Fidelity Investments
reviews and complaints

A long-ago employer of mine had some type of investment account with Fidelity, in my name. I found out about this many years later, and asked Fidelity for a distribution. Fidelity said they would be glad to send a distribution, but only to an address I no longer lived at. This may seem absurd, but they made it clear that they would only turn over the money by mailing it to an invalid address. So I gave up.

In 2007, Fidelity closed the account without warning, mailed a distribution check to me, and sent a 1099-R notice to the IRS as well. The check went to the wrong address, of course, and Fidelity says it was never cashed. I found out when the IRS contacted me demanding payment of taxes.

Fidelity still refuses to turn over the money. I asked Fidelity to at least correct their 1099-R filing, and they refused to do that as well. They refused to provide any written documentation to me or anyone else. The IRS says that I don't have to pay anything if I just get Fidelity to acknowledge the error in writing, but Fidelity refuses to.

It's one thing that Fidelity owes me money and won't pay; what's disturbing, however, is that they willfully violated federal law. I'm pursuing legal action.

Fidelity reneges on it's Bond trades by mysteriously removing the trade after it already fills. From what I noticed twice when this happened both times (May 28, 2009 and June 23, 2009) they seemed to find cheaper shares to replace my sold ones with thus sending me the bonds back into my account and taking my trade and money away (stealing money out of my account as well as stealing my trade).

the trade went through on many forms of Their site, it was filed in the History or transactions, the Balance changed to support the trasnaction, Positions showed the shares gone that were sold, Third Party transactions showed the transaction took place, and orders showed filled with date time and transaction number. Over 30 minutes later it was wiped out without notification or justification or legality to do so. It is illegal to change a trade let alone claim to guarantee trades and not fulfill that guarantee nor make right of such acts being caught red handed.

To rub salt into the wound the supervisors of the Fixed income desk are the ones who handle the complaints even though that is a conflict of interest this is how Fidelity handles such issues.

If you have such issues with Fidelity trading like this or missing dividends and interest payments like I had twice before also, then contact the SEC web site and fill out their complaint form.

In the case of the missing dividend they posted but then vanished like this bond trade, in essence literally taking money out of my account and only placing it back after you notice and complain. How many people don't notice nor complain and how many Fidelity reps are allowed to continue to rip people off because their process of dealing with customer issues is geared towards the thief being allowed to give the client the run around avoiding investigation

We recently transferred our ira accounts from fidelity to scottrade and were charged $50 for each account. This fee was not charged in transfers done earlier this year. I talked extensively with a customer service representative but they would not agree to waive the fee. I am extremely frustrated and feel this is a rip-off.

I have been with a few different brokerage companies over the years…my recent experiences with fidelity investments takes top honors for the worst brokerage house. Worst. Brokerage. Ever. They miss on every level.

Fidelity has one thing going for it…it’s too big to fail, so one can feel comfortable parking money there. It’s not a good brokerage house with with to do any market trading…in fact, it’s one of the worst.In brief: every single transaction you make has to be checked…they constantly make mathematical errors. Every transfer in and out of your core account has to be checked…every single stock purchase has to be checked…every commission charged has to be checked. And then it’s hours on the phone getting it corrected…then it has to be checked to make sure it’s corrected…then it’s more phone when it’s not. Their website consistenly has technical issues…charts don’t work…and quotes are often corrupt. Today their quotes were consistenly off by more than 100 points on the dow…i don’t want quotes…advertised as real-time…that are actually five minutes ago. And one doesn’t know that these quotes that are advertised as real-time are delayed five minutes unless you are comparing to something else that is accurate. If the market is busy…particularly in the first half hour of the trading day…you can be locked out of your account. When you complain to fidelity…you are advised to use the back up system…something they call & ldquo;fast”…a phone ordering platform. That would be great…except when you are locked out of your account on their website…you are also locked out of your account on the phone system…so much for fidelity’s solution.

Their order routing system is inconsistent. I have had stocks trade right through my order price with no trigger. Trading the market is hard work…when the market closes…i want to relax…i don’t want to spend hours poring over my account and it’s transactions…every little detail checked…and then spend hours on the phone getting it straightened out.

I am an active trader…i have an account worth a little under a million…that qualifies me for something called a & ldquo;premium service account”…i have suggested to them that they change the name to a & ldquo;no service account” because that’s what you get…no service. Oh, they are so polite on the phone…so profuse in their apologies…but nothing changes. One week I spoke to six different service reps from the premium service department and got six different answers to a question…the reason I had to speak with six different reps was because every time I acted on their instructions…it was inaccurate information and triggered a problem with my account…so call again…be given more inaccurate information…act again…and trigger another problem…no one at fidelity has any accountability…no one takes ownership of a problem…it’s always & ldquo;too bad, it’s your problem, sir”…put more diplomatically. I started making all my communications with fidelity through their internal email program…so I would have all this inaccurate information on record…to no avail…they are not, in their opinion, responsible for any inaccurate information dispensed by their service reps…good one.

I have, in the last three months, since all this market volatility started, sustained some large losses in my portfolio or missed some fantastic opportunities…all because of fidelity’s incompetence…i will move my account…it’s not an easy thing to do…particularly now…it takes me out of the game for several weeks while the transfer takes effect…but it has to be done…i will not allow them to destroy my portfolio any more than they already have. I suggest that anyone who is looking for a brokerage house…beware…once you lose your money…it’s too late…and fidelity will help you lose your money.

I received a letter from bank of new york mellon dated aug 27 stating that my personal information was "lost" (Long story). I don't do any business with them, but they are a stock transfer agent. Fidelity is my brokerage, and I simply needed fidelity to answer some questions about what info they would provide a stock transfer agent for my different accounts. I was told that the "risk department" would need to call me. I have been promised a call-back 3 times now over the course of a week, all within 24 hours, and have never received any call-back. They will happily take money and trade, but if anything is needed on their part, I have received no response. I have escalated to a "supervisor" with the same result. It is impossible for me to understand the extent of my vulnerability without the cooperation of my broker, since bnym is unresponsive and has no interest in me as a direct customer. Other brokers that I am now looking to transfer my assets to have provided the exact same information without me being a customer within 24 hours without issue.

I have a home mortgage with a payment due date of the first of the month. However, a late charge is not imposed until the 16th of the month (at 7:00 p.m.) Because I want to leave my money in my interest-bearing account for as long as possible, I have my mortgage payments scheduled for payment on the 15th of the month.

I pay my bills with Fidelity Bill Pay, and have been paying that mortgage payment for quite a number of years now, exactly the same way. The Fidelity terms and conditions state they are responsible for late charges if payments don't arrive on time.

In May, I submitted my request for payment on May 15th. However, the payment was not made by Fidelity until May 19th. Therefore, I incurred a late charge from my mortgage company.

I contacted Fidelity and told them they were responsible for the late charge. They contacted my mortgage company and learned that my payment is officially due on the first of each month . . . totally ignoring that there is a grace period when late charges are not imposed. They told me that because I did not ask for my payment to be made before May 1st, they were not responsible for the late charge.

I explained to them that my "official due date" is not relevant, only the date when late charges were to be imposed and the date when I asked them to pay the bill. My position was that I requested payment on the 15th, it didn't arrive until the 19th, therefore it was late and therefore they owed me the late fee. They stood by their position that in spite of when the late fee was actually to be imposed, the "official" due date of the payment was the 1st, so I was out of luck.

I operate a small 501c3 non profit, and received a stock donation worth about $20,000. I opened a fidelity account so I could liquidate the stock and use the fidelity checking account service as my main checking account.

Fidelity would not allow me to open the checking account until the stock was actually transfered to my account. Once they had the stock, the transaction to cash was easy. I also mailed in a few smaller deposited from other donors, which were credited to the account. However, once they had the cash, it was impossible to use it. Here's what happened:

I filled in the forms provided by Fidelity to open the checking account, including signature cards. Two weeks later, Fidelity indicated that the wrong signature card form was submitted, even though they had provided the form. Included in the letter was a blank copy of the same form I had submitted. Fidelity now has 90% of my operating capital, and I cannot access it.

I called fidelity, and was assured by the rep that I had the right form. We went through the form line by line to ensure that it was filled out properly, and I mailed it back in. This phone call took about 40 minutes, almost all of it on hold.

10 days later, I received the exact same letter stating that the wrong form had been filled out, and providing a third copy of the same form. Once again, I called fidelity, and was assured that this was the correct form, and that I had to fill it out again. The rep insisted that the first and second copies had been filled out incorrectly, even after I pointed out that the second form had been filled out with the aid of one of their reps. Another 40-45 minutes on the phone, and I sent the same form back in. Fidelity still has 90% of my operating capital, I cannot access it, and the non-profit is falling behind on paying bills.

10 days later, I got another letter from fidelity indicating that the signature form was the wrong form for the account I was opening, and that I would have to fill out the correct form. Included in the letter was the same form I had already filled out a number of times.

Another call to Fidelity, and after hearing the same answers (that the form on the letter was the one I should use, that it must have been filled out wrong, etc), I told the rep that I had had enough, and that I wanted to close the account. At this point, Fidelity had essentially taken over $20,000 of my money for over a month, and refused to allow me to access it in any way, despite the fact that it was in a checking account that was set up specifically to allow the non-profit to pay operating expenses. Monday Morning at 9:45 AM, the Fidelity rep insisted that the account would be closed immediately, and the check cut and sent.

The following Monday I had still not received the check, so I called Fidelity yet again. After another half hour on hold, I was informed that he check was cut Friday - a full week after the account was closed, and that it would be mailed "sometime this week". So even after the account is closed, Fidelity is hanging on to my money for another two weeks.

I'm still waiting to see how long it takes to actually get the check, and to see if they actually closed the entire account.

What is interesting here is that Fidelity was more than willing to accept my signature on the checks to deposite the smaller donations, to open the account, and to sell the stock. The only time that they would not accept my signature was when I was actually trying to write a check and withdraw funds. When I finally got fed up enough to close the account, they didn't require a signature - just a phone call.

Unfortunately, there seems to be very little oversight or regulation that makes any difference. I have not been able to find any regulatory agency that will look into what is effectively theft by fidelity.