No. of Recommendations: 0
My issue with Vanguard and inheritance had to do with their security issues and their inability to fix the issue and not anything anyone else should have had to deal with.
A short summary:
At the time of my father's death I had no active accounts with Vanguard. A long time prior to that I had a work account which was eventually moved out of Vanguard and then later I had a personal account which was also moved out. So, probably no money with Vanguard for at least a couple of years.
Apparently at some point, years earlier, I had set up a verbal phone password and Vanguard wouldn't do anything w/o it. The solution was filling out a paper form to remove that security option with a notarized (gold medallion?) form. Ok, annoying but I can do that. The problem was that it was mailed back, acknowledgement from Vanguard that it received it but then when I called multiple times afterwards they kept insisting on a verbal password despite me following their instructions to disable it.
Eventually after a number of calls some guy was actually able to move the inherited money into my name and then I had it immediately moved to Fidelity.
Vanguard has some nice mutual funds and ETFs but as a brokerage they have been passed by both Fidelity and Schwab. Both of which have checking accounts/checks, Debit cards, etc. and I've found people who answer the phone timely and can get things done.
Many people, including when I was with them, would get these threatening letters saying there was an issue with my address or whatever and if I didn't contact them immediately they would lock my account. I called one time and the guy admitted the letter was written to get people's attention and was a bit over the top.
Different strokes for different folks. I read the bogleheads.org forum frequently where there are a lot of current and former Vanguard customers. I think most of the current Vanguard customers are old timers, people who use them via work 401Ks, or ones that want access to their mutual funds. Most others have moved on for better and more complete service.
If you are happy stay with them. From what I know it isn't as if there are issues like with the governments TSP for inheritors.
