable answer. (They don't even know what Morningstar is! & these are supposed to be finance professionals)Their menu is as bad as Comcast's so that it's very difficult to get to a human. I've been hung up on twice in the past 2 weeks. When you send an email message, whoever answers clearly doesn't bother to read the question much less provide a real answer. They refuse to tell you to whom you can complain. Not user friendly-I have trouble typing due to 4 bad neck discs but you can't dictate a message. They are now restricting how long the "representatives" can speak with you. This ignorant youngster who was unable to comprehend my question complained that we had been on the phone for 20 mins. Vanguard is now providing incorrect information, both written & verbal, especially regarding the "transition" to their "new" platform. I was told that all accounts would be combined under one account. Instead, my brokerage acct. remained the same & all they did w/the acct which had only Vanguard funds was to change the acct number. The process of doing the "transition" is a royal pain. Noone at Vanguard can tell me why I was forced to do this for essentially no change. If Vanguard is owned by the customers, why has customer service deteriorated so dramatically? Especially since they have trillions in assets now compared with the 1990's. More money should equal better service. My feeling is that they have gotten too big for their britches. They have so much money that they wouldn't care if Warren Buffett & Bill Gates had all their money there & pulled it out. There is no accountability. Thank you also to the person who wrote to the CEO & received one of those general vacuous responses. So I won't waste my time.They won't even address why some of their funds have cratered Morningstar ratings. I can't trust them anymore. Such a shame. This is not Bogle's company.

Review:  I have been a Flagship member of Vanguard since the 1980s. This company continues to spiral downward. This conversion of mutual fund accounts to brokerage accounts has been a disaster on their part. I have spend at least 20 hours so far and am not done yet....all because of mistakes they have made. One has to wait hours to get in touch with someone. My monthly dividends from one of my mutual funds are supposed to go to my money market account....I count on those for monthly income. Now, without my authority, they have been reinvested, so I will have a taxable exchange. Thanks a lot. Like others, I plan to call Fidelity and gradually move everything over there. One of my biggest regrets is that I referred several friends to Vanguard over the years....now several of them have called ME to complain. I suppose referring them to this awful mess of a company would be like buying someone a ticket on the Titanic.

Review:  With all the money Vanguard possesses, it has the worst customer service than any other broker of its level. Smaller brokers like M1 Investments have better service than Vanguard. I have written 3 letters regarding some questions I have about my account, without any answer. I do not know how they attract so much money with such a poor service.

Review:  Conversion to brokerage account had issues and the conversion was at their insistence. It should have gone more smoothly since it was their initiative and they could have taken as much time as needed to prepare. Releasing it before well-tested is a bad management decision.
Wait time for resolution was a total of 1 hour and 27 minutes. First rep couldn't help. Second rep was good and all went smoothly. Of course, I still have to see how it all goes at the end of the month before I can be sure.

Review:  I want 'All Vanguard mutual funds by asset class info' in the old format. I do not like such unnecessary innovations. Why Vanguard does not ask its customers opinions? Who is responsible for such "wise" decisions?
Response from Vanguard in Facebook: “While we aren’t able to revert back to our previous version, we’ve forwarded your feedback to the appropriate area for review.”
What is the problem to revert back to the previous version. There is not an archive at Vanguard? Today is 2 weeks from my request. When will we know about the solution?
Response from Vanguard in Facebook: “There is no option to revert our website back to a previous version. We appreciate your feedback and understand that change can take a bit of time to get used to.”
Why do I have “ to get used to” while I was pretty happy with the previous user-friendly version? Who requested such innovation and why?

Review:  In June 2022 Vanguard combined its mutual fund and brokerage parts into one new and improved company; it is a disaster. One thing a fund holder had to do was transfer to a brokerage account which meant automatic transactions had to be cancelled. Well one of our IRAs had the disconnected phone number and it has been 7 weeks attempting to have it changed so we can gain internet access. During this 7 weeks we were told 4 times that it was done and it was not, each time the text was sent to old landline which never recieved texts. We had to return a notarized form requesting the acct be reset and when we called they did have the form but reset nothing. That call resulted in the acct being put on a 7 day hold. To date we have talked to 5 people with no success, been promised a return call which never came and now hold times are estimated at one hour. They do respond better before 9 AM but the service is just as sorry. Vanguard has now gone the way of most investment companies as in "we have your money and our best interests at heart". Not Mr. Bogle's company anymore.

Review:  Phony phone service harms those needing to speak to customer service. You can Wait More Than an Hour, and you maybe disconnected in a failed effort

Review:  I really like Queen Maria Palermo, Cecilia Margaret Goin as a broker because not only did she invent and assemble every lawful investment product but she constructed the electrical grid through which every purchase is made and sold. She set up every stock exchange on the planet, she invented money, and would like to see one currency used by every country. This one currency would not have a picture on it of a person. It would exchange one for one with every country.

Review:  I've now been on hold for Vanguard for 1 hour and 33 minutes - and no end yet in sight - against an original wait time of 25 to 35 minutes. Previously, I had enough invested in Vanguard that I had access to an advisor but that service has been eliminated for me. Too bad that Vanguard has apparently decided to cut costs by ruining the customer experience. I've been a Vanguard customer since the 1980's but now it's time to look seriously at Fidelity or other firms that care about their customers.

Review:  Called customer service bc 2nd quarter statement late.
A letter they sent me, date and content unknown, was returned by USPS. That set off procedure to stop mailings. They have no info why letter returned.
Said email sent 7/20. That was never received either. She cannot provide any additional info on letter returned or email sent.
I have no idea what the issues that generated letter are so they can be addressed and there was more obfiscation than assistance provided by customer service.
Rep in discussing accounts was not including all accounts and providing minimal info without my additional questions.
Requested to speak to supervisor. Rep came back and said, call back in 8 to 10 days if no statement received. I said you are indirectly telling me I am not speaking to supervisor.
If they cannot communicate it does not increase my confidence in their ability to manage accounts.

Review:  There have been thousands of persons entering this company who are unwelcome and whom we want permanently removed. They have abused children and filmed themselves in this activity and tried to sell it to the larger public for money. These persons total 15,000 and they are half men and half women. One is Ronald Morvais who goes by Francis Roncagli and goes by Billy Hope. We in the larger community want them removed and executed. We do not want them to be in any community. Thank you.

Review:  Been trying to move money out of my company 401k to a Fidelity IRA rollover since March. It's been a nightmare. I won't bore you with the details. You know when customer service gets farmed out to the Philippines that the company is in trouble. It is impossible to speak to someone who knows what is happening with my request.

Review:  I have tried to roll over my employer's 401K in Vanguard to a new IRA in Vanguard. 11 days waiting, 3 phone calls, 11 transfers via phone, 30+ minutes on hold, cryptic emails, difficult accents, and still no success. Latest phone call and told that I have to call the Vanguard brokerage side to get a new account number to give to the Vanguard employee side to make the transfer. Tried to cancel the transfer request and they told me there is no way to cancel a request, you have to replace it with another request. I use to make one call to Flagship service and get things done. Now they are incompetent. After 30 years I will be moving all my accounts out. This all started when my old employer mailed an announcement that they are changing Vanguard to another company--and now I know why.

Review:  Waited over an hour on phone to fix problem Vanguard caused on my account. Was transferred to 4 agents and first one was very nasty with attitude when I asked why they made the error on my account and couldn’t fix promptly - “I don’t make the rules I just follow them.” Then the last agent sounded like he was in a wind tunnel and I could barely make out what he was telling me. When I asked him to repeat what he was saying due to the poor connection, he responded: “I think you heard what I said. Stop playing games.” If my employer didn’t have Vanguard for its plan, I would get rid of it ASAP. I have fidelity for all my other financial needs and they are 100% professional and don’t mistreat their customers.

Review:  I use emails instead of phoning. Works good. If you have to phone, do it in the morning when Vanguard opens. Because of all these complaints I read a while ago, I transferred my IRAs out of Vanguard. I just use the stock brokerage, no problems so far.

Review:  Johnny, you are very likely correct. Count me as one of those rats that has fled the sinking ship. I just completed the final move of the last of numerous investment/brokerage accounts both myself and my mother had with Vanguard. My father (and mother) and myself have invested with Vanguard for YEARS. When my father passed in 2019 and I was being sure everything was properly in my mother's name (as his sole primary beneficiary) and being sure they had the proper forms in place for me to act as my elderly mother's agent, their short-comings were on full display - and NEVER stopped. I had POA already but my mother completed Vanguard's Full Agent form authorizing me to act as her agent. That was in 2019. Every time I acted on my mother's behalf they disputed my authority, then would finally acknowledge my authority, and state that their records "were in error" on THEIR side (which they never seemed to update) - each and every time. As my mother aged from 92 years to 96 years today. I was afraid that, at some point, they might prevent me from accessing my mother's money, which has only EVER been spent in paying for her care, wants, needs. I decided I HAD to get her money out, so I pulled mine as well. I already have investments at Fidelity and Schwab. Let's just say, Fidelity just had their bottom line increased when I moved everything there. Vanguard's customer service - and flat-out COMPETENCE - is unbelievably horrible.

Review:  I have been with Vanguard a long time, Flagship. I put up with the multiple 1099s at tax time, sometimes receiving them after taxes were due. But now I am leaving and moving my money. The customer service is horrible. They remind me of Comcast. I used to have a dedicated representative but now I'm just thrown in with everybody else. They don't care about me. It took them 4 days to reply to an email. Sorry to say I am done with Vanguard.

Review:  Since March I have been attempting to make progress with this company I have had a relationship with for FIFTY (50) years. I cannot believe how terribly bad client service has become. When a client calls Vanguard, like most companies these days, their representatives taking copious notes concerning the nature of the conversation ; ALL calls are also recorded to boot. On subsequent calls to inquire about previous calls and prospective progress , amazingly, they cannot find any notes, they cannot find their own "fix it tickets" they advised would be submitted. These are just a sample of the antics recently encountered. Threaten them with leavings, as I have done and am contemplating and well, it really doesn't seem to matter. If it wasn't highly guarded propriety information, I wouldn't be a bit surprised to learn clients are abandoning ship like rats on a ship afire.

Review:  I needed to withdraw my 401k due to a housing problem. I contacted them and they had $8,500 coming my way, they told me should be here any day. Instead I received a letter saying they could not process my request due to a problem with my rollover information. Called them, they had entered the withdrawal incorrectly and told me (one week after my original request) that the market dropped and now I had only 7400 dollars. I lost a grand because of their error. Nothing could be done (they said).ABSOLUTELY should have been their thousand dollars lost and not mine simply because someone hit the wrong button on the keyboard
Extremely disappointed

Review:  l report Queen Maria Palermo, CMG is an excellent investor and wishes to work with Francis Blaise Roncagli to make this a better company. She would like to have more support in making this company worthwhile and profitable; more attractive to the population, stronger and more accesible. She would like more support in making it retain its value and attractive to the worldwide population.

Review:  Have been a customer for over 35 years. Customer service has declined dramatically since they stopped the Flagship desk. In fact, it's not acceptable
but I'm too old too move all of my accounts now. well- maybe not!

Submitted the forms to set up an automatic RMD for a 401-k in April. Got confirmation on April 16th that they had received the forms via Certified mail on April 16 and they would contact us if their were any questions. Nothing!

As of June 3rd, yes 6 weeks later, I discovered that after 5 phone calls they had rejected the request because there was no money in the account. Well, they had looked at the wrong account, but no one called or messaged that something didn't look correct.

So over two hours on the phone just on June 3 and June 6 and they think they have figured out the root cause.

I am glad they may have found the root cause for their mistake, but why keep me on the phone for 2 hours while they work on their problem.

I sent a secure message on 6/1 regarding this matter and never heard back. I had two different reps tell me on Friday they were going to take care of it and get back to me by secure message. Nothing!

Supposedly another rep. found the problem (their problem) and we'll see if it is fixed in a day or two. 6 weeks- now that's customer service

Review:  Long time Vanguard account holder (also have two accounts with Fidelity).
Recently, they "forced" conversion of Mutual funds to "brokerage account."
(I already had an non-active brokerage account, but they told me I had to start over with a NEW brokerage account). I have ONE trust account as an individual and one ROTH account. It took multiple effort to try to complete the paperwork online. Had to call for help. One hour later, advisor returned call.
He walked me through most of it. Patient guy, BUT not easy to do this. One success. Unfortunately second conversion failed and phone call dropped out, probably my fault. I was able to finish it myself. BUT at the end (for the Trust), I had to print out 18 pages (required, yes. yuck!) and mail it to them. (double yuck). Regret doing this. I will make the switch to Fidelity. No benefit to stay with Vanguard.

Review:  l report like Richard Salieri being the top man at Vanguard lnvesting because there is no one who understands it like he. He is the most capable man to manage Vanguard for Queen Maria Palermo, Cecilia Margaret Goin. He knows the value of money and how to make it return on initial investment. He knows the value of investing and making investments that return with safety. He is the man who knows how to manage a company and keep it strong.

Review:  Terrible customer service, long wait on the phone to talk to people from heavens know what country who are not knowledgeable and therefore unable to help you.

Review:  l like the broker Richard Salieri and would like to see him manage this company more comfortably. l would like to see persons Beezer Reed and Francis Roncagli and Carl Kozlosky work for him. He has superb know-how of how a company is to be run and these friends of his work well with him. He knows the securities business well and has a complete understanding of it. This is the only person who must be in charge of this investment house with Princess Maria Palermo, Cecilia Margaret Goin.

Review:  My father had a stroke and can no longer work. He decided it better cash out his 401k now and enjoy what life he has left to live. We have been trying for a week now to get them to transfer his money, he received a letter stating they had done so, nothing was put in his account. He called them back they claimed it was because his bank denied the transfer and sent it back so they would be sending him a check in the mail (2 days to process and 10-14 for it to come) I told him that he needed to call his bank. And his bank said they never received any such transfer and that they would not ever return a transfer like that. So now it’s back to waiting on hold for 3+ hours. These people are taking advantage of a disabled man who just wants to get HIS money that he worked hard for! Absolutely terrible customer service can’t wait to see how they react when they get called out for lying

Review:  Customer service is abhorrent! Have been calling REPEATEDLY about the SAME issue for the past THREE weeks. Hold times are for HOURS and even once you get someone on the line, they cannot assist. I have gotten completely different information from each rep and STILL have no resolution to the initial issue. I truly wish our company had never switched our retirement plans to this awful excuse for a company.

Review:  I had been a long time investor with Vanguard (when Bogle and Brennan were running the ship). I transferred my 401K to an IRA with USAA when I retired 8 years ago. Then USAA sold their mutual funds and brokerage services to other firms (Schwab and Victory Capital) and I swapped back to Vanguard two years ago. BIG MISTAKE! Vanguard is a pale shadow of its former self with terrible customer service. I decided to transfer our IRAs out of Vanguard to another broker. My wife's lower value IRAs transferred OK. My 7 figure IRA was a different matter. Vanguard liquidated my account to a check for transfer to the new custodian. Nine days later Vanguard placed a stop payment on the check for no apparent reason. Vanguard customer service claimed their "audit team" had found an error in the check they had sent. The receiving financial institution said that was total BS, there was nothing wrong with the check that Vanguard sent an it had processed just fine. Now Vanguard has to cut another check to transfer the funds. Just a delay tactic to keep my money longer. You can't complain to anyone in Vanguard management so I filled complaints with the SEC and FINRA. Stay VERY far away from Vanguard!

Review:  All: Ditto all these negative comments. Finally was fed-up enough couple months ago to leave and selected Fidelity, partially because it has a "bricks and mortar" location here in Naples, FL. Was treated like royalty. Moved my mid-7 figure account over in less than a week. Assembled an "index only" portfolio of small, mid and large cap stocks and debt that mirrored my Vanguard portfolio and saved $1K over what I was paying Vanguard. I have a client-service obsessed dedicated rep who doesn't leave office until any v-mails I left have been returned, sometimes as late as 7:00 pm. In addition Fidelity has a far superior, far more intuitive website. Couldn't be happier. Should've switched years ago. Good thing John Bogle isn't alive to see this.

Review:  What a joke this company is. Seems like it got worse after the change in the CEO. All other CEO’s cared about the clients but Mortimer Buckley doesn’t seem to give a crap. It’s ridiculous that the service is so bad and no changes are being made to make it any better. Poor internet information, extremely bad customer service, what is going on!?! Start doing your job Buckley!

Review:  And Vanguard, I inadvertently left the five star rating on my previous post, but rest assured it is not meant to be. One star all the way.

Review:  I thought I was alone in my appalling experience with these guys. It is especially hard dealing with them from overseas. First issue actually getting to the right department, followed by getting incorrect information, getting omitted information that I should have gotten previously, loooong wait times. I first started emailing in Sept of 2021 then moved to calls as from January this year. I may finally be at end of the process after today being told that they cannot wire the money to me - this after faxing the international wire form to them (which they told me to do), only to be told it cannot be in fax form. So then I sent the physical document in. Now told today that I need to have it sent in cheque form. I tried to create an account I could just log on to but one of the required fields is SSN, I do not have one so no online option available to me.
I inherited this account unexpectedly due to a heart breaking circumstance and to have to go through this three ring circus to get it resolved is beyond words.

Review:  UNABLE TO CONTACT WITH PHONE, WAIT TIMES 3+ HOURS THAN THE PERSON WHO CALLS IS UNABLE TO HELP WITH YOUR PROBLEM, TRANFER ANOTHER HOUR. TERRIBLE, TERRIBLE, TERRIBLE. HARD TO BELIEVE THEY COULD BE SO BAD.

Review:  TERRIBLE CUSTOMER SERVICE
Customer service non-existent

Review:  I have been trying to log onto my account, but they recently put in a new 2nd level security measure that sends my phone a text with code. Problem is I don't get the text. I have been trying to call someone (only way outside of mailing the company) you can contact them - no chat line yet (old school!) I went round and round with voice automated system before finally figuring out a way to talk to someone, who then simply said he couldn't handle and transferred me to another dept. I was on hold for over 20 mins and gave up. I called back to try another avenue and now have been on hold for 20 mins. Customer Service is non-existent with them, it is terrible! I have never had this much trouble with Fidelity and will be looking to transfer all money from Vanguard. So frustrating, terrible customer service, not worth the lower costing funds!

Review:  That's it. All monies are being moved out of Vanguard ASAP. Their incompetence is breath-taking. My father and I have both had investment accounts w/Vanguard for years. He passed in 2019 and that's when the failings of Vanguard were on full display, in glorious Technicolor! Just simply updating ownership of accounts to ONE beneficiary, my mother/his widow was the most unbelievable chaotic mess I have ever seen. I just now received a brokerage statement, still in both of their names - three full years after his passing and when I was assured everything had been taken care of. I shouldn't have even called. For at least the 4th or 5th time now, I have been told that they do not have (they do!) the Full Agent Authorization form appointing me as POA for my mother. Although I have a perfectly legal Durable POA, we played their game and completed their form - 3 years ago, when my mother was 92-years-old. Fully competent, but OLD and grieving the loss of her 71-year-marriage-mate. Once again, I am told they don't have the form and they will send me a BLANK one. They expect me to put my now-95-year-old mother through the process again and again, complete with notary, witnesses, blah blah blah. She completed it ONCE and that is all that I am going to put my mother through in that regard. Each time, after I nicely (and I mean that!) tell them that instead of that process, Vanguard will be hearing from my ELDERLY mother's attorney as well as reporting to the SEC ... they mysteriously find it and we move on. Once again, they say they don't have it. I had already started moving some of my funds out. I am now actively in the process of moving EVERY PENNY in Vanguard to other brokerage houses where I/we have investments. BEWARE before doing any business with Vanguard. Their incompetence is STUNNING!

Review:  Have been with Vanguard since 1985, back when Jack Bogle ran things right. Has continually gone downhill since, but it wasn't till the demise of having service at the Flagship level destroyed that I called it a day. It takes a while to move 7-figures and multiple accounts out of this husk of its former-self, but I've begun the process. No one at the top is listening, and they don't seem to understand that the avalanche has started. Unfortunately, Fidelity isn't much better.

Review:  I had three mutual funds with Vanguard for many years. I set up monthly withdrawals with my home computer and later increased one withdrawal with my home computer. Recently I tried again to increase my monthly withdrawal with my computer and the website wouldn't allow it, instructing me to call Vanguard. So I called -- an automated voice collected info from me and then transferred me to another automated voice. Then I was transferred to a third automated voice and told my wait time would be one hour to speak with someone. I tried again on different days and times, still going through the 5 minutes of automated voices. Finally I was told I had a 15 minute wait. Then every 10 minutes a voice would come on and tell me I had a 15 minute wait. This continued for one hour. When I finally got to speak with a human he had an Indian accent and was hard to understand. I asked him where he was located and he replied, "off shore". I explained what I wanted to do and he repeated it back to me. Then he said he would have to put me on hold. It was 10 minutes before he came back to me and told me my request had been entered in the computer but wait 24 hours for it to be approved. I told him I didn't understand why an approval was necessary because it was my money. He explained the computer instructions would have to be approved as being performed correctly.
I then called a nearby Fidelity Investments office, got a human right away, and made an appointment to have my three funds transferred to Fidelity. I went to their office and a savvy agent helped me do the transfers. Vanguard moved one fund in 72 hours. The second fund and third fund took a full 10 days to move. I'm so happy to divorce myself from Vanguard. I now have a local Fidelity office phone number and the extension of my Fidelity agent, It's so easy to speak with him.

Review:  Dealing with Vanguard has been by far the worst customer service experience I have ever experience. I have spent 15+ hours on the phone, over several days, trying to help my mother reset her password. Thats it! No complex task, just a password reset but Vanguard has made this the most infuriating process ever. All my mom wants to do is access her OWN account from an old employer so she can start taking out her RMD next year. Vanguard refuses to talk to me at all even with my mom on the phone and authorizing me to speak. I am a financial advisor who has spoken to firms like Fidelity, Schwab, Merrill Lynch, Citi Group, and many others on behalf of my clients, with them on the phone and with their approval of course, but Vanguard wont let me speak on the phone with my own mother. Vanguard's customer service is despicable. I encourage everyone who has dealt with similar experiences to file formal complaints because what they are doing is flat out wrong.

Review:  I agree with all of you. It feels like there is lawsuit here. I’ve tried to withdraw $ MY MONEY for 2 weeks now. I have been on hold for up to 3 hours. Keep getting the run around. I will be filing a complaint with the SEC TODAY!
We’re all in this together!!
Unbelievable

Review:  Called late February to rollover my 401k from a previous employer from Vanguard to Fidelity (thank god I could finally do that) and Vanguard supposedly sent a check to Fidelity on 02/23. It is now a month later and Fidelity never for the check. Called Vanguard customer service just now and waited for over an hour to get someone on the phone. She proceeded to tell me that she couldn't help me because she doesn't handle employer accounts. Why did I get routed to her when I had already entered all of my account information???? I tell her that before she transfers me that I want to tell her exactly why I am calling so that I don't have to wait on the phone for another hour unnecessarily. I can tell she really doesn't give a shit. So she "transfers" me and about 30 minutes later the call just ends. I spent an hour and a half waiting for nothing and now I am back on the line which is telling me that my estimated wait time is another 40 minutes. That is what it said the first time I called and it took over an hour just to get someone. I'll be overjoyed once I have severed ties with them completely.

Review:  I'm done. Flagship rep program discontinued. Callback queue option eliminated. Can't get a rep of any sort on the phone in less than 30 minutes or so. Short of a snail mail letter, impossible to be connected to management. Thought the problems might be Covid-related and was willing to wait it out but, like inflation, their service failings were not transitory. Took my mid-7 figure account to Fidelity and I suggest other Vanguard clients do the same.

Review:  I was bounced among at least 6 people. they all sounded clueless and inexperienced. There were long silences on the call (not on Hold) while they were "thinking" or frantically chatting with someone for help with a straight forward customer query. Asking to talk with a Supervisor elicited "One will contact you in a few days." If this is the customer service I can expect, I am moving to another company that provides a professional customer service. I don't understand how Flagship service reps just disappeared overnight and got replaced by the most inexperienced and ineffective (though I am sure well-intending) crew.

Review:  I'm disgusted that an investment company like this would tote calling them for "anything" anytime and then make you wait OVER 2 HOURS THEN DISCONNECT FROM YOUR CALL!!!!! UUUUGGGGHHH! They won't let me change my address online so calling is my only F&*KING option and they won't TAKE MY CALL!!! CRIMINAL!!!

Review:  I keep calling the Retirement customer service line because I want help rolling over an old employer retirement account into my new vanguard retirement account. They keep placing me on hold for over an hour. I simply don't have an hour to sit and wait for someone to answer the phone. And the phone service does not have a call back option.

Review:  The saying goes, "You get what you pay for." Vanguard says they have the cheapest fees - and customer service is, indeed, the cheapest and the worst I have ever experienced. I have tried for hours (8+ on phone hold) and days (5 different) and still unable to talk to a human for a 2 minute question. Sent an email and was answered days later like they never read my question. The only reason I have to deal with this company is because my employer uses them, so I am stuck. Can't wait until I try to withdrawal money out - that is my greatest fear. There are so many more responsible and responsive financial companies out there. The saddest thing is, like some many before me, Vanguard does not seem to care about their terrible reviews.

Review:  I am glad to see I was not alone in the poor Vanguard customer service experience. I learned a lot from other reviewers. I agree Vanguard was great in the past (25 year long customer), but no longer provided acceptable service. I was upgrading a legacy mutual funds only Vang account to a Vang newer brokerage. I called the service to walk me through the process to ensure I didn't mess up anything. Wrong moved. The rep failed to warn me of a check-box in the process which blotched my account upgrade. Sadly, they didn't take care of fixing the problem THEY CAUSED. I had handhold my own fix; it took several days and hours and hours of wait times to fix it. I continued to encounter linger issues because the reps did not fully brief me on the details/limitations of their systems (e.g. broken up account history). Poor Training. I tried to ask to speak with a supervisor about this whole fiasco but said they can only place request for someone to call me back. So, i had them place the callback request. I NEVER got a call back. When I call back with my next related problem, I asked why I did get a call back. Was told, that someone declared the problem was resolved and nothing more was needed and than CANCELLED my callback request without ever informing me! The poor front line reps are trained to take the heat and shielding their managers from having to deal with the customer who just trying to ask for acceptable service and how to avoid problems in the future. It's true Vanguard customer service has the worst model. I can always speak with a superviser at any other company, but not Vanguard. Thank you for the other review sharing about the safety and ease of doing In-Kind Transfer of my account holdings without tax implications. I will be transfering out all my assets to my Charles Schwab and/or American funds accounts. There's no reason anyone should put up with this poor level of service.

Review:  Yep, paperless sucks. They do not recognize my old computer, and claim I blocked access to my account from any other device. SO, I could not login, with my older computer and of course, older browser, due to older software. And of course, you cannot download newer ios. ANYWAY, it took almost half hour to reset everything, over the phone only, but then they had to validate my phone, while we were over the phone, etc... I just needed to get into my damn account for tax forms! Anyway, NOW, cannot access hubby account for hubby, for the same reason.. gotta do it all over again. This system sucks. I don't know HOW older people can navigate this company. I wanna UNLOAD IT ALL... and f the tax consequences. I do NOT trust vanguard anymore. Totally down the tubes company.. When boggle left, the sh)t show started.. And WOKE too.. No thanks.

Review:  I was on hold for 1 hour and 45 minutes. Finally spoke with a rep and was
providing my info for an in kind transfer to Schwab, then the call switched
to a survey about the call. I did not get a chance to provide the in kind
transfer instructions. Did the rep call me back, NO. Now it is 9:15pm and
I can not call back myself. What is wrong with your company. I never
experienced worst customer service than this. I would NEVER open personal
account with Vanguard. I would not even attempt to contact Vanguard at work. Whoever is running this customer service group needs to be fired.

Review:  Followup from 1/29/2022. We finally got our money after starting this 401(k) rollover nightmare back in October 2021. Nothing was happening until we filed a complaint with the SEC. If I put the web address in, they reject it. Just Google how to file a SEC complaint. It's SEC dot GOV. I really don't know how they are still in business. We have logged almost 30 hours of phone calls (mostly on hold). Dozens of lies and broken promises. My favorite (twice) is when the person on the other line "suddenly" can't hear us. They tell us to call again, repeat the same number twice, then hang up. Be sure to stay on the line for the survey.

Review:  Paul, I am responding to your review (02-25). Occasionally, I check back to read reviews after my awful/frustrating interactions with Vanguard. Every post echoes my experience. I am sorry that you had a similar experience in settling an estate. My father passed in 2019 and, while there was definitely money involved, the Vanguard accounts were not terribly convoluted; a pretty simple estate. And settling it? It should have been the simplest transaction–my father passed and everything passed to my mother, his wife (widow) of over 70 years. ONE beneficiary; that’s it! Excuse the implied term, but the ensuing cluster-you-know-what was shocking. NO ONE seemed to have a clue what they were doing. I experienced the same “cluster” when I was taking over as my very elderly mother’s POA. I have investments myself at Vanguard, Fidelity, and Schwab. I have been moving over, one Vanguard account at a time, to Fidelity. I no longer trust them with my money.

Review:  I have been trying to close an account for over a year to settle an estate. I have spent many hours waiting on hold only to be sent the wrong forms or be transferred to another department and put on hold for another "minimum of one hour". Sometimes I get someone who sounds sincere, but then nothing happens. When I send in the completed forms, I never get a response. I call and wait on hold for 2+ hours and they tell me the forms were received but something is not correct or they were not the right forms.
Could it be Vanguard employees receive incentives to not allow customers to close their accounts? Does it go on their performance record?
I deal with TD Ameritrade, Schwab, Fidelity and American Funds. Vanguard is just terrible to deal with. I am documenting it all and will consider making a complaint to the SEC.

Review:  Horrible, you wait for hours listening to mind numbing boring hold music (sounds like they paid for the make the truck fall asleep music from Cars). And NEVER sign up for paperless! If you get locked out or forget your password, they make you call if you don’t have the account # from your paper statement! This after encouraging you to sign up for paperless in the first place! Never again will I do business with this company! They ARE the other broker from the Schwab commercials.

Review:  I have on multiple occasions waited in excess of one hour on the phone. When I finally reach a person they usually don't know how to handle my request which then required numerous phone calls. I can go on with stories of my terrible recent experiences but suffice to say I finally found a way to solve the problem.

I had a Vanguard brokerage account. I found that you can move your Vanguard mutual funds to another brokerage such as TD Ameritrade, Schwab, etc.. Because it was an "in kind" transfer, I am not be liable for taxes on my capital gains as no sale took place, it was only a transfer. The new broker that I chose was delighted to transfer my Vanguard funds to their firm for me. Give one of them a call. That's all that it takes.

Review:  Ten years ago, this was a decent company that knew what it was doing. Now it's almost impossible to get a competent ENGLISH speaking person on the line. My two most recent calls were transferred to women speaking broken English having me repeat security info I had already provided. This is even after I was voice-verified. The website is plastered with people of color - almost no white faces whatsoever.

Review:  I wish I could give them 0 stars. Customer Service is a joke! You wait for an hour to get someone on line and then the person transfers you to a 'specialist' and you wait another hour or two. Ridiculous! And mind you just to get to representative, they ask you a lot of questions to know what you are calling for and still transfer you to someone who does not even talk to you for a minute. Utter shame on this kind of customer service. It kind of disappoints me looking at these reviews that they chose to take no action whatsoever.

Review:  Everyone has the same problem as I do customer service SUCKS.
I have never had to deal with such a lousy company when I call, I can never talk to a person I am put on hold for hours each time until my cell battery dies.
Iam drawing all my money out of Vanguard and going to Charles Schwab tomorrow.
I have been with Vanguard for 20 years, but it is time to move on and go to a company that will talk to the customers

Review:  Let me summarize. When you can't access your life savings, accounts and money disappear, and there is no one to answer your call, run! And so after 20 years, I'm moving all of my money to Chase (and Chase is giving me 2k to do it). I tried to call 10 times this year. Hours of waiting and I never got an answer to where one of my accounts went.

I'm on hold as I write this. The estimated wait time has been 15 minutes for the past 30 minutes. What a joke. I can't wait to get my last Roll-Over processed to Chase.

This company went from best in class to garbage.

Review:  Been a Vanguard Flagship customer for decades. With Flagships reps discontinued, service is beyond awful. Was with Vanguard mostly for the low cost. Am switching to Fidelity this week. Not only can I walk into a physical office here in Naples, FL but, by jiggering my portfolio slightly and substituting a couple of Fidelity index funds for Vanguard actively traded funds, my total cost is only $73 more than Vanguard ($5,687 vs $5,614.) Jack must be spinning in his grave. I think Tim is clueless about what's going on and just try to get the attention of senior management. (Guess "client service" isn't taught at HBS.)

Review:  Been on hold for three hours. First guy answers, then places us on another hour hold for a "specialist". Second guy answers, then places us on our third (and current) hold for a "financial specialist" (what specialist was the earlier one). Customer service is a joke with this company!! Money will be coming out within a week.

Review:  Something is ROTTEN in Vanguardland.
Everything is UPSIDE DOWN
BIG became SMALL
We're NOT in KANSAS anymore.

Authorities need to get involved, and rein in their company and customer service shenanigans.
I have read all previous comments here. They are not exaggerating. I only wish they were. I am a long time investor with VG. Something has gone terribly wrong.

The New World Order has arrived at VG...
Just knock if you can hear me...

Review:  Wow, I thought it was just me. But reading all of these reviews, they have a HUGE problem with customer service. And the funny thing is, IT'S OUR MONEY! They are a service organization. I hate to just pile on, but this is the worse I have ever been treated. I've lost count how many calls I have made only to be put on hold. I've hung up after giving up several times waiting for over an hour. TWICE while finally talking to someone, the person on the other end pretended they could no longer hear me (I heard them fine) and asked me to call back on a more reliable phone line. That's when I googled how to give them a bad review and found this web site. I doubt my one review will matter, but I'm getting it off my chest. I can't pull all my money out of Vanguard soon enough.

Review:  My daughter and I have been trying to rollover her 401(k) since late October. 9 calls later (each call lasting 90-120 minutes). This has still not been resolved. Each call consisted of about 4 minutes of talking to a human and the remaining time on hold with elevator music. We have an open case. Yet no continuity. Each calls starts with her referencing the case number. Then she had to explain the entire problem from the beginning. Then the typical, "Well that's unusual. I've never heard of that happening. I need to talk to someone about how to resolve this. Let me put you on hold for a second." We've jumped through hoops, faxed "Instruction letters", and still no action. We've filed a complaint with the SEC 19 days ago. (Google how to file a SEC complaint). Vanguard has yet to contact us.
I also have a 401(k) with them. I'm likely going to starting maintaining my account for the company match. But transfer 90% every year to my Fidelity IRA. They don't deserve my money.

Review:  Amplifying my comments of 1/26/22, a Flagship rep finally answered the phone yesterday. When asked when my Flagship rep would be replaced (she'd accepted another position within Vanguard), she cavalierly advised, "That service has been discontinued." She didn't wholeheartedly agree with my comment to the effect that some notice would've been nice.

Review:  I have used Vanguard since 1996 but in the last two years, the customer service is deteriorating. The hold can be over one hour and beyond even if you are flagship account holder. I was asked to open a new account when I roll over my 401k and then when the check was sent, because I had an old rollover account number on the check and they returned the check, they said they sent an e-mail but I did not see any, no courtesy call whatsoever!

Review:  Can never get through on phone. If you opt to be put on a callback queue, the call is never returned. Am a Flagship client for 30 or so years with more than a couple mil invested and it seems to make no difference. My Flagship rep left weeks ago and no indication when she will be replaced, if ever. I'm done. Meeting with Fidelity tomorrow and expect to close my account after that meeting.

Review:  I wish I could give them MINUS 5 stars. I am now on hold on the 14th call I've made to get a change of ownership for an estate completed. That d and oesn't count the number of times I've called and been on hold and finally gave up. That would add an extra 12 or so. The people (except 2 of them) I've talked when I've gotten through to have been nice enough but on the other hand, several have told me THEY would handle the issue personally and see it through, but then I never heard from them again. The last person I talked to, who was NOT nice, actually lied to me claiming she had spoken with my wife which was an outright lie. We are transferring our holdings out of Vanguard and as soon as this issue with the estate we are executors for is done, Vanguard is forever in the rear view mirror.

Review:  Customer service non-existent

Review:  This organization has without question, THE WORST customer service of ANY company in any field that I have encountered EVER. That is not an exaggeration. A simple review of what others post will support my comments. Get your money out of this company as fast as you can!

Review:  Major snafu with distributing my RMDs twice. No reach out to discuss solutions or options despite three emails over two week period after I my initial discussion of the problem. The "Client Care" specialist handling the problem never returned either of my calls, nor did he respond to my fourth email asking for clarification of the "reversal" of the second distribution. All this left me with additional tax issues, a bookkeeping nightmare, and locked me in on avoidable losses. After 30 (mostly agreeable) years with Vanguard, I'm seriously considering relocating my retirement accounts.

Review:  John Bogle is turning in his grave right now. It is a shame what Vanguard has become. I had my assets with them for over 40 years and the last several years the customer service has been horrendous or nonexistent. They used to have excellent customer service. I finally closed my account in 2021 and I'm very happy with Charles Schwab. However, it was a nightmare trying to transfer my funds from Vanguard to Schwab because of Vanguard's incompetence. I spent hours on hold trying to get them to transfer my funds. Now I can't get my 1099R tax forms for 2021 from them. They stated on their website that I will not be getting any tax forms for 2021. This is incorrect. I had a 2021distribution on my IRA account that I need to report it on my taxes. I will have to file my taxes without that form. This is outrageous. I called Vanguard up yesterday and waited an hour on hold with no response. Yesterday I call them again and utilized their "callback system", which means they call you back and you don't have to wait on hold. They never called me back. Today I called again and waited two hours on hold and finally gave up. I am so glad that I am done with Vanguard and never have to do deal with them again. Run as fast as you can away from Vanguard to either Schwab or Fidelity. Both are very good.

Review:  So after 6 hours and no call back, I tried all night to get thru, nobody home.
I called Fidelity, guess what, they answered on about the 6th ring.
Very nice............... I'll be transferring everything to them tomorrow. I can no longer tolerate their incompetence, how are they still in business? Jack is rolling in his grave!

Review:  It is now over THREE hours waiting for a call back, or someone to pick up. No excuse whatsoever for this, and this is from a 30 year customer. I used to call years ago for balances, before the internet, they would answer on the 2nd or 3rd ring, now there is nothing. I will look for another firm tomorrow, unacceptable on all levels! All these reviews cannot be wrong!!

Review:  A family member passed away and left a small inheritance in a Vanguard account. As other reviews state, Vanguard's customer service is HORRIBLE. I asked for statements to be sent to be in the mail. I haven't received a single one, though I had received initial "Welcome to Vanguard" statements several times. Two weeks ago, I called to ask for the money in the Vanguard account to be sent because my husband is fighting for his life from severe COVID and we need the funds. Customer Service Rep said I would have to call back in 8 days because the statements were sent and were returned. However, when the CSR read the address on file, it is the correct address. Simply put, they never mailed the statements and just flagged the account making it harder to get access to the money that was inherited. CRIMINAL in my opinion. AVOID this investment company if you really want to have money for retirement or emergency funds.

Review:  It would take pages to review all of the ways Vanguard -- once the industry leader -- has fallen to last place in supporting individual investors. I still have a Vanguard account because it is more efficient to retain a few old Vanguard funds there. I never look forward to transactions at Vanguard because they haven't taken the time to provide the information you would naturally want to see when you are trading. The last time I sent an email with a question, it took them seven days to respond. I gave up on phone calls years ago. The website provides very little investor information, which means they are not paying for it. Contrast this to Fidelity where it can take months just to master all of the intelligence, expensive analyst reports (all free), investing tools such as stock and ETF screening software, dozens of event trigger and notification rules, tools, paid memberships to external services, modeling, portfolio analysis, profit/loss analysis, retirement analysis, and other forms of decision-support they provide at no cost. The Fidelity system is accessible via web browser, smart phonwe and tablet apps, and via a very sophisticated PC application that adds even more advanced capabilities for the most serious of investors. In addition, Fidelity can provide all of your banking, credit and debit card, bill paying, HSA and college savings accounts. and even free bank wires to give you one-stop financial services. It integrates all of this into a single dashboard. They also have advanced account security systems -- so good they can occasionally be frustrating if you are not behaving in your typical manner. None of this is provided or at most is provided in a token way by Vanguard. Vanguard is operating on the cheap and it shows. Given the alternatives, I really can't recommend them for anything, including their own funds, some of which are good but most of which are now available from competitors via similar funds at even lower costs.

Review:  I am a low maintenance customer and in the twenty years that I have been with Vanguard, I have called only three or four times. However, I am always stunned at how bad Vanguard's customer service is. One will wait on hold for an hour or more and when finally able to speak to a person, I find that they are rude.

I used to recommend Vanguard to everyone. Now, I don't recommend them at all and share my negative experiences with those asking. Absent a dramatic improvement in their customer service, I will be moving my balances at Vanguard over to Schwab, Fidelity or Interactive Brokers where customers are treated much better.

Review:  This is soooo ridiculous. I have been on hold for a very important matter for the past 3 hours total! The first time I was on hold for hour and half and someone picked the phone up and hung up now am on hold again going on 1:45min. There is nothing I can do online and calling in and having to wait like this for my hard earned cash is absolutely ridiculous unprofessional and ignorant!! I am highly upset rn!!!

Review:  After 30 years of investing with vanguard I finally needed help from customer service. Suddenly, my login screen wouldn't work. Twice I got agents who could barely speak English, could not help me solve the problem, and could not transfer me to a problem solver. If this is the future of customer service, time to look else where.

Review:  Beware...If you need to get help for any reason....They gotcha! Do they actually have a customer service? Why was I not aware of this before moving my retirement here? I never heard that Vanguard Service sucks so bad?! There needs to be some articles about how bad it is to warn people. I would of never move my 401K here. I want to move my money now you sorry customer service!!!! I have been trying to get a hold of someone for over an hour and then you hung up my call!!!!!!!!!!!!

Review:  CUSTOMER SERVICE IS HORRIBLE! ALL THESE MANY REVIEWS ARE TELLING YOU SOMETHING PEOPLE...I JUST DID NOT REALIZED IT BEFORE MOVING MY 40K OVER....I WILL BE MOVING THIS OUT OF VANGUARD AS SOON AS POSSIBLE. I HAVE BEEN ON HOLD FOR OVER 36 MINUTES AND WHY WRITING THIS REVIEW. I DON'T CARE WANT ANYBODY SAYS, YOU ARE GOING TO NEED TO TALK TO CUSTOMER SERVICE SOONER OR LATER IF YOU GO WITH THEM...YOU HAVE BEEN FORE WORNED!!!!!!!!!!!!

Review:  I lost my job last month. I signed up on vanguard website after receiving a letter saying I had paid into their 401k retirement plan. I'm in desperate need of whatever money I'm entitled too at this moment. So after I made an account on their website and trying to withdraw my money(which is no small chunk of change mind you) I was told I had to wait 7 days after making an account to access my funds... OK, no big deal. After waiting 8 days and attempting to log in(I've been logging in every day the last week with no issues) now it's telling me my password is incorrect. Ok... so it tells me to reset my password. In attempting to do so it tells me "you're account is now placed on a hold" Ok.... so when I call customer support it's impossible to get through to a live person, nor do they give me the correct option im looking for. So now I'm just shit out of luck I suppose, and they get to keep all of my hard earned money. Thanks vanguard!

Review:  After 35 years, It's now time to jump this sinking ship. Under Jack Bogle and his successor Jack Brennan, investment sails were full, systems were maintained and crew members conscientous, capable and competent.

The exact opposite exists today under Tim Buckley. Broken website, non-existent customer service, under-trained customer service staff. Automated transactions which are incomplete or wrong.

It will be a miracle if the bilge pumps on this sinking ship can keep it afloat. Heed the warning and man the lifeboats.

Review:  Not sure why any company would ever use this investment firm. Cheaper is the only thing that makes sense. Just remember, you get what you pay for!!

Review:  I have called the company customer service for my employer retirement plans. First time waited for hours and 15 minutes no one answers, call later in the day waited for two hours and 10 minutes and then had to hang-up because I reached the end of customer service hours. Generally every time I call it takes long time to do any thing. Their website is very ad, some documents can't be posted in private message center under my account on the web site, they must be sent by regular mail to be signed and mailed back. They will take several days to process paper work. Example, if you want to rollover from employer plan to Vanguard broker IRA account paper must be mail using regular mail. However, if you want to rollover to any other firm: for example fidelity, TD-amritrade, Charles Schw, etc. IRA account paper will be posted n your message center after 24 hours!! Most important most of participant service staff don't treat you as client/customer. They will treat you as problem and will try to make it difficult for you. I can't wait forr my retirement to have all my assets move to another broker.

Review:  Terrible customer service. Wait times on the phone always exceed an hour and if you are lucky enough to get a representative, they usually cannot answer your question or try to transfer your call which is promptly disconnected. With no local offices you have no recourse.

Review:  There are not enough reps and some are not well trained. Phone hold times are frequently 20+ minutes; yesterday over 1 hour. 2-step authentification does not work right and you cannot opt-out of it. You can't do an in-kind IRA withdrawal over the phone; you have to fill out a form. That form does not work well. Problems just go on and on. Compared to Fidelity customer service, Vanguard's is a 2 out of 10 while Fidelity is an 8 out of 10. There is no redeeming value for this horrible customer service.

Review:  As a long-time customer of Vanguard, I am finding that their services have now deteriorated to a substandard level. Phone calls are not promptly answered, and are often disconnected during internal rerouting.
Taxes have not been withheld from my 2021 RMD, although personally requested and legally mandated. (Said to be a system error that could not be corrected).

Review:  Tried for several weeks to do a SIMPLE IRA conversion to ROTH. Repeatedly received conflicting guidance - even in writing, until it all fell apart on 12/29 - making it impossible to do the conversion in 2021. Service reps were all kids who knew very little, consistently contradicting one another. Each call required minimum 45 minute wait, then I got transferred around, mis-directed and spent time listening to their people read the notes on my account. An overall miserable affair. I had been a Vanguard customer for over 25+ years. Supervisors were apologetic with their words - but even while admitting that I was given incorrect guidance throughout - they were unwilling to do anything to help me achieve my goal. One option required a particular letter from my employer - and since there wasn't enough time to obtain, execute and deliver a hard copy - one Rep told me I could upload an copy into their secure message box but even then it might take a week or more to open the account - hardly a solution for 2021. This was a botched transaction from the start and Vanguard has no accountability - the client pays the price for their negligence. Vanguard's persistent incorrect guidance put me in this position - and they were unwilling to do anything to help me overcome the obstacle they created. Even with the last scenario I described - a service oriented company would recognize that they created the obstacle and find a way to manually pull that document out of the message center and open the account - but that wasn't an option. WARNING - everything you read about Vanguard's service dropping off a cliff in the past year is TRUE. It was like calling the Department of Motor Vehicles - and scary to think that these are the same people managing my money. Your business does not not mean anything to Vanguard - but if your assets mean something to you - beware. One star is one too many. There are many other options - Fidelity, TD, Schwab, etc. Explore - or you will regret it.

Review:  When I phoned, I was told I had a 45 min. wait. Use the email, much better.
Google David Danone for Vanguard articles you should read. I had one ROTH IRA turned into a regular account accidently. (Good thing I was already over 59 1/2, so no penalties or taxes.) Buy Vanguard funds from a different broker.

Review:  I invest in Vanguard because my company uses them for retirement fund purposes. I also have a Roth IRA with VG but will probably transfer my Roth funds to Fidelity soon.
Simply put: it is virtually impossible to speak to anyone at Vanguard which may be expected from the US postal service, but is unacceptable when trying to discuss six figure investment amounts.
Secondly the website is a confusing, counterintuitive and user unfriendly jumble of pathways, half explanations and vague instructions.
It takes me half an hour of confused clicking and trial and error to accomplish on Vanguard what Fidelity walks me through in a few efficient minutes.
All of this is unfortunate of course because Vanguard funds and prices are very good products in themselves.
I understand that Vanguard is in the process of updating their ca. 2006 era website, but after having to give up speaking to anyone about my rather important finances AGAIN after another 50 minute hold, I just give up on this company.
I simply can't do business with a company that won't allow me to speak to them.

Review:  Had to change my pin. The account is now locked for 7 days. WHY???

I called customer service and the security question was "what was the month and year of your last withdrawal?" It was over 5 years ago. I do not remember the month. I asked for another question. Acct number, DOB, SSN, addresses etc. The rep screamed at me "answer the question". Then he hung up.

Their low fees do not justify that kind of service. I am currently withdrawing all my funds. I submitted a complaint but they have not answered. Imagine that.

Review:  Your phone must be able to take incoming calls from Vanguard. My phone didn’t even though VG was in my contact list. Vanguard didn’t get it that another method to reach me had to be offered. After two weeks and two excruciating hours yesterday with multiple rep transfers and an attempt by one to talk me out of it, a rep was finally brought on the line who could actually close that VG managed account and give me back control of MY money.
.A week to get an appointment with an account manager is too long, clearly they are understaffed.

Review:  I am now on my 7th call over the last 3 weeks to get an account ownership transferred correctly and completely. Today I called and was on hold for 27 minutes. Called back later and got someone after 12 minutes but after telling him what I needed he had to go talk with another department so I was on hold for about 15 minutes. Then he said he was transferring me to Change of Ownership team as a priority call. That was at the 27:48 mark. It's now at the 101 minutes mark and 15 minutes before Vanguard closes (8 pm) so I'll probably get hung up on. Once I get this settled (who knows how many weeks it will take) I am done with Vanguard forever, after having a mid-6 figure account with them since 1983.

Review:  Been on hold 1 15 minutes twice got cut off both times. They don’t care one lick about their customers.

Review:  The wait time is forever, agents were not helpful, asking the same questions over and over, supervisor will not help.. I am moving all my money out from Vanguard ad soon as I get a chance.

Review:  Rude customer service, asked me the same thing several times even though I had already verified my security questions, he had to get permission from a supervisor to change my phone number AFTER I verified my full SSN, address, birthday, 3 security questions. I 'AUTHORIZE' the changing of MY PHONE NUMBER *NOT* a supervisor. Can't get logged in if you get a new phone without calling these dimwits so make sure and change it before you deactivate your old phone.

If you have to get permission to update my account information(which takes several minutes to get the permission from the supervisor) then why am I talking to you?!

Review:  NONE of their telephone systems seem to work any longer. They sent me an email asking me to call them regarding a request I had made. The number they listed was Disconnected. Yes it was a real Vanguard number. I tried calling the number on my Statement. After constant run arounds with their automated system, and hour long holds several times, I NEVER reached anyone and never found out what they wanted. I tried other Vanguard numbers and they were out of service or the same automated run around. After over 15 years with Vanguard and over $1 Mil with them, I'll be moving my entire account since I can no longer trust them.

Review:  I worked at VG 1999-2000 in a Sr. HR capacity. As a regular employee, we were required to work the phones once/month or thereabouts. This kept us on our toes on what the company sold and how to make sure everyone was on the same page re: customer service. As I recall, Jack Brennan's mantra to everyone on the phones was that they would ALWAYS be answered within 3-4 rings max. I am now on hold for 1:15 minutes with no answering Crew Member to be heard from. This is ridiculous especially since VG has 3 campuses (NC/AZ/PA) plus out of country. Not to mention they must have crew that now are easily working at home. Just don't get this but too many more experiences like this and I will definitely be moving my $500k elsewhere.

Review:  I had no problems with Vanguard as long as I was continuously contributing to my investments. Invest and let it earn. If you ask Vanguard to do ANYTHING other than letting your investments passively work, you will find out how incompetent they truly are. My father, also a Vanguard customer, passed away and what should have been seamless for such a large "esteemed" brokerage firm - transferring accounts to ONE beneficiary, my mother - was the most unbelievable chaotic mess you could imagine. Conflicting information, transferred to a million different departments, promised return calls that never came. This went on forever and I THINK it was finally resolved. Suffice it to say, I have little confidence in that statement. And THEN I get to deal with the mess of being POA for my elderly mother. I found out quickly that they do not honor a lawful POA and insist on their Full Agent form, which my 91-year-old mother dutifully executed. I returned it, thankfully with documented delivery confirmation. Vanguard lost it - not just once, but TWICE! They acknowledged their error but insisted on having my now 93-year-old mother (first lost form) and then my 95-year-old mother (second lost form) go through the process again - complete with witnesses, notaries, etc. When I told them that I would NOT be putting my elderly mother through this unnecessary stress but would rather be having a lawyer contact them, Vanguard reluctantly agreed to honor it. I cannot get them to change my mother's accounts to paperless (why not?) and I had to fight tooth and nail to get her address updated since we had sold her home and I was NOT going to risk her sensitive information being out there God-knows-where. I only have about $150K invested at Vanguard but I do have right at $1M invested with Fidelity and Schwab. I will be moving my investments at some point away from Vanguard. So disappointing.

Review:  Like others, I think that customer service with Vanguard approaches terrible. It is the 19th of November. I started sending emails with comments and requests as of November 3rd -- still no response. Are you kidding? We would be out of business with that kind of service.

If you are with Vanguard, you better be attached to your cell phone. Half the time, when I log on, I have to get a call, use the number provided, log it in and then I can get to my account. It may happen if you log off and then get right back on. Problem is I do not carry my phone with me.

Forget calling in unless you do not have a life.

I have been with Vanguard for over 30 years and I am starting to transfer money to a new company. I do not like the capital gains but that is better than dealing with Vanguard. It WAS a great company.

Oh, also, if you go deeper in the data, you will notice that many funds of theirs cannot meet the standard they apply to. Perhaps that explains the low fees. No one is minding the store.

Too bad new commers do not get the news from the old timers.

Review:  Trying to get something simple accomplished, like changing an address, is useless. Website non-responsive, phone wait times endless, barriers insurmountable. Trying for almost 2 weeks to get this done. My organization is a long-time six-figure investor, now looking to go someplace else.

Review:  It is very difficult to contact Vanguard for support. The only way that you can contact them is by phone, which has long wait times and when you do get to speak with someone, they do not listen or care about what your problem is and will try to connect you with someone else who will either not answer or the call will just disconnect. I could not sign into my account on the website, or through the app. I was completely locked out of my account and the customer support person kept asking me to do things that I told him I already did. Very frustrating. For example, I explained the situation and told him that I had tried different browsers and I get the same result. I am unable to log in on any browser. His response was, "Have you tried using a different browser?". It's like talking to a brick wall with them.

Review:  I am a victim of identity theft. Someone opened several brokerage accounts at Vanguard on my name using my social security number. After hours of trying to get a hold of a customer representative at Vanguard, I was instructed to send an email which I did right away. After 3 days of not hearing from anyone, I called back and was told it takes 72 business hours (9-10 days) for the research team to respond! Those accounts are linked to a Central Bank and they responded within 24 hours asking for the full account numbers linked to Vanguard, so they can cancel those accounts. I explained the problem to the Vanguard representative, but he kept telling that I have to wait 72 business hours for the team to respond. Unbelievable!

Review:  This company is very shady.
Need to have a good lawyer if you want to deal with them.

Review:  Its a horror show trying to get through to anyone .. all i needed was a form for tax purposes and days on the phone and dont ever believe the call back option is gonna be the 18 to 38 minutes that the recording tells you its more like 6 hours later for the call back and by then youve forgotten what you needed great for a company that has several hundreds of thousands of peoples money to be treating its clients

Review:  Virtually no one is on board the ship at Vanguard.
Impossible to contact a rep. If you're fortunate for a rep to speak with (unlikely)
they do not have the proper information and they will transfer you into another representative (also will not pick up). Total chaos at Vanguard.
Tim Buckley has turned the ship into a hurricane!
Find another brokerage firm.

Review:  They're the largest broker-dealer in the country, but can't seem to find the funds to hire adequately for (a) their general call center, (b) their supervisory, and (c) their "change of ownership" or "expert" subgroups. Here's a thought, from a CFA, CFP, MBA, and 40+ year finance professional: Raise the fund fees by a few basis points (guys, it's not JUST -- or even primarily -- about fund fees), throw some actual money at the boots-on-the-ground understaffing problem, which is epic, or even dock the bonuses of the C-suite to fund it, and GET IT FUNDED AND SOLVED. You're in the finance industry -- ACT LIKE IT.

Review:  I sent a letter by certified mail last July asking for help in closing an account. I received no response, but when I called October 22nd, "Robert" told me there were notes in the system regarding my letter.
I asked him to send me the forms to close the account. Today I received forms to transfer ownership of the account, not to close it. I have been on hold again for an hour and 15 minutes as I write this. Why in the world would any company treat their customers this way? I don't expect Vangard to be in business much longer.

Review:  Have an account with Vanguard for more than 30 years. For quite some time, have experienced very bad Customer Service reps, who are more keen on hanging up the phone than helping you out ! As it is, takes an hour to get to the Customer Service Representative, who doesn't understand anything and then decides the best way for them to keep getting their pay check is to hang up on you. This vicious cycle continues. What a tragedy !

Review:  I cannot get through to customer service - put on interminable hold. Been a Vanguard client for over 20 years and unfortunately feel I will transfer all my funds to another custodian. Have a significant sum invested with them and I'm infuriated with their total lack of response. A 1 hour hold time is not acceptable.

Review:  I'm a Flagship investor with Vanguard for over 30 years now. Vanguard used to have designated advisors/CFP for Flagship investors and then they removed them...went to a different model where you have to pay now (even though your assets have grown). Same for their "customer support", went to a different model with phones, transferring and nothing getting done. BTW, I'm waiting for someone to pick up for over 56 minutes and counting. Hold times ridiculous.

I have exceeded the level of assets at Vanguard to be part of the Flagship Select/Plus services. However, I've been rejected twice due to what Vanguards says is their bandwidth to take on new customers with that service. Poor planning. Sure, the pandemic has hurt everyone...but if you don't offer a service anymore then get it off your website.

Aggressively looking to find what I need elsewhere.

Review:  Today was the last straw for my patience. I waited for two hours for customer service. The rep who finally picked up put me BACK on hold, because they weren't sure about an address I provided. That cost me another fifteen minutes, I assume because they were referencing something.

Then, they pick back up, and tell me they don't do transfers for Claiming Ownership - which is annoying since THEIR number was given to me by ANOTHER Vanguard agent. So, they tell me that they will transfer me to the correct agent, and said I would only be waiting five to seven minutes.

ANOTHER HOUR LATER, I finally get in contact with an agent for Claiming Ownership. This is unacceptable wait times, and I have been trying to get this company to do this simple task for nearly TWO YEARS. I even had a third party try to help, and THEY didn't get anywhere either.

When I FINALLY was matched with an agent that knew what they were doing, I was angry and my patience exhausted. If I had asked to speak with a supervisor, I probably would have been waiting for who knows how many MORE hours. The Staff knows their points, but the overall Customer Service is appalling and extremely aggravating to deal with.

Review:  I will state upfront four things; my family and i have been with Vanguard for decades (yes you heard that correct), I am a Flagship customer (to give you a sense of the amount of assets we have with Vanguard and the level of customer service), I use to work at Vanguard in the late 90's early 2000's, and i am an investment professional with all the credentials and licenses. Vanguard used to have very high standards with customer service, response times and intense management focus on client service. Now, their response times suck. Too much reliance on voice-response and pushing to use the web instead. They used to have internal metrics that phones had to be answered by the 2nd ring. It started with Brennan then to McNabb and now onto Buckley that all that matters is keeping costs low. answer the damn phone first, work with the customer and empower the phone rep to actually be able to complete the request without having to transfer. Not everything can be handled on the web. Hire more people.

Review:  I'm so sad to see all these negative reviews of Vanguard; right now I been on phone waiting for 15 minutes; I don't expect my patience will last long enough to speak to a Vanguard Rep. They need to fix this problem. They used to have a Message service and I would usually get an answer within a day or two, but I can't find it anymore. Been with Vanguard funds since 1986, it seems to have changed its image and culture greatly since that time.

Review:  I have been with Vanguard for over 20 years. At that time they had the lowest fees for straight forward index funds and seemed honest. 10 years later I listened to a talk by their founder which was inspiring. The founder however is no longer with them and the company seemed to have changed. Usually I don't need any support, but recently there was an issue with a contribution to an IRA account that needed to be corrected. I sent them three emails from their website over the course of a week, but no reply. Have called them 3 or 4 times and each time was on hold for so long that I gave up. Finally I was able to get through by selecting the option on the phone menu for opening a new account with over $300k and that of course got someone to answer the phone quickly. Unfortunately that didn't help because once I explained the issue they transferred me to the poor customer service queue... I am now looking for a new brokerage for my IRA, so any recommendations on this board would be great.

Review:  I had over 20,000$ with Vanguard when they sent me emails discussing my options once I switched employers. I chose to close one of my accounts and agreed to a one time 25$ rollover fee. Vanguard only completed a partial rollover and left a portion of my balance in the 401k. They then told me I had to pay an additional rollover fee in excess of 17% on the remaining balance if I wanted it transfered.
When I called in no one in customer service could solve the problem and they continually told me the only way to get the money rolled over was to pay the 17% fee.
Make sure to be careful when receiving correspondence from Vanguard as it can be deceptive of you do not do prior research on their suggestions.
For reference my Vanguard Case number related to this was 901293

Review:  Overall good experience except for the hounding you get to transition into their brokerage account. To transition you must give your employers name and address, your salary and your new worth among other stuff. The SEC may require this information to transition but none of the other brokerages I invest with ever required this info. Maybe it's time to move my money out of Vanguard and into another brokerage.

Review:  If you call Vanguard's customer service number, they tell you the "low wait times" are 8-10am and 5-8pm Eastern Standard Time. I called at 5pm and waited for over an hour.

The customer service number doesn't tell you how long you have to wait or where you are in the line.

The wait time is a LOT more than it was a few years ago, or what it is at Fidelity or Schwab now.

Review:  I was a Vanguard client for decades until last month. I transferred my Vanguard mutual funds to another brokerage firm. Honestly, with my investments being well into seven figures one would think I'd get the best service. Now, I believe that everyone gets the worst possible customer service that I have seen from any company. This seemed to me to be a gradual erosion over the past few years. I read all the books written by Jack Bogle their founder. Whenever I would causally bring up his name some people there either didn't know who he was and when they did, they dismissed his philosophy as irrelevant. I'm glad to now experience great personal service....... from a different firm.

Review:  I have been trying to transfer funds from a Fidelity traditional IRA to a Vanguard traditional IRA. I am now on my fifth attempt with various individuals from client services and still they cannot seem to get it right. Plus they are horrible with letting you know the status of the transaction. And don't even ask me to tell you how long it takes to talk with anyone from Vanguard. This just may push me over the edge to drop Vanguard for Fidelity or T Rowe Price.

Review:  After reaching a person on the phone, he said he could not find me in their system after I gave him my name, last four of SS#, zipcode and one of my account numbers. So he said he would transfer me to someone else. Huh? I stayed on hold for 35 minutes then gave up. I'm trying to track down funds that were supposed to be transferred from my 403B account from my former employer, which supposedly happened 3 1/2 weeks ago. Where are the funds? I'm guessing they won't compensate me for the interest I would have earned. I've had it with Vanguard.

Review:  Just to make it clear - I’ve had a yearlong account with them.

Today, I called vanguard brokerage account. To better understand why I hadn’t received a call from a supervisor/manager. So then, originally, I called vanguard about a sell. Was first told that what occurred, margin call, ‘First in,First out’ could not be changed once processed by margins team.

Again, for that Clarification, I asked to speak with a supervisor Tuesday, August 24, 2021. Was told I could, and would have to wait 24-48 hours. Thursday came, and no call.

I called Friday, August 27, 2021. They said, ‘we don’t know why, maybe the supervisor left early’…

I requested to receive a call…. Another wait ‘24-48’ hours.

Today, August 31, 2021, several das passed, and receive no call.
I called Vanguard brokerage again.
Client services, guy, Tomas, says ‘my supervisor doesn’t want to get involved, u need to speak with your original scheduled supervisor Thursday, August 26.

We’ll schedule u a call back between 24-48 hours. Or in other words, by Sept. 2, 2021.

Wow, what a joke.

It’s been 7 days since my request….and fir what, to be told to wait another 2 days for the original supervisor??

Worst thing thought…..customer service is lousy. I mean it. It’s like a robot, saying phrases to avoid answering questions. Damn, disappointing.

So then, why do I need to speak with a supervisor.
Question:
1. Margins sells some shares after a Margin Call. The shares they sold belong to a stock wherein I added more shares, on two different occasions. I’ll rather sell my most resent shares purchased, and keep my older shares - Margins sold my “First in, First out”.

As individual investors, can we request, after contacting Vanguard Brokerage on the same day, 30 minutes after the sale by Margins sale, to make the change - SELECT ID- sell the shares u prefer to sell?

Review:  I don't mean poor customer service, I mean it doesn't exist AT ALL. They have eliminated their email address and the phone is an endless loop menus and, "That's not my job; I'll transfer you." Two hours of hold only to hear, "That's not my job; I'll transfer you." After two further hours of hold I'm routinely disconnected. When they close for the day, all calls are disconnected and time served on hold does not carry over from one day to the next.

I'm taking a day off work this week to call at 8 am when they open and I'll devote 12 hours of time to being on hold and disconnected. Their fees are low but you get what you pay for.

Review:  WOW ... what happened to my Vanguard. No responses to emails or questions, too much time on building their "Stewardship Group".

Review:  The Vanguard employees one has first phone contact with (not the specialized departments) have the intelligence of rocks, and that is being kind. Did they finish high school, let alone elementary school? It would even be far better to outsource these initial calls to Pakistan or Uzbekistan than deal with these morons. Repeated calls and repeated statements verifying the same information over and over again, then long hold times. At the initial call, one has to resort to being belligerent to gain contact with someone who is not an idiot. In addition, there is no place on the Vanguard website to register a customer complaint: Crystal Henderson needs to go back to working at McDonalds.

Review:  1. Vanguard screwed up a distribution to me and cost me a significant amount of money in taxes!!!!

2. I had to wait over 25 minutes today to get a person on the line about a letter Vanguard sent me about activity alerts!

3. I am going to use my RMD for a number of years to take money AWAY FROM MY Vanguard accounts!

4. Altogether, I would warn other people to go ELSEWHERE to invest !

Review:  Recently asked Fidelity to receive all funds from Vanguard due to lousy service from Vanguard. While Fidelity kept me informed at every step of transfer, Vanguard never bothered to email, text or call me to let me know a transfer request had been made. Weeks after all funds were removed, Vanguard snail mails you letter telling you funds are all gone from Vanguard. A company that cannot be bothered to tell you funds are being removed before removing them does not deserve your business. Even if management fees at Vanguard are a micro fraction less, it amounts to buying day old bread at half price. Investors deserve better than Vanguard can offer.

Review:  I feel that I have to say Goodbye to my 401K : Trying to rollover my account to another company since May, 2021. It is July 28, 2021 and I am still struggling with endless calls!! Don't even try what I went through: you'll die before you get your money.

Review:  Vanguard wasted a big opportunity when they let their systems degrade to being a large negative. They lucked out by the market bubble when a vegetable could get a good return. Now the other brokers have matched the costs and they are vulnerable. I used negative direction ETF’s to short the dollar and they stopped offering them over a year ago. They said these did not fit with their long term investors. I am 72 and not a long term investor and wanted to cheaply hedge my dollar exposure. I have an asset transfer in the works to return to Fidelity where I hope they don’t tell me what I can and can’t invest in. When I told them their asset allocation model was faulty - they did their usual and referred my comments up the line to management who did nothing.

Review:  Long time Vanguard customer until now. All I wanted to do was change ownership from joint tenants with rights of survivorship to tenants in common. This took 3 minutes at Fidelity. Not Vanguard: minimum 90 minutes to speak with a rep (during normal business hours), and none of them know what they are doing. Each puts you on hold, averaging 45 minutes per call - which may explain why everyone else has to wait to speak with someone. They are doing their "research" to answer your question, and then give you an answer that makes no sense. So, you do what is asked from you - and yet the ownership doesn't change. Call back in a few days - same routine: cannot get anyone on the phone, someone calls you back and has no clue how to help you, does "research" and then comes up with a new nonsensical reason why ownership has not changed. Then you get an email, saying you need to provide more information to complete your request; you cannot respond to that email because the robot emails you two days later to tell you it is a no-reply email. So, you call, same routine again. You get a different answer to the same issue from another incompetent person. As I was able to accomplish this incredibly simple task with FOUR other major financial institutions with no problem, I have now moved all of my holdings out of Vanguard. They used to be great with customer service going back 10-12 years. Now? I wouldn't invest once cent at Vanguard.

Review:  Since the founder of Vanguard passed away they have been going downhill in every respect. Their website is not much more than a marketing device, they dump shareholders offloading offerings that don't add as much to their bottom line (i.e. their 403b accounts, their annuity accounts).
There is no customer service available evenings or weekends . If you manage to get through during regular business hours you my get hung up on, the rep is just plain ignorant, or they will have to refer you to someone who can answer your question with another long wait time.
Customers are moving their money from Vanguard to Fidelity (who beats them in every aspect of the game), T. Rowe Price, even Franklin.
You can do far better elsewhere.

Review:  I had an account with Vanguard for over 20 years. After adding a large amount to my account received from the sale of my home they triggered a new security requirement without informing me. When I had desired to move the money to avoid a certain stock market conditions, I was not allowed to do so without completing this additional procedure. I lost about $10,000 as a result.

I will never forgive this company. I will be moving the money to another brokerage house ASAP.

Review:  Due to the online forms being VERY confusing, I put the wrong amount into a Roth IRA I was setting up. When I filled out the form to have the excess funds deposited back into my checking account, I was told it would take 8-10 business days for the money to be returned. A month later, the funds had still not been returned. When I called, they said the form had been "LOST". They are incredibly incompetent.

Review:  I have been a Vanguard Customer for 25+ years. My father 40+ years. Customer Service used to be in alignment with industry. Not now. If you have a problem with something at Vanguard, they don't seem to have an efficient mechanism to identify and fix the problem. No point person. Recent example, my daughter created her own account from a custodial account (both at Vanguard) and the cost basis was not brought over for a couple of funds. Because of this, I entered a 'message' asking what happened. Four business days later we have heard nothing. As much as it pains me (25+ year customer), I'm moving majority of funds out of Vanguard.

Review:  My account had over $7000 in it and I recently received a check for $3500 with no explanation. Now my account balance is 0 and I'm wondering what happened to be over $3500 balance that should be in the account.

You can see why I'm concerned. So I tried calling them and after answering all the security questions with a representative, he places me on hold and the call gets dropped. So I called back, answer the security questions again and they transferred me over to a specialist who once again asked me the same questions including my date of hire which had been over 15 years ago, and decides to transfer me to another specialist who says that they can't answer the question and that they will have to have an account specialist call me back. Never happened.

The next day, I try calling again, and apparently, I gave them the wrong date of hire because they refuse to speak to me after that – literally.

So I called back the fourth time and after answering security questions, immediately I asked for a supervisor, this time, the lady was at least nice and allowed me to ask my question. She placed me on hold to try and do some research and said that a specialist would have to call me back. I asked her if she could answer some definition questions my statement and she at least tried. To give her credit, she was the most helpful of the 4 other people that I spoke with.

So why did my account go to 0? She said that "probably" because the balance went down below $5000, they immediately close out the account. But you would at least think you would be notified before then to give you the opportunity to do something about keeping your account open. NOPE! You're not worth their time.

By the way, I lost count of how many times they had reminded me that I am on a recorded line. And don't tell them that you're recording the call, they will refuse to speak with you – literally.

So I'm still waiting to see if they will actually call me back or do I have to get my lawyer involved to get answers.

Recommendation based on my experience – let the marketplace remind that customer service is important.

Review:  Today finally did it. I'm moving to Fidelity, the difference in their customer service
is like day or night. Fidelity is the Nordstroms, can't even think of what to compare Vanguard to.

Review:  It's been one headache after another with Vanguard. This last incident has thrown me off the edge with their lack of customer service! A month ago I try to create my kids college fund but when I logged into the site and got my kids information into the system, I noticed my last name was an old name. I called and spoke to someone and was told I needed to send proof of a name change and the plan would be updated. Easy, right? Wrong...The letter of instruction had my current number (not the plan that needed to be updated) Cause why would they put the right plan number that needs to be updated? I sent in what I needed based on their email of instruction. A month later I hadn't heard if they got my request, if there were any issues, etc..EVEN though their email of instruction CLEARY said, we will overnight confirmation of changes. ARGH! Never heard a peep from anyone! Not to tell me hey, we received your request but by the way this is the plan that needs to be updated not this one, please provide us with a new letter with the correct plan number! I had to call and follow up! Its been on thing after another with these guys! Horrible customer service

Review:  I must admit, VG appears to have solved the problem of dealing with one mode of customer complaint, so far as I can tell from the website today, they have entirely removed from their website anyplace any link for submitting any customer feedback in any form on their website. Rather terrifying for "normal" VG customers I would think!

Review:  After one month of emails with Vanguard Support, I ended up so frustrated that I felt I must be very stupid.

Instead of simply informing me that I needed to engage one of their Financial Advisors, they ignored my simple direct questions, and re-directed me to PDS web-based information.

At first, it didn't dawn on me that I was being disrepected and regarded as too important to deal with, until I received a 'cut-n-paste' reply - an almost word for word copy of a previous query. I was simply pointing out that they hadn't anwered my question.

The late John C. Bogle, who cared about small-time clients, must be turning in his grave, RIP.

Review:  Vanguard accounts for 7 years and they were always informed and helpful. Been trying to close a work accounts for 6 months and open personal accounts.
Has this company been sold?
Call every 2 weeks, on phone at least 2 hours each time. Have to log out of work to make calls so lost wages. No management will step in.
Example: Today was transferred 7 times - but each time they required me to explain the issues before they would transfer me. 1 hour later - no solutions...only lets close out my initial Sept requests; and begin process over again.

set up cases for management to assist - they do not call back.

Hope someone at Vanguard reads these messages and steps up to the problems and addresses a fix. thank you for letting me describe your issues.

Review:  I am trying to close out my father‘s estate. He had some funds invested with Vanguard. As I’ve tried to get the funds distributed to my self and family I keep hitting a brick wall with trying to get vanguard to release the monies. They tell me I need to fill out this form and that form. I do that and then they don’t call me back. When I called them to see what the statuses they tell me there’s other forms that I forgot to fill out. Then they make you wait for the forms and then you fill the map out and then wait for them to call again to no avail. Then you call them and they tell you that you need to get some papers notarized.I’ve already talk to them four or five times and each time they tell me that as soon as I finish that step the whole process is done. They are liars. Do not I repeat do not invest with this company or you will not see any of your moneys in a timely manner.

Review:  I can't stand Vanguard!!! Any ill feelings from me towards this company has been earned by their complete lack of customer service, which I would rate be in the negatives!!!! The WORSE by far. I'm trying to get my deceased mother's account worked out and I have been transferred and placed on hold multiple times. Why would I ever keep ANY money with this company? Also, when placed on hold, I get caught up in an endless cycle of terrible, scratchy music with no option for a call back. What's up Vanguard?

Review:  When Bogle was running Vanguard, it had a clear philosophy that gave it a clear advantage: Don't try to beat the market, let the market lift you along with it. And it worked.

Now it seems nearly every communication from Vanguard is a pitch for you to hire one of their "financial advisors" — to help you try to beat the market?

I've been with Vanguard for over thirty years and will leave the investments I have there that have done and continue to do well. But I won't be making new investments with them. The transparency is gone, the service is gone, the coherence and philosophy are gone.

At this point, Schwab, for instance, does everything better.

Review:  I've been a Vanguard client for more than 25 years.For quite a while it was fine, especially if you had a lot invested. Today I wanted to get a form to make a small change to an account. No way to get it on line; they want you to make the change on line but the process is a mess. So I called and after holding for an hour got a guy who said he'd send the form to my mailbox and I could print it. But all he sent was a link to the online method. Tried again and couldn't even get through. And my 1099DIV was flat wrong; they corrected it a few weeks later. Low costs aren't everything.

Review:  I have become very frustrated with trying to reach someone by phone in Vanguard customer service. The wait times seem to be getting worse and worse. Right now I have been on hold for over an hour. I am trying to get clarification on a letter I received from Vanguard which was vaguely written.

While I am waiting on hold the same message is repeated time and again and then loud scratchy music fills in the rest of the time.

Vanguard is simply going too far with their cost cutting. I used to like dealing with these folks, but they are the worst.

Review:  I have been trying to get my deceased mother's 1099-R do do her taxes but I can't get a hold of anyone at Vanguard even after sending a secure message. Really terrible customer service with long wait times. I am about to give up. Don't invest with them.

Review:  We did not choose this company and will not recommend them to anyone Customer service has stalled for 5 months. They first would not talk to us. They said we needed the account number. They never mentioned it was her Social Security number. We had to find the person who use to be the contact person at my wife's former employer to find out the account number.
Then it was that they had to have the authorized person at the company had to approve the roll over. The company no longer exists.
We found someone at the company that bought them to sign the form. A month later they have had the form in their hands since October. We called to check status. Vanguard said we never dated her signature.
Runaway from this company they SUCK!

Review:  Yesterday I was put on hold for 1½ hours. Then I hung up.
There are many, many problems with Vanguard. I am now leaving them at last, & I have reported them to the SEC.

Review:  I have been trying to change my account for over three months. All I get is the run around after being placed on hold for over 30 minutes. I have spoken to three different representatives who all gave me different answers to the same question. After getting very frustrated with the bad information I ask to speak to a manager. I was told that my request was made and a manager would call me within 24 hours, it has now been an entire week and I have yet to hear from anyone.
Do not entrust your money to the company, they have bad customer services and poor business practices. You can not get access to your money when you really need it. This company has declined tremendously!!!

Review:  I have been with Vanguard for over 20 years-Flagship. After Jack Bogle died the customer service fell off a cliff. Hold times are outrageous. Were talking hours. Sometimes u get the prompt that they will call you back but not always. Their reps are substandard. You get transferred around because they at times cannot answer your questions. If they cannot even take minimal care of their customers it's hard to trust them with my money. ...... Again super awful customer service, been going on for months but they always say things like "tax time, market volatility, Game Stop etc".......the excuses never end. I would not trust them. Stay away.......

Review:  I have called 4 days in a row wanting to ask some basic questions. The automated system indicates they will call back. I am still waiting. No response. Very bad customer service.

Review:  Have traded stocks for year, on many brokerage site. Vanguard is BY FAR the WORST. If you have any issue just forget calling them because you WILL NOT TALK to anyone within ONE HOUR. They should not be offering brokerage services as they are unable to provide even a minimum level of service. AVOID, or trade at your own risk. If you have any issues you will be alone and unable to reach someone. SHAMEFUL.

Review:  There website glitches when simply changing my pass ended with saying I'm locked ot for trying to enter pass to many times- huh?

Rep then helped me. Everything info was perfectly entered but I couldn't access my account. Rep then filed a tech ticket for me, but 11 hour later haven't heard from them.

Received an email saying I can't use online because of security.

I'm a long-time investor, now will switch to Vanguard on paper and use my other investment company more and Vanguard less.

I'm hanging up my phone now trying to make a purchase after 27 waiting minutes.

Sad, Vanguard had been the very best... a worthwhile nonprofit investor business

Review:  I've just opened an account on the Vanguard website, they took my contact information (had to enter twice), and bank account, and thanked me for opening an account. After that, no information on creating a login or password. I tried to create an account via their login page, by entering my personal information + SSN# (again), and got a message that I had to call their phone number for assistance. Their phone number which put me on hold for 30 minutes, then hung up on me. High call volume message on their help page, with no phone number to contact. Must be all of the problems that people are having with this website. After entering my confidential bank and SSN information, then not showing any record of entry, I don't feel confident in Vanguard's services. Once I get a hold of a live person, I am cancelling this account.

Review:  1/13/2021
I posted a review on 1/7/2021 and things have only gone downhill for me. I first followed up on Vanguard's request that I transfer my traditional IRA to their brokerage account on 12/21/2020. I was told the processing time would take 2-3 days. It is now 23 days later and my account is still effectively frozen. The telephone wait times are huge - 1-1 & 1/1/2 hours to get through to a "live" person. I have now called 5 times over the past 23 days. Each person I speak with is nice and always promises that the will send an "urgent" message to the correct department and that the transfer will be completed in the next 2-3 business days. Of course none of that happens. Today, I am just completing 1 hour of waiting on the telephone just receiving the same automated message apologizing for the wait time and promising that "an associate will be with you shortly." Pure BS!. If you ever think you will need assistance from Vanguard, don't leave your $'s with them.

Review:  Very poor over past few months. I manage 5 different Vanguard accounts. Access to customer service is awful. Don't call within 45 minutes of stock market closing and expect to get any personal customer service. Wait times to speak to a live personal typically exceed 1 hour. And, don't respond to their request to transfer an account to their brokerage service. I started the process Dec. 21, 2020 and now it is Jan. 7 and I'm still waiting. I'm going to roll over these accounts to TR Price or Fidelity. Very frustrated.

Review:  Am a Flagship client and been with Vanguard for 20+ years. Service lately just awful. Wait time to call Flagship often exceeds 30+ minutes and callback feature doesn't work for me. Vanguard suggests the failure is with my state-of-the-art iPhone, that happily accepts calls from every other phone in the world. Tried to schedule telephone appointment with my Flagship rep and next available appointment is next week. Getting ready to pack up and leave.

Review:  Avoid Vanguard. Avoid Vanguard.

Review:  They will not contact you to tell you ANYTHING. I was never notified whatsoever before they cashed out my 401k loan and now I will owe tens of thousands in taxes. My fault. In trying to roll over my funds to another lender, the funds have now been tied up for almost 2 months. My fault. I've been lied to about checks being mailed. I've been held on the phone for dozens of hours. I still don't have my funds. I have incurred more than $20k in losses due to these funds being tied up. I have no recourse.

Review:  I've been trying to cash out my 401K money from a previous employer since August 2020. It's now December 2020 and I still don't have my money. First they sent me the incorrect amount. I was with the company under 6 years so I was not 100% invested so Vanguard should have prorated my 401K. They reissued the check and sent the same amount!!!! How stupid can you be? Luckily, I was honest about it and called to tell them. I am now working with my former employer and they are trying to help.

Review:  Not sure where to start. If you use your lunch break holding to talk to someone you will go hungry waiting. You will hold for a long time for someone who can’t even help you and will just transfer you to someone else. I hope newer online companies take all their business.

Review:  Hold times are over 30 minutes to speak to a representative. I have been trying for 2 weeks to get a transfer of ownership on money from an account. I have Called 4 times and been told its all handled and will process in a few days only to call in a few days to be told the same thing again. You are unable to speak to a manager and nobody cares to help you or know what is going on. A scary place to have your money. Going to take mine out and find a place where customer care counts. Their Flagship services are a joke.

Review:  Because I use the advisory service, I do not experience any of the issues that have been mentioned in this post. They manage my retirement nest egg and am extremely pleased. All the tax forms are picked up electronically from Turbo Tax and my accountant with no issues. And I like the fact that they use 2-step authentication - the more security the better.

Review:  Vanguard obviously has a 'designed' Staffing issue which due to costs they refuse to address. Clients continue to suffer accordingly.

Review:  A horrible company with a customer is always wrong attitude. I have accounts at Schwab, TDAmerica, Fidelity, FirstTrade, and Morgan Stanley and Vanguard is the worst of all, by far. They absolutely suck.

First of all they keep changing their funds around in terms of allocations and merging their faiures.

Secondly they do not accurately track your cost basis in taxable accounts, so you will immediately be in conflict with the IRS.

Then they change the rules to access your account after you open in, with nonsense like two factor authentication, or decide suddenly they don't like the address you have used for years.

And then there is the WRONG answers they give regarding their own 401K plans from their CSRs.

Avoid this 5th rate company with a major attitude problem.

Review:  wont give me my money.

Review:  I JUST TRANSITIONED MY ACCOUNT TO YOUR NEW FORMAT. WHAT A FREAKING HASSLE----MORE COMPLICATED THAN MY 1040. DO THIS--- DO THAT--- THEN AFTER 3 DAYS GO TO MY BANK ACCOUNT AND FIND THE CENTS YOU SENT ME--- THEN GO TO YOUR WEB SITE AND VERIFY IT , ONLY TO FINDI THERE IS NO PLACE ON YOUR WEB SITE TO VERIFY IT.
NOW I WILL HAVE TO WASTE MORE OF MY TIME CALLING ONE OF YOUR CLERKS----THEN BEING PUT ON HOLD FOR 30 MINUTES-- THEN TELLING HER i VERIFIED IT. I AM SURE SHE WILL BE CLUELESS.
WHAT KIND OF JACK ASS DESIGNED THIS NIGHTMARE SCENARIO?
I SURE AM GLAD YOU HAVE ONLY A PIDDLING AMOUNT OF MY INVESTMENTS. AND BELIEVE ME YOU WILL NEVER GET ANOTHER PENNY!

Review:  A brokerage relationship is a trust. A brokerage that does not position themselves to support their customer can represent a severe risk to the wealth and wellbeing of the customer ... and hence is untrustworthy.

I have experienced several adverse service experiences with Vanguard. The first is an unacceptable wait time to speak to an advisor ( greater than 30 minutes). Delays of this kind can be very concerning and costly $$$ . The second is late posting of transactions on their website. Again, delays of this kind can be very concerning and costly $$$. The third is a website that is difficult to navigate. A fourth is Vanguards' inability to offer the TRANSFER ON DEATH (TOD) option at the passing of the account holder. This forces probate expense and risk exposure for the customer wealth.

Savings realised on investments may be mitigated by losses incurred by Vanguard service performance.

All the preceding should be carefully considered before investing with Vanguard. We are considering closing our experience with Vanguard and returning that portion of our investments to our conventional brokerage. We most certainly will not invest further with Vanguard.

Review:  Received a letter by mail "conforming" a transfer of part of our account to another class of securities without prior notice. Told in the letter to contact Vanguard "immediately, " I called repeatedly - nine times - over three days, waiting at least fifteen and up to thirty-six minutes, and sent two emails on a form they have that promises a reply. The calls were not answered, and neither were the emails.
I am inclined to write and close our account if it is ever possible to communicate.

Review:  I have been an account holder at Vanguard for 28+ years. Recently I have to assist family members in managing their accounts (via financial POA) and an estate account. Vanguard's Customer Service is SUBPAR. Widely divergent instructions on required documentation to transfer and establish trust accounts or to be added to existing accounts, no follow up, and impossible to get a live person to assist you. It may be time to move to a competitor - Fidelity, Schwab.

Review:  I was a Vanguard fan for a long time and within the past 6 months the service has gotten horrible. I have been provided misinformation on how to transfer securities, differing and conflicting information from different people - and changes made to my account without my knowledge. I have been a Flagship customer with supposedly a higher level of service based on my investment level but its a joke. I used to have a dedicated rep and that's been eliminated....30 minutes to wait for a rep? Im looking elsewhere....

Review:  I have been a Vanguard mutual fund investor for about 50 years. Since John Bogle left service has gone downhill. I was supposed to get a call back but never did. They do not have enough phone support. I am considering moving my $800,000 to another fund company probably Fidelity.

Review:  There are reports on the Bloomberg and AAstock websites that Vanguard HK and Japan will be closing down. Yet when I visit the HK Vanguard website there is no mention of such an event happening. What is going on? I'm invested in Vanguard ETFs. I thought ETFs are supposed to be for the long run.
I'm really surprised and disappointed that the Vanguard HK website has no announcement on its own website that it is closing down and investors find out this news from other sources. It's a bit like your best friend telling you that your wife is divorcing you rather than the wife telling you direct. I've now got to figure out what to do with my Vanguard ETFs.

Review:  On hold for over an hour. Website doesn't deal with what I need. No "call back" option. So I sit here? All day????

Review:  really liked Vanguard until they lost a 25000.00 check
I have a copy of the cashed check but they cant see where it was deposited, they are currently investigating it and I'm supposed to check back in five days, meanwhile the stock market goes up and i'm losing

Review:  I opened a small biz 401k. I called to ask what my options were for enrolling employees. The customer service rep (Steven from Retirements) gave me two options that I had not heard of. When i asked what they were, his response was "It’s like a small business, where you can go ahead, similar to how other employers are where you can contribute to your 401K and you can match it. " and then got frustrated and transferred me when I told him I didn't know what that meant. Shit Service.

Review:  So i had a simple question, just basically what is my account #. It's not very clear on statement. I callled many times, on hold of over an hour, no one picks up. Every five minutes you hear a ring then a pre-recorded message saying you can go online and do stuff. I called two other numbers, one of them allowed me to keep my place in line by them calling me back. Welp they call back and when i pick up, they hang up! WTF.

Do yourself a favor and do not give them your money. Use a competitor instead

Review:  I needed to separate an LLC account into 4 separate individual Accounts equally (tax basis of holdings would be the same). Completed as directed the paperwork required ( as sent to me), Signed, scanned and emailed it back as directed. Verified by phone they had everything needed and Received commitment that it would be completed within two days. That was June 12th. Since that time it is now many false statements have been made, many commitments not met, substantial errors made in the cost basis allocated to the 4 individual accounts that significantly modified the tax basis of the individuals. There are also significant technical issues with their platform interfaces canning delay in visibilities enabling the ability to trade. It’s now July 2nd and I see no end in sight that will bring this to a correct conclusion. This an 11 million dollar account but has very little attention, I guess Vanguard has lost their time of essence and commitment to quality and service. While they now tell me the account are separated Correctly, while not being able to see it on the customer platform, I can trade. Needless to say at this point I have little faith and hope in the back office of Vanguard getting it done correctly. All should be beware of Vanguards Inability to protect account integrity and follow direction to assure transactions are recorded properly and corrections as always needed are addressed as they should be. I have moved a separate account from Vanguard to Fidelity and the service, attention, quickness, robust information and tools are significantly much better. On a 1-10 scale , Vanguard is a 2 and Fidelity is a 9. Good luck if you stay with Vanguard. Do not say you were not warned
A frustrated Customer who has lost all hope and faith in Vanguard ability to record, correct and maintain the integrity for my large Flagship accounts. They have become slow, non responsive, bureaucratic, defensive , deceitful in responding to questions and defending their actions. It too bad , it was not always like this. My last issue and correcting their errors made, is still not uresolved after 3 weeks. Sad sad sad

Review:  Get with it, Vanguard. I am not paying you to enlighten me about social justice issues or interested in your bleeding hearts. You have MY accounts for business purposes. You want to start a chapter of BLM then take up a collection and pity party elsewhere. On the accounts page, try to have the user account in sync with the current market data for a change. The web design is pathetically pedestrian so please hire somebody that knows some dynamic HTML. That should keep you all busy enough so you have less time posting inane social justice messages on your website.

Review:  I have been trying to do a simple Roth conversion and over the course of three days I've had to contact Vanguard at least six times spending up to an hour on some occasions on the phone with them trying to get a simple Roth conversion completed. I have received inaccurate or incorrect information on several occasions and even when the information seems to be correct the next day someone new comes in and the processor decides that they don't want to do it the way that the customer service rep said we could and they throw a monkey wrench into the works. To make matters even more frustrating there is no information on their website with a number that you can use to call to make a complaint or to send an email. I'm looking to move my money from Vanguard so that I won't have to deal with this in the future.

Review:  I have been trying for 30+ days to get the distribution check from my 401K after retiring. The website for self service was very confusing. It appeared as though the check would be sent to my home. When I called to get status on the check (after 15 days) which I thought was coming to my home, it was sent the the custodian of my IRA. So they agreed to cancel that and send a new one to my home. Called today (another 15 days later) and turns out that check was also to the custodian of my IRA. I would have to pay to change the address. So the replacement check was never going to go to my home in the first place. No customer service, no taking responsibility, just wanting more of my money.

Review:  I have been experiencing the same situation as CATHY 4/7/2020, and I'm still waiting for an inheritance from my mother. The don't acknowledge receiving your mailing, so the only thing you can do, which I did, is send ALL YOUR MAILINGS to THEM via CERIFIED-Return-Receipt-Requested or via USPS Priority Express, so at least you have proof of what you have done. THEY WON'T CALL YOU and they said they mailed me something, which I've never received. I may have to hire an attorney, at $500. an hour, to get my inheritance from them, in which case I may sue to cover my expenses.

Review:  Vanguard is poorly run, their staff, although courteous, are poorly trained and can't communicate the entire necessary instructions when asked. My father died in June, 2019 and the estate, which was perfectly done by my parents, has take until now(4/7/2020) to POSSIBLY be near the end. If I hadn't called to see what the status of my final inheritance amount was, I would have been sitting around thinking everything was completed, BUT NO, my brother had to sign the papers that I sent in already. No where did it say that this was necessary in the reams of pages they sent me! Now we have the Wuhan virus in the US and it need some kind of "medallion" on it from a bank, and they are all closed. Never, Never, Never invest at Vanguard.
I would have given them a NEGATIVE 5 stars if I could!!!!!

Review:  These people poorly trained stay away if you have a choice. Horrible to deal with I'm ready to retire no way will leave my money with guys.

Review:  I HAVE BEEN GIVEN THE RAN-AROUND WHILE TRYING TO GET MY 2019 TAX RETURN DOCUMENTS. LONG WAIT ON PHONE TO TALK TO A SERVICE REP; THEN TOSSED TO ANOTHER, ANOTHER LONG WAIT, AND WHEN TRIED E-MAILS I RECEIVED A COMPUTER PRE-RECORDED MESSAGE TO DIAL A PHONE. DIALED IT, LONG-LONG WAIT, AND i HUNG UP. THEN I RECEIVED AN EMAIL TO "CALL THE NUMBER BELOW" FOR MY CASE, BUT THERE WAS NO NUMBER BELOW!!!!!!!!! I MAILED A LETTER ASKING FOR MY TAX RETURN DOCS, I RECEIVED A COMPUTERIZED MAIL NOTICE THAT i WOULD GET MY INCOME TAX DOCS BY LATE FEBRUARY 2020, BUT IT IS MARCH 6, 2020 TODAY AND I HAVE GOTTEN NOTHING. VANGUARD HAS BECOME A BEHEMOTH AND ITS SERVICES HAVE BECOME CLOGGED. I DECIDED TO EXPOSE THIS BECAUSE I UNDERSTAND THAT IF I CANNOT GET MY INCOME TAX RETURN FILES FROM VANGUARD, LESS EDUCATED VANGUARD CLIENTS TRYING TO GET SERVICES WOULD GO BERSERK IN THE VAST VANGUARD COMPUTERIZED FINANCIAL BOG!
Nikos Retsos, retired professor of political sciences

Review:  I retired from the federal government and wanted to transfer my 401k to Vanguard. After sending me an email that stated all my paperwork had been processed and mailed to TSP, I received an email that my transfer was cancelled. The person handling my transfer was in training and nobody could help me. Finally a week later I received a call that my paperwork had been sent. ? The woman on the phone said I received the confirmation email and the cancellation email by mistake. I pushed it up the ladder and never heard back. Then I received another cancellation email! Finally a month later the person handling my transfer called and left a message. Too late, I had already visited a firm (in person not online) and invested with that company. Low fees at Vanguard but even lower IT platform and customer service. I now pay a broker slightly more to be fully engaged with me and help me with decisions. To all TSP members, avoid Vanguard if you want to protect your life savings....,,

Review:  Have been trying to transfer funds for 30 days from my mom's inherited IRA...keep getting run around waiting on hold for 2 hrs...team says waiting for dividends to get deposited which is BS....they cant even send money from one account to another account inside their own company. I transferred money from Schwaab to E trade took me 3 days...Ameritrade to Schwab 2 days......this company is corrupt as they come !

Hold time on phone is at least 2 hrs....hope you didn't make any plans for your day !

DO NOT GIVE THEM ANY MONEY !

Review:  Vanguard is good at taking in your money. But when an account holder dies, Vanguard goes out of their way to add to you grief. You will wait over an hour every time you call. When you reach a live person, you are given insincere condolences, provided with no useful information, and told to submit a series of redundant forms. We are your customers who deserve to be treated as something other than criminals. When I straighten out my relative's account, the money will go to Fidelity along with my wife and my Vanguard IRA accounts. I will not put my family through this when I die. Shame on you Vanguard management. If your bonuses depended on retained customers rather than keeping costs to a minimum, maybe there would be a different result. In the meantime, I will reward this unprofessional and unacceptable behavior by pulling my accounts.

Review:  I have several brokerage accounts - all except Vanguard have fast, dependable transfer of my money to various external accounts- really...I only transfer to my personal checking account.

Vanguard's hierarchical and grasping manner is all about treating you like it's THEIR money. They make it difficult and long- all designed to say "We know what's best for your money, not you."

I'll be closing my account shortly.

Review:  The employs are forced to attend town halls and meetings where LBGQT people have hijacked the meetings for attention. This is really prevalent in the last 5 years. I don't need sexuality focus in the workplace. I need competent brokers with their minds on the work of trading and managing portfolios.

Review:  I am angry that even when I have proper log-in information and even when I answer pre-asked questions correctly I cannot access my account online. To call is a waste of time. The people are polite, but cannot resolve the problem. I don't carry a phone, so I cannot access my account. I have already moved most of my Vanguard accounts. I suspect I'll close it all very soon.

Review:  Since last night ability to access accounts has been ranging from erratic to impossible.
Law suits should be considered for inability to trade or see holdings.
Impossible to get thru by phone or leave message (told message box full).

Is it time to find another place to have your funds?

Review:  If you want your money, good luck! They will give you the run around endlessly. They will make up “rules” as they go to delay giving you your money or closing an account. They out right lie to you saying things will be done or mailed and don’t do it. And when you call to see what happen they have another lie for you. Sometimes they said they need something else, an error , or some kind problem or give you a “rule” why things didn’t happen as they said it would. Liars, cheats, thieves.

Review:  This will be a very abbreviated saga of torture. I'm a retired lawyer. A dear friend died in January. I am the power of attorney for the widow. Once a spouse dies the joint account must be closed and a new individual account opened. We have managed to accomplish this without turmoil at Fidelity, Santander, and BNY. The mandatory restructuring at Vanguard has been torture. My Friend had a 401(k) and a non-retirement account at Vanguard. After months they finally recognized my POA in the non-retirement account and we got that account resolved. You might think having jumped through all the hoops and being recognized as the POA would be company wide. WRONG. After 4 submissions of POAs to the "retirement" side including a lawyer form, their form, different their forms, following the oral instructions from different reps, more different instructions, more different reps, I finally threatened to sue last Friday with the 88 year old widow on the phone with me as they insisted.That at least got me a designated rep with an actual extension number. Ahhh progress after only 7 months. She promised to send the 401(k) rollover forms immediately. Yesterday a week later I called Ms Rep to ask where the forms where. Of course she didn't answer the phone nor call me back as requested. Ms. Rep called the 88 year old widow who understands none of this and has never written a check, which is why I'm involved in the first place. Apparently, Ms Rep proceeds to spend the entire call emphasizing that she will not deal with me only with her. Said she would resend the "lost" forms. The poor widow's attempts to explain that she understands none of this, has known me for 44 years, trusts me implicitly to take care of this mess and requested that they deal with me were ignored and rejected. The widow called me upset and on the verge of tears.Tell everyone you know to get away from Vanguard as quickly as possible unless they hate their heirs in which case Vanguard is the perfect torture chamber..

Review:  As others have said, making a withdrawal is fraught with problems and delays. You annot speak with a live person in processing. You call the main line and get nowhere, and the call center people cannot research the “issue” and call you back, as they cannot make outgoing calls, so you call back and get a new person. Obviously Vanguard strategy is to hang onto your money as long as possible. I will be taking my money elsewhere....if I can get it out, that is.

Review:  Amid the hype about Vanguard’s consumer orientation, I’ve never seen discussed what I take to be their paralyzing risk aversion. I’ve had significant retirement assets invested with Vanguard, and here are two of my experiences:

[1] I was assigned a Vanguard advisor to help with my investments. He made several errors, including recommending a certain roll-over, which turned out to have tax consequences of over $10,000. I complained about the erroneous advice and was told that Vanguard did not give tax advice. However they had, and were now just avoiding responsibility. Discussions with advisors are recorded by Vanguard, and I asked for the recording to prove my contention, but they refused to provide it.

[2] I hold Google stock through Vanguard, and wished to present a proposal at the Alphabet Inc stockholder meeting. Alphabet naturally required a letter from Vanguard stating that I actually was a stockholder, and to my surprise, Vanguard refused to provide it, effectively depriving me of my stockholder rights. Several weeks of emails, phone calls, threatened complaints to the SEC, and lawyer letters followed, until Vanguard finally relented and provided the required statement.

Vanguard’s transaction costs may be low, but the hidden costs of trusting one’s investments to them can be high.

Review:  Numerous account errors. Can't get corrections even after talking to a customer representative.

Review:  Numerous account errors. Can't get corrections even after talking to a customer representative.

Review:  Worst website on the Internet, hands down. I always have trouble logging in, and they make it impossible to reset your account. Hyperlinks take you in circles or to dead-ends/404, and when you phone for help, their automated answering service asks questions which are not relevant (enter your six digit account, when the number has eight), etc.

When you finally speak to someone, they transfer to someone else, and then that person transfers you to someone else, AND THEN THAT PERSON TRANSFERS YOU TO SOMEONE ELSE!!!!

I am getting all of my investments out of there. My wife uses Fidelity and their website is light years better.

Review:  We have been trying to get a Rollover of a 401k from Vanguard to Edward Jones done for over a month and still do not have it accomplished despite numerous calls to Vanguard's Customer Service number. During a call on Oct. 10th. the Customer Service Rep. told us a check would be cut and sent over night to be with guaranteed delivery before 3:00 pm on Friday Oct. 12th. When the check was not delivered by the guaranteed time we called back to find out why and were told the check had not been cut. We asked to speak with a supervisor to try and get to the bottom of why it has been over a month and this rollover has still not been accomplished. The supervisor we spoke with told us they would do a wire transfer to Edward Jones, but as of today, Oct. 15th. we are still waiting for that to happen.

Review:  Unfortunately, my husband and I fell on hard times about two weeks ago and we were behind on the rent. We received a three-day notice on our door, and after exhausting all our resources, I decided to take a withdrawal from my 401K with Vanguard.

On 9/15 submitted my request via their website and on Monday, 9/17, I faxed all supporting documents (application and three-day notice) to the 1-800 number provided on the application. I waited about 2-3 days on the decision of my withdrawal request. I decided to call on Wednesday and I was told my documentation would not suffice as it was not on company letterhead. OK, no problem. Our leasing office reprinted the letter on their letterhead and I re-faxed the document on 9/20.

Mind you, during this week I called Vanguard NUMEROUS times asking, "is anything else is missing from the documentation and all I was told was that the three-day notice needs to be on company letterhead." Alright, easy and fair enough.

Since we are in a bind, I called Friday and the representative acknowledged receipt of the letter and said they will review within 2-3 days (so much for a hardship! When you're in a mind, you sort of need the money ASAP). Anyway, I called Friday afternoon and was told the review department could not get to my files and I will have a decision on Monday.

Monday, 9/24, I called Vanguard around 9:00AM to find out my paperwork was AGAIN denied because 1. The reviewers did not "like" or accept the leasing company's letterhead. Apparently, the reviewers noted "the logo looks like it was stamped" and they questioned the verbiage under the logo (which is the leasing companies slogan). WHAT? I, in no way, have control over my leasing office's letterhead, so I am sorry you don't like how it looks. 2. The date is wrong on the letter (WHY DIDN'T SOMEONE TELL ME THIS LAST WEEK WHEN I CALLED ABOUT 8X?) AND 3. THE LETTER NEEDS TO BE SIGNED. When I called Vanguard I specifically asked if the new document on the letterhead needs to be signed and this young man (probably right of college with the hopes of being an investment banker) told me "no, it doesn't need to be signed if it's on letterhead."

The misinformation is UNREAL at Vanguard and moving forward, I will no longer contribute to this 401K plan.

If they want to reach out to me and "resolve" this issue, send my money to my bank as noted on my account. If not, there is no use in trying to resolve this matter. I WANT MY MONEY.

Review:  Well to say the least, this is the worst company I have ever had the displeasure to have contact with. They have a system set up with my employer to automatically set up an account for you without your consent. Pretty crazy to have an account in your name taking money out of your paycheck without any consent whatsoever (having direct deposit really hides this until tax season). After contacting vanguard, i was met with a stern one hour and thirty minute wait which left me with the following knowledge: 1.) Even with every ounce of information to prove your identity and ownership of an account you still have zero authority over it. 2.) The only way to close the account in your name that you had no part in creation, you must terminate employment with your current company and lose all benefits gained just to get rehired without the account.
3.) After asking for a manager and waiting on hold for over 10 minutes I was told the manager was working on an important spreadsheet and didn't have any time for me and that he'll take down my number and call me within 48 hours. Absurd is it not?
In conclusion, If you like to do business with people who prefer spreadsheets over customer service, force you into an account without your consent, and then lock you out of that account until you terminate your employment, then Vangaurd is for you. Otherwise use your common sense, take my words of advice, and stay away from this Business.

Review:  Soooo bad. I cannot access my account for over a month now.

Review:  This is 21st century and average transaction lasts fraction of a second. After waiting for 2 weeks still can not get my money back from the account I did not ask to invest to. Scary. Will have to notify authorities.

Review:  This is 21st century and average transaction lasts fraction of a second. After waiting for 2 weeks still can not get my money back from the account I did not ask to invest to. Scary. Will have to notify authorities.

Review:  Vanguard has very good ETFs, but very poor and rude customer support, and high brokerage fees. Also, they like to push income averaging and don't like for you to trade!! My advice is to put you money at a major brokerage and trade and/or invest in Stocks and ETFs. Again, Vanguard has great ETFs and are available through any brokerage.

Review:  Vanguard exhibits a pastern of retaining client funds. They have onerous procedures to delay and frustrate clients hoping many give up. That is certainly my experience and as I read the reviews of Vanguard that appears to be the experience on most reviewers. I have dealt with other brokerage firms and never encountered anything similar. Unfortunately clients look for reviews such as these when they are frustrated and not before they commit funds to Vanguard. As in my case my company used Vanguard for deferred income and 401K accounts; therefore, I assumed Vanguard had a good reputation. My experience since my retirement three years ago has not been good. I began trying to withdraw the funds immediately after my retirement and to date they still retain a small portion of my funds which they refuse to relinquish to me.

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