Ask Terry Questions Combing Roth IRA money

Combing Roth IRA money

By Terry Savage on May 18, 2022 | Financial Planning / Retirement

How long does it take to transfer money from one Roth to another. By request, I received some forms from Vanguard to move my other 2 roths and combine them with my account there. Mailed them back about April 26 of this year. Having not heard or seen anything I called them on May 6. They had received the forms but I was told the process takes 5 to 12 working days. I asked why it would take so long. The answer I got was “its the process” — no details why. Somewhere along the way (by May 6) they had included setting up a different vanguard fund where I wanted the transfer to go. On May 12 I received confirmation of the request from one of the other 2 institutions. Then a received a letter from the other stating that my account had been zeroed out and closed on May 10. To date May 17 at the end of the day that money has not shown up in my account with Vanguard. Today May 17 I received an email from Vanguard saying they need some information. They filled out the form that they sent me. I’ve had a vanguard account since the early 2000s and had confidence to go ahead and combine it with the others. However this process has made me lose confidence in them. So I want to know if this is the normal time it takes to process these requests. Because I’m thinking once everything is settled I’m pulling my money out of Vanguard and putting it someplace else. By the way after the May 6 call Vanguard contacted me by email with a survey about the call. I gave them some bad numbers and explained why. The survey asked if they could contact me back and I said ok. To date they haven’t.

Terry Says

It’s surprising this process has taken so long. And since I’m writing a column on the rollover process, I’d love to hear from you in an email about some details. Please write me at Terry@TerrySavage.com and use the words IRA rollover in the headline and include your phone number.
BUT — DON’T PLAN ON ROLLING OUT OF VANGUARD!! You can only do one rollover per account per year! So maybe in 12 months — but by then this will be settled, and you don’t want to chance going through this again!!

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