Transferring investments

[Chesleygirl]

My investments are being transferred this week to Fidelity and I'm kind of nervous about the possibility there might be a hold-up of some sort, or something might get screwed up. Has anyone ever transferred money from one investment company to another and how long was the wait and did it go smoothly?

[CorpRaider]

Yeah, I have.  It did.  Fido has a transfer tracker somewhere on the site so you can see what's going on.  Took a long time for me to get CDs from a small bank once but they handled it.  Have had stuff from Edward Jones before for relative.  Went pretty quickly and smoothly net of the (large) EJ fee, of course.

[Chesleygirl]

Did the EJ rep handle the transfer or did the office administrator?

My EJ adviser, does not know much about transfers. He's pretty new at this business. That is why I'm concerned. He already called me because he got confused about some things.

[CorpRaider]

 I think my relative with the EJ account received maybe one call to just confirm we had entered the request.  I believe there is some standardized clearing house set up the industry to facilitate account transfers.  Fido went and got the stocks (in kind).  I have moved multiple accounts there to consolidate stuff without ever talking to a human.

I would lean toward telling him to direct questions to Fido if they are about how to effect the transfer.  Fido has an interest in getting the $$$ now and I would imagine that they are very experienced in taking accounts from EJ.

[Chesleygirl]

I think my relative with the EJ account received maybe one call to just confirm we had entered the request.  I believe there is some standardized clearing house set up the industry to facilitate account transfers.  Fido went and got the stocks (in kind).  I have moved multiple accounts there to consolidate stuff without ever talking to a human.

I would lean toward telling him to direct questions to Fido if they are about how to effect the transfer.  Fido has an interest in getting the $$$ now and I would imagine that they are very experienced in taking accounts from EJ.

I think EJ must lose lots of their accounts. I don't see how they can compete with Fidelity and others.  I was on hold with them for 30 minutes today to discuss the transfer. I didn't hang up because I didn't want to lose my place.

My EJ adviser told me, you will never talk to the same person at a Fidelity office like you will here at good old EJ.  Well, I chuckled at this. The same man is still working at my local Fidelity office, that was there years ago when I went there. I remember him.  And during my time with EJ, I've seen advisers come and go. Three different advisers in one year! Turnover is high at EJ.