[Craysaixycool]

I’m trying to access my retirement account only to find out it is suspended. I called the customer service and they instructed me to make a 3 way call with my bank account for verification.

Is this normal nowadays?

I am not used to making a call with key prompts on automated (bday and last 4 social or bank) with another person on the other line outside US.

Have u seen this practiced by other financial companies?

The phone customer support insisted that this is the “ONLY” way to get my account activated.

UPDATE: after refusing to comply with the customer support through phone and I insisted a better verification way, I hanged up the phone.

I sent a utility bill with my name and address online, drivers license (directly to website support link upload file) and my account got activated in an hour.

These customer support is not at all supportive.

[Brad]

Your bank should have nothing to do with accessing your retirement account–something sounds fishy.

[Cheryl]

Is this a new retirement account? One you opened on your own or through your employer? What does your bank have to do with it – are you doing automated transfers between the accounts? How do you access the retirement account – online or on the phone? Is the account with a major company that we would know to be able to give you advice? How did you get the number to call – did you look it up on your own or did someone send it to you?

[Stephanie]

Let’s just use the major brokerages that are tried and true! Vanguard and Fidelity!! I wish someone would have just told me to use them from the beginning vs having to move them over after I retired so I could finally get everything organized and simplified.

I used Betterment for awhile and they had me in 21 accounts and since it was a taxable brokerage account I now have capital gains and can’t get my portfolio to what I’d like it to be without having a crazy amount of capital gains to pay taxes on. Betterment wouldn’t let me turn off automatic reinvestment of dividends which I wanted to live off of… so yeah bye bye.

Sounds like a good reason for you to move your money over to one of the big ones and just call it a day.

[Frank]

Where did you obtain this number for “customer service”?

Nothing about what you describe is normal or makes any sense whatsoever, unless you are responding to a phishing email. Don’t do that.

[Lori]

Many moons ago, I worked for an internet bank. We had no brick and mortar locations, but were based out of Alabama. The Russian mafia placed ads in newspapers in states we didn’t operate offering low interest rate HELOCs and listed a toll free number. The number was forwarded to Canada where someone would answer, take applications, and folks would think they were on their way to a new HELOC.

In reality, the scammers were stealing their identities and racking up debt, including getting credit cards and using them to place more ads.

You’d never think that an ad for a bank in a newspaper could be a scam, but it sure happened. I say all that to say, be very careful who you give your personal info out to, even if things are seemingly legit.

[Author]

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