I'm a 52 year member, Vietnam vet, and 77 yrs old. Today was the last straw- I'm moving my accts out of USAA.
They will probably respond with their typical "you're complaint has been referred to the appropriate department" garbage. Hear this USAA: worry about the complaint I and others filed with FINRA, not moderating this post. If anyone else had this experience I urge you to file a complaint with FINRA.
My USAA IRA's were misdirected to National Financial Services, who exclusively controlled them after 5/26/20. They did not go to Schwab during the USAA-Schwab merger as promised. ALL BECAUSE OF MISTAKES USAA MADE. I wasted two months and countless hours on the phone between NFS and USAA cleaning up their mess- usually being lied to, given wrong information, in a few cases brokers refused to give their names!
Here are just SOME of the highlights of the Schwab merger mess:
- Despite over five contacts with USAA in the days before the Schwab transition, they failed to tell me a security in one of my accts would cause Schwab to reject them and force them to NFS. In fact I was told IT WOULD transfer to Schwab. Removing the acct and the problem security from NFS was a complex, multistep nightmare that USAA completely wiped their hands of- once at NFS USAA claimed no responsibility- even though they caused it to be there.
- USAA assured me shares in one IRA would be redeemed by the last trade cut off date of 5/20/20 and gave me confirmation numbers for the trades. They weren't redeemed. But they changed the acct status preventing it from going to Schwab- forcing it to NFS. The only way to get the acct from NFS to our preferred brokerage Vanguard was to redeem the shares at NFS. NFS charges trade fees, had they gone to Schwab we could have placed the trades online for free.
- Most stunning- they sent us notices in June that "The assets in your account are now carried by National Financial Services LLC ("NFS") in a taxable brokerage account with limited access and features.” THEY CLAIMED THEY CONVERTED MY IRA TO A TAXABLE ACCT without warning. At that point they had not converted them yet and we the accounts before that happened, but that conversion almost surely violates SEC rules.
When a family member reviewed my accounts with USAA she was stunned at how blatantly they sold me terrible investments: an annuity INSIDE an IRA where they recommended I put HALF of my 401K, the rest in entirely managed funds- not a single index fund- none of which outperformed the market, on top of their 1.1% "management fee." I've lost thousands because I made the mistake of trusting USAA and I will spend the rest of my life making up for their sales pitches.
In addition they sold me a whole life policy- because that's where they get huge commissions. Never, ever listen to the sales pitches for a whole life policy- they push these hard. (USAA tried to sell my single, childless, adult daughter a life insurance policy)
Today when I called USAA I talked to "JT" who seemed openly irritated and impatient with my legitimate questions about how we could take the cash value of the life insurance policy- at one point asking why we were asking these questions. At another point reminding us -more than once- that if we take the cash value they would take the 4% interest off the top because "we're going to get our money"- as if our request was tantamount to robbery.
This was the final push I needed. His tone was arrogant and impatient, not helpful or informative, for asking questions about my OWN money. But that is what USAA has become.
I made the mistake of trusting USAA advice- they were not bound by the fiduciary rule. They sold me investments and policies that caused me to lose money while they profited with nice commissions.
