I have been with Vanguard since 1992 and have a decent amount invested with them. I find that they are becoming a burden to deal with and after a bad experience today, have decided to dump them.
On 12/22/2025, I rolled over some money from my 401k to my VG IRA. Fair enough, I could not touch the money for 9 days and now it is ready and shows up in my account as ready to withdraw.
I tried to do a QCD online today, and got the following message "The shares you’re trying to redeem were recently purchased. To protect your account, we can send the proceeds from the sale of those shares only to the institution and account from which they originated.
To complete this transaction, you can choose to send the proceeds to the originating institution and account. If you purchased the shares by check, or if you have questions about this transaction, contact us for assistance."
I called (got a person in India) and was told that my funds had to be with them for 60 days before I could do anything. I asked for an override to do a QCD and they agreed. But, I had me jump through hoops. After answering all their questions they called my 401k administrator to verify my name, dob, address, $ amount rolled over, check number etc. etc. (with me on the line in tandem). Then the VG agent spent a good 30 minutes processing everything and informed me that I would have to seek their override permission every time I needed to do a QCD before their 60 day freeze was over. I had now been on the phone for 120 minutes and asked for a supervisor who basically told me the same thing. I said that I was close to ending my relationship with them but it made no difference. She kept parroting how they are protecting me from fraud in doing this 60 day hold. Made no sense to me.
So my time with this company is up. I am have accounts with 2 other large brokerage houses and am sure they will be happy to receive my VG funds.