vanguard account turned over to government??

[Paul der Krake]

Vanguard has 20 million account holders, dozens of which will die or disappear off the face of the earth in the next hour, because that's what happens when you have lots of customers. If you act dead, they treat you as dead, and turn your stuff over to the government.

It'd be weird if they didn't.

Why wouldn't the government prevent them from sending the money since the government knows you aren't dead? Sounds so fishy and scammy to me. I did not know this problem existed.  I guess I'll be logging into all my brokerage/retirement accounts regularly.  I just hope when I get older I dont' get dimentia.. I sure couldn't count on teh state/federal government to be fair, obviously.

The government doesn't know who is alive and dead at any given point. It may have solid guesses for its citizens who are good at filing paperwork, but that leaves out millions of deadbeats, people who left the country, people who disappeared with no explanations, people who operated with a manufactured identity in the first place, etc, etc.

Financial institutions are de facto a branch of the government. Asking them to make sure customers are still alive IS one way they can make the educated guesses in the first place!

[jnw]

Vanguard has 20 million account holders, dozens of which will die or disappear off the face of the earth in the next hour, because that's what happens when you have lots of customers. If you act dead, they treat you as dead, and turn your stuff over to the government.

It'd be weird if they didn't.

Why wouldn't the government prevent them from sending the money since the government knows you aren't dead? Sounds so fishy and scammy to me. I did not know this problem existed.  I guess I'll be logging into all my brokerage/retirement accounts regularly.  I just hope when I get older I dont' get dimentia.. I sure couldn't count on teh state/federal government to be fair, obviously.

The government doesn't know who is alive and dead at any given point. It may have solid guesses for its citizens who are good at filing paperwork, but that leaves out millions of deadbeats, people who left the country, people who disappeared with no explanations, people who operated with a manufactured identity in the first place, etc, etc.

Financial institutions are de facto a branch of the government. Asking them to make sure customers are still alive IS one way they can make the educated guesses in the first place!

The federal government keeps a social security death index.

[Paul der Krake]

Vanguard has 20 million account holders, dozens of which will die or disappear off the face of the earth in the next hour, because that's what happens when you have lots of customers. If you act dead, they treat you as dead, and turn your stuff over to the government.

It'd be weird if they didn't.

Why wouldn't the government prevent them from sending the money since the government knows you aren't dead? Sounds so fishy and scammy to me. I did not know this problem existed.  I guess I'll be logging into all my brokerage/retirement accounts regularly.  I just hope when I get older I dont' get dimentia.. I sure couldn't count on teh state/federal government to be fair, obviously.

The government doesn't know who is alive and dead at any given point. It may have solid guesses for its citizens who are good at filing paperwork, but that leaves out millions of deadbeats, people who left the country, people who disappeared with no explanations, people who operated with a manufactured identity in the first place, etc, etc.

Financial institutions are de facto a branch of the government. Asking them to make sure customers are still alive IS one way they can make the educated guesses in the first place!

The federal government keeps a social security death index.

And that's one of many inputs. And it can be wrong and incomplete, because the world is a messy place.

[sailinlight]

I opened a savings account many years ago for my kids where we'd deposit their birthday and other gift money in 2018. After some time the account got transferred between different banks and I couldn't figure out how to log in to the website to see the balance. I just got a letter in the mail last week that $3xx has been transferred to the state controller's office of California for that account. I haven't lived in California since 2020. I have a lot of complaints about that state, but they seem very competent at keeping track of where people live and getting their defunct bank balances back.

[ATtiny85]

Vanguard has 20 million account holders, dozens of which will die or disappear off the face of the earth in the next hour, because that's what happens when you have lots of customers. If you act dead, they treat you as dead, and turn your stuff over to the government.

It'd be weird if they didn't.

Why wouldn't the government prevent them from sending the money since the government knows you aren't dead? Sounds so fishy and scammy to me. I did not know this problem existed.  I guess I'll be logging into all my brokerage/retirement accounts regularly.  I just hope when I get older I dont' get dimentia.. I sure couldn't count on teh state/federal government to be fair, obviously.

Won’t you be actually using the money in your accounts? Meaning you will have withdrawals.

[Juan Ponce de León]

I knew there was a reason I liked ETF's over dealing with the likes of Vanguard directly.

[Dicey]

I knew there was a reason I liked ETF's over dealing with the likes of Vanguard directly.

Huh?