Vanguard Reviews

Zero stars if I could. For several months now I've been calling to resolve a problem with them and get a different answer each time. Totally clueless. I've received better customer service at the local Walmart.

Date of experience: October 17, 2024

Vanguard has/is breaching my trust. I'm retired. My retirement funds and my emergency funds are all invested with Vanguard. Two weeks ago I needed some cash from my emergency fund, only to find out all my accounts had been frozen, improperly! Since February! Two weeks (and hours upon hours of phone calls) later, they still have not corrected their mistake. Customer service has admitted that while they have put in "please expedite requests," the "processor" has not responded at all and they have no further authority to do anything else. Not even to give me information as to how I can escalate this complaint. My financial security is being held hostage!

Date of experience: October 18, 2024

I've been bounced around back and forth with vanguard and it's overseas scripted operator's and my "employer" just trying to get fund's to get my Life and finances in order after battling months of medical issues. What I was told was absolutely possible and could be done in a few day's not More than a couple weeks has been a long nightmare now since the beginning of September 2024. Since then I've been evicted, my son's had to drop out and return from college, I'm now a homeless single father of 4 btw and have plenty of fund's not being released to me by vanguard!!! Thanks for the worst nightmare being brought to Life vanguard!!

Date of experience: September 06, 2024

If I could have given Vanguard a no-star review I would have. I have been trying to help a senior friend of mine with his account. I have power of attorney and have submitted a full agent authorization form. It's been an almost two month process so far and we still can't get into his account. The customer service agents are in a foreign country and do not care or are not able to move things along.

Date of experience: October 17, 2024

The customer service was poor
The customer service was poor. The person who worked with me was very rude, demeaning and disrespectful. They continuously cut me off while I was talking and spoke in a tone indicating they were annoyed that I didn’t totally understand the process.

Date of experience: October 14, 2024

Don't open an account with Vanguard. Their customer service people are either not well trained or they are impolite or politely ignorant. The problem is, you have to call Vanguard because their software system is at least 20 years outdated. They have a chat system which operates on wrong information on your account! They manage trillions of dollars so they rest on their laurels without giving customers satisfaction.

Date of experience: September 29, 2024

I rarely leave reviews but felt compelled to give the horrendous customer service I've experienced. The upshot - 6 months ago I needed to open an UTMA account for my son - took the better part of a month and 45+ calls until it was executed. Now, I am going on 2 weeks waiting for a 'customer withdrawal form' that I need to mail in. A form, which I was told initially was not needed, then would be emailed (link doesn't work), and now, 10 calls later...they are FedExing it because I can't receive it digitally. After this is complete, I will be closing all of my Vanguard accounts and never working with them again. IMO, they rival Comcast for worst customer service...and that is saying something.

Date of experience: October 03, 2024

Unfortunately really horrible. They took account numbers off of their statements which can make things twice as bad. They weren’t even able to find an account we have a statement for. A once great company has gone the way of Merrill and Morgan Stanley. Very sad!

Date of experience: October 03, 2024

IN MY OPINION THE MANAGEMENT AT VANGUARD HAVE LET THE FUND GO DOWN HILL;
TELEPHONE HELL
PERSON FIRST CONTACTED HAS TO TRANSFER YOU TO SOMEONE ELSE
SLOW TO DELIVER WITHDRAWALS
IRA'S ARE HANDLED BY SOME OTHER ENTITY THAT IS EVEN SLOWER
AS A REGISTERED INVESTMENT ADVISOR I RECOMMENDED VANGUARD FOR MANY YEARS.

Date of experience: September 20, 2024

Everything is bumpy and difficult with Vanguard... to rollover my retirement took one year! First they were selling some branch of Vanguard to another business, Ascent - therefore they could not process the transaction. Then, the paperwork I submitted (by mail only!) was rejected because the form they sent me was outdated. Then another paperwork went in, this time they rejected the date. Then, when it all finally collided, they sent me the pay-off which never arrived. So we are still hobbling along, second check is being reissued - and we are at 13 months of moving the funds! - I am so glad to be ending my relationship with Vanguard.

Date of experience: September 04, 2024

Vanguard has lost it's way. I've been a Vanguard account holder for the last 22 years & Vanguard seems to be more interested in raising it's fees than making sure it's website does not crash on 8/05/24 - one of the biggest down days of the stock market. Their customer service dept. overall has also suffered in the last few years & continues to go down. Do your homework before opening a new account with Vanguard.

Date of experience: August 05, 2024

My employer's 401k plan is with Vanguard so unfortunately I have no choice. Their customer service is absolutely horrendous. They've made it impossible to reach a human, and they apparently haven't QA'ed their automated call tree which traps you in a loop asking for the same data over and over. If you have a choice, go with Fidelity or another firm. Two thumbs down, Vanguard!

Date of experience: September 18, 2024

We have a retirement account with Vanguard. The process for getting an RMD payment is a nightmare. All forms submitted by snail mail in both directions. You can't request a withholding amount or percentage for taxes. No one at Vanguard can explain how the W-4P form for withholding actually works, it is a black box and no one actually knows how much will be withheld. In our case we made an error (due to vague wording) on the W-4P form and the withholding was 98% of the RMD. We got a notice in snail mail that said we were getting an RMD but unhelpfully didn't tell us the amount. So now the IRS has our RMD and we won't get it back until tax time. Vanguard is awful! Every phone agent can't help you, but they will transfer you to another agent who can't help you. One more time--Vanguard is awful! We are rolling the account to Fidelity.

Date of experience: September 10, 2024

I wanted to start investing in a roboadvisor account and put the minimum of $3,000 in a Vanguard account and they took off $300 from the top! I put the same in other roboadvisor accounts- Wealthfront and Betterment and I was making money with them. They are thieves and taking advantage of people. Don't invest with them. You're better off with Wealthfront or Betterment if you want to use a roboadvisor investment account.

Date of experience: November 30, 2023

I live overseas and have had a Vanguard acct for quite a while. For the last year I have been unable to access the account online. The website says it is temporarily experiencing technical difficulties and have been assured this is not because I am not in the US. The only way for me to conduct any business with them is to call them from my US telephone number. Today it took 5 minutes for a rep to tell me why i had received an email informing me that I had a confirmation for a transaction. It turns out I had been charged a service fee. I'm done.

Date of experience: August 22, 2024

A horrible mess of being passed around to people who ask you to confirm who you are ("what was your high school mascot?), but can't help you. The voice activated system is infuriating.

I'm potentially investing a lot money with them and this is how they operate? No thanks.

Date of experience: September 16, 2024

Vanguard cheats retail traders by giving favor to large investment firms. Outage for "maintenance" two days ago when the market was at it's lowest. Yet buying the big dip ensued anyway. I read that numerous retail investors said the same thing. They're cheats and will their user interface is garbage.

Date of experience: August 05, 2024

Vanguard's customer support could not be worse. It's actually amazingly terrible - the epitome of bad customer service. First, 9 out of 10 times that you try to use their website to get an answer to your question, you get an error message that says "Your request cannot be completed. We are unable to complete your request at this time. Please try again later." Then, when you call Vanguard you get an absolutely antiquated automated system. After a few long minutes there, if you have the patience to get through all of the ridiculous prompts, you can be connected with someone who won't be able to help you but will transfer you to someone else. Then, you'll be put on hold listening to funeral home music until finally, after about 30 minutes, you get frustrated and hang up.

Date of experience: August 30, 2024

Good ETF costs, and selection of products.
Sometimes poor advisor support, and online site/tools have been degrading.
Impression, after 10 yrs., is that they are backing away from customer support.
They may be becoming a victim of their own success.

Date of experience: May 01, 2024

These bums make everything more difficult than it needs to be. For using your money to make money, they sure make it difficult to get your money back.

Date of experience: October 15, 2024