I left my previous employer in October. I filled out all the forms for John Hancock to do a direct rollover from 401k to IRA, and also sent them the standard letter from vanguard which instructs them where to send the check. I sent it all in the same envelope and I know they got it because they uploaded a pdf of the forms and the letter when they received them. Today I got a check in the mail from John Hancock. Wtf? They made it out to Vanguard fiduciary trust etc as instructed, but mailed it to me instead of the vanguard PO box.
On top of that it seems suspiciously short on funds, so I logged in to check my account and I see nearly $2,300 out of my total balance of $28.5k is "Forfeiture subtotals". I assume that is how they classify unvested funds, but I was with the company for 12 years. The company was purchased about a year prior to me leaving, but everyone's senority and start date carried over from the legacy company, so I should have been fully vested anyway. So that's wtf number 2.
The 3rd wtf is that the company does safe harbor contributions which are 100% invested immediately anyway, so how do I forfeit any funds?
Wtf is going on with forfeiture of my funds? I have to wait until Monday until I can call and talk to a rep. Everything this company touches turns to shit and is a huge hassle for me. It was extremely frustrating working for them because of the incompetence within the company (especially the HR department), and nearly everything they do ends up fucked up in one way or another and also takes far longer than it should. I don't know where the blame falls for this, but I'm frustrated that I have to call john hancock asking why I have any forfeiture of funds, and also why they didn't send the check directly to vanguard as instructed.
My plan redistributes unvested amounts to remaining employees when someone leaves and that shows up on my statement as a forfeiture. Maybe what you are seeing is something like that. I don't know if I get to keep forfeitures if I rolover my account before retirement, but seems possible.
I'm vested though. 12 years at the company. Additionally they are safe harbor contributions which are immediately vested by law. It makes no sense at all.
But I wonder if vesting is the same for forfeitures as it is with regular employee contributions. Let us know what you find out. Now it's bugging me too :)
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Regular employee contributions are always 100% employee owned. It's your money.
Safe harbor contributions are always 100% employee owned as well. It's your money as soon as they put it in your account.
The only contributions that are subject to vesting schedules are matching contributions made by the employer. This is not applicable to me because I have 12 years tenure, and also because they used safe harbor contributions. I have no idea under what other scenario I could forfeit funds from my account.
I just called John Hancock and they had no idea what's going on with the forfeiture and they need to put in a service request and will get back to me in 48 hours.
When I inquired about why they sent me the check instead of sending it to vanguard the exchange went something like this:
Me: I included a letter from vanguard with instructions on who and where to send the check. I did this because I don't want the check in my hands, because this starts a 60 day clock that I have to get the funds into vanguard or they will be counted as a withdraw. And with JH's little fuck up with my wrongly forfeited funds now I'm in a bit of limbo with getting those additional funds, and it's a completely unnecessary step. You should have just mailed it directly to vanguard as instructed.
JH: It's our policy to send the check to the client and it's their responsibility to forward it onto their IRA custodian.
Me: No it's not. I did a direct rollover from a JH 401k to a vanguard IRA literally 1 year ago in 2017 and I never touched the money, it was sent directly to vanguard from JH.
JH: No it's our policy to send the check to the client.
Me:.....Ummm, no it's not. I'm telling you I just did this in 2017. With john hancock. And vanguard. It was like a $200k account, and I for sure never received a check and sent it off. In fact I spoke with a JH rep and we specifically discussed doing a direct rollover, with JH sending it directly to vanguard to avoid me as an unnecessary middle man, and then JH did exactly as we discussed.
JH: It's always been our policy...
Me: Listen I'm not going to argue with you, but it definitely was not your policy as of 1 year ago because I did it and I've never been more positive about anything in my life. On top of that it's a stupid policy that is creating unnecessary work for me. You paid to mail me the check, why couldn't you have just written a different address on it like I instructed, or better yet just directly wire the funds to vanguard?
She seemed like she was getting frustrated with me, but still kept it professional. I didn't yell at her, because I know she didn't personally fuck up, but I definitely made my frustrations with JH known.
Unresolved shit like this gives me constant anxiety until it gets resolved.
