Hello.
I posted here several months ago seeking advice regarding a 401k rollover request that was mis-handled such that I lost money when it was finally liquidated. At the time I asked for advice about how to formally complain about that mis-handling. My original posting is at the end of this message. This message is to provide an update, and to ask some additional questions.
I followed the advice of some, to start with with a complaint to the legal department of the investment firm that employed the individual who essentially blocked my rollover.
I provided that legal counsel a packet of evidence that outlined step by step the misconduct, including dates, emails with headers, summaries of recorded voice mail messages, and so on.
Since then, two things happened.
First, out of the blue, I received a call from the 401K Plan Administrator (my former employer), who had originally deferred my rollover request to the investment firm employee who bungled my request. She said, several months after my original request, that the amount of money I felt I lost suddenly would be credited to my 401K account, after which I could roll that over in addition to my original rollover amount (the amount I felt was less than I should have gotten, but had rolled over to get it out of this strange situation). I didn't expect to see the additional money materialize, but lo and behold - it did, AND the dates on the funds were post-dated to the date I liquidated that first chunk of money (it finally rolled over in December)! I quickly rolled the additional funds over before they vanished as mysteriously as they appeared. This was never called a pay-off. Where they came from was never explained. It was roughly the amount I felt I lost, though.
Second, I eventually received a letter from the investment firm's legal counsel. The letter said my situation was reviewed, and everything I requested was performed back on the date in October when I originally requested it, and the amount was what it should have been back in October. I found this quite surprising, because I have a clear paper trail demonstrating that to be patently false. Even the mystery funds mentioned above were post-dated to two months LATER than October - they were post-dated to December. I guess my evidence was simply ignored.
So - I have my money, but I encountered with what appears to me to be very shady behavior. I will follow up with a letter to the legal counsel to let her know this wasn't lost on me. I am not sure what else, if anything, I will do. However, I wanted to post an update here to find out what others think. Is it industry practice to manipulate funds in such a way as to make things look like they happened in a different order, and on different dates, than they actually did? And, the glossing over of clear evidence - does this sound "normal"? Does this sound like illegal behavior, or just in poor taste? I'd be interested in the views of others with more experience than I have in this area.
--------My original posting, from December of 2007:---------
Hello all. I did a quick search and haven't found any threads to do with filing complaints, so I hope it is an acceptable question for this ng.
I feel that a 401K rollover transaction of mine was mishandled by an employee of a brokerage firm that has some strange involvement in my company's plan. In addition, I have a documented string of emails that prove I was lied to on at least 3 occasions by this person (lies that are a critical part of the overall misconduct). The misconduct by this person cost me several thousand dollars in lost opportunity.
Does anyone know of the best place to file a formal complaint re: misconduct of a 401K rollover request? The person is a certified financial planner, but wasn't really acting in that role for me as far as I can tell. I see that cfp.net has a complaint form and was thinking of starting there anyway. Any advice on a better venue would be greatly appreciated.
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