Many of you are asking about USAA’s transfer of their investment products to Victory Capital and/or Charles Schwab. There is a lot happening, and it is confusing. I’m really not the best person to explain it. Thankfully my friend Doug Nordman has written a really good piece that explains what’s happening using small words and simple sentence and paragraph structures. Doug explains what is happening and why. He explains what it will look like to you when it is all over. He also explains why this move is better for USAA investors (better products and services) and also for those of us who use other USAA products (because USAA can focus on its core mission.)
Full disclaimer: I am not a financial planner, investment advisor, lawyer, or any other type of person with professional experience. This is simply my recounting of the process as an amateur investor who clearly doesn’t know everything. Do not make any decisions or take any actions based on the information herein.
Other full disclaimer: I have been working with USAA on various projects for 10 years now. I have visited their headquarters, at their expense, and have been treated to their famous breakfast burritos, meals, and cocktails in San Antonio, and also at other events like FinCon and the Military Influencer Conference. The people who work there are my friends outside of our business relationship.
Why I Moved My Investments
I have been planning to move our retirement investments from USAA for, oh, years, because lowers fees are available elsewhere. But having everything at USAA was simple, and it never made it to the top of my To Do list because it sounded difficult and time consuming. The announcement that accounts were being transitioned was just the kick in the pants that I needed to move these funds. (You might remember that I planned to do it in February.)
Now, I’m the first person to admit that investments are not my thing. I’ve read the USAA press releases and the little notes they’ve been sending, and they mostly sounded like mumbo jumbo to me. I still don’t understand what is going to Schwab and what is going to Victory Capital. I thought that managed brokerage accounts were going to Schwab and straight mutual funds were going to Victory Capital. That may or may not be true, but it doesn’t seem that way from my experience.
Outside of my confusion, the consensus amongst my smart friends is that this move by USAA is a good thing in the big picture, and I don’t disagree. Many of you have said that you’d like to see USAA get back to it’s roots, and this is one step in that direction.
Requesting The Transfer
At USAA, I had an SEP IRA, and I had two Roth IRAs at USAA. That’s a total of three accounts at USAA.
I started the process of transferring these assets on 24 March 2020, by opening new accounts at Vanguard. I only had to open two accounts because both of my Roth IRAs can be together. It took me a couple of days to get to the actual business at hand:
27 March 2020: Now on to actually moving the funds. Apparently USAA requires “wet signatures,” which means that instead of authorizing the transfer electronically and making the process happen quickly, you have to wait for physical documents to be sent back and forth. On Friday, 27 March 2020, I printed and completed three sets of transfer paperwork and mailed them to Vanguard.
Note: A reader has reported that she was able to bypass the wet signatures by calling Vanguard and asking them to process it electronically. I can not verify that this can be done. Please let me know if you try!
Being Unnecessarily Complicated
At this point, I was trying to be clever and save myself a little money. I didn’t want to transfer my USAA funds to Vanguard in their current investments, because I had this idea that there would be a fee to sell the USAA fund shares once they were at Vanguard. To that end, I planned to sell the current investments, so that the money would transfer as cash. There is no fee to sell those particular funds at USAA. (There is a $20 fee to “close” the account at USAA. I have no idea if that is an industry standard but I think that’s pretty crappy.)
But I didn’t want to sell the shares unnecessarily early because the market was all over the place, and I didn’t want to miss out on a really good day. So I watched the progress of the transfer requests (that’s a whole different paragraph) and when it seemed like it might have gotten to USAA, I called USAA to sell my mutual fund shares.
2 April 2020: This is where things got interesting to me. I called USAA, who put me through to Victory Capital, and instructed that the two Roth IRAs be sold entirely and put into cash. I made it very clear that I was doing this for the purpose of transferring the money to another company. The rep couldn’t tell me when the sale would process, but I wasn’t too concerned. (In retrospect, I should have been, because I believe that his lack of knowledge about that question is an indication that he didn’t know enough to see what was going to happen later in this story. But who knows?)
However, when I wanted to sell my shares in my SEP-IRA, VC/USAA couldn’t handle that. They transferred me to someone else, I think it was back to USAA, because the SEP-IRA was not transferred to VC. I’m sure there is some really simple explanation of why, but it’s not obvious to me, because they were all mutual fund accounts. But I digress… I was eventually able to make the same sell order for my SEP IRA.
Trouble in Paradise
3 April 2020: I receive an email, titled “request missing information,” from Vanguard, asking me to call them. VC/USAA has rejected my transfer requests, and Vanguard asked me to call VC/USAA to sort it out.
I checked my USAA online account and saw my sell orders were executed, so the Roth IRAs were out of their mutual funds and in cash. I called VC/USAA and they told me that because I sold my shares, they changed the account numbers. And the transfer paperwork used the old account numbers, so the transfer paperwork was invalid EVEN THOUGH THEY COULD STILL CLEARLY SEE THAT IT WAS STILL THE SAME ACCOUNT. They could not transfer my money without new paperwork with the new account numbers. On paper, with wet signatures. Again.
I said a couple of sailor words. Well, maybe more than a couple. (I did not use sailor words to the guy at VC/USAA, though he was not confused about my unhappiness.)
But of course they couldn’t tell me about my SEP-IRA, so they transferred me to the other mystery (USAA?) desk where the rep and I determined that my SEP-IRA had vanished. At this point, I was baffled – surely the SEP-IRA would have the same transferring problems as the Roth IRAs, right? I figured that maybe a day of patience would reveal something.
At this point, I had liquidated all of my retirement assets into cash during a crazy up-and-down period in the stock market. I was not happy. I mailed a second set of transfer paperwork to Vanguard.
Some Progress
8 April 2020: The SEP-IRA funds turned up in my Vanguard account, but – surprise – they were not all in cash. A portion that had already been in cash was in cash, but the remaining portion was still in it’s USAA fund. Oops. Not the end of the world. It’s a solid fund, it can sit there for a while.
Also on this day, my cash leaves my USAA Roth IRA accounts. Still not happy that it has been in cash for 6 days, but at least it is progress. Trying to remain positive.
13 April 2020: At 4:23 pm (the time is important to me), I received an another email titled “request missing information” asking me to call Vanguard.
I call, and eventually get to talk to someone who seems like they can help me. They tell me that they had received a check from USAA that morning, but they couldn’t process it because they couldn’t tell whether it was a transfer from an IRA or a rollover from another type of account. Apparently USAA/VC hadn’t made any effort to indicate that on the check or the accompanying paperwork, and Vanguard didn’t think to look at the transfer paperwork that I’d sent them. I confirm that it is a transfer and all seems well. Vanguard says they don’t have the other check.
Finally Done – Nearly 3 Weeks Later
14 April 2020: I’m fully anticipating that I’ll receive the same email for the last remaining check, and I’m hoping to get the money into my account (and into the market) before the end of the day. Around 2 pm, I check my Vanguard account. My check from the day before seems to be in some sort of black hole, as I can see it pending but I can’t touch it, and there is no indication that the other check has been received.
Hoping to avoid losing a full day again (and also wondering why my other funds are stuck,) I call Vanguard and inquire. The representative was nice but clueless. He eventually puts me on hold for a LONG time and found someone who could actually help. They confirmed that the previous days check did not process until the morning and so it would be fully available at the close of business. Vanguard confirmed that the second check was received, and cleared it to be released. I gave them an order to use the full amount to buy specific shares and FINALLY the process was complete.
A Couple of Lessons Learned
As always with things financial, it cost me money to try to be smarter than the system. My money was sitting in cash for 12 days of market swings, during which the market increased around 12%. (Don’t check my math. Investments aren’t my thing, remember? Plus the whole thing makes me a little sick to my stomach.) I lost out on a significant amount of growth during those 12 days.
Also, always verify what you think you know. Vanguard now tells me that there is no charge to sell my USAA funds and move them to Vanguard funds. So that $50 or whatever fee I was trying to avoid with all this crazy? It seems it wasn’t a think in the first place. So all that drama was to avoid a fee that didn’t even exist.
As a side note, Vanguard’s “Track Your Transfer” page is not very accurate. I transferred three funds, twice each, for a total of six transfer requests. My Vanguard track your transfer page shows 9 transfer requests, with various dollar amounts that don’t align with the actual transfer request amounts – somehow it got the accounts and the dollar amounts crisscrossed. It doesn’t matter, but it didn’t help me track anything.
Takeaways For You
A few key takeways if you decide to move your funds from Victory Capital/USAA and or USAA (soon-to-be-Schwab):
1. Be patient. You’ll need to print the transfer requests, sign them, send them to the new company, and they will have to send them to VC/USAA or USAA (soon-to-be-Schwab.)
3. Don’t try to be smarter than the system. Don’t change your account numbers mid-process!
4. Keep an eye on the process in the hopes of finding errors early.
5. It really shouldn’t be that difficult if you don’t complicate things.
Should You Switch?
This is a very individual question. If you have a financial advisor, you should definitely speak with them. Consider why you used USAA before, and whether that benefit still exists when your accounts are no longer with USAA. For me, the choice was obvious. I invested with USAA for simplicity, and I knew I was paying higher fees for that simplicity. With accounts being transitioned to Victory Capital and Schwab, it was no longer simpler to be in USAA funds.
However, the right choice for me isn’t the right choice for you, and investments are definitely a personal issue. Both Victory Capital and Schwab have the capability to improve on the value provided by USAA investments, and staying with them might be the right decision for your unique circumstances.
I hope this has given you some insight into what it looks like to transfer your funds. I also hope you’ll learn from my mistakes and not make the process harder than it needs to be!
And one more reminder: I am not a financial advisor, investment professional, lawyer, accountant, or any other type of professional. This is simply my experience. Verify and make your own decisions!
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Thank you so much for sharing your experience & for the link to Mr. Nordman’s article. I truly appreciate the insights you share! Wishing you & your family all the best during this unprecedented time.
Thank you for your shared experience.
I, too, had been with USAA for the ease of one stop finances.
Were you forced to sell because the mutual funds were USAA funds?
I just finished transferring to Schwab on my own. My IRAs were in cash or single stocks. It took eleven days for each of the transfers. USAA charged us to close the accounts, but then reimbursed the fee (which has not shown up yet in Schwab). All of my Schwab accounts were new, so I should end up with a bonus for transferring.
I was lucky because the Schwab person sent me all of the paperwork that I could download, sign, scan and send back. If I had to do it all be snail mail, I would have never gotten it done before the deadline.
I just had the first misfortune of having to deal with Victory Capital as a USAA member today. It was awful. It is not encouraging to hear that trying to get my two girls’ college funds out of there could also end up being painful. Shame on USAA forcing us into a company with such garbage service and inability to do the simple basic things.
Just a follow up to my experience. I was finally able to get my two 529 plans for my kids moved (I went with Vanguard for a very specific Quicken download related reason). It took a month for the transfer to go through. Dealing with VC was an awful and painful experience. USAA was absolutely no help on the matter but many admitted they have had a lot of call traffic on the topic of VC. I hope the SEC fines the hell out of VC for their gross mismanagement of this.
I know some had issues with the Schwab transfer, but that for me was easy and worked well. The people over there have been friendly and helpful. If it wasn’t for my personal preference quirk with Quicken I would have happily moved my 529 plans there.
Congratulations. I was fortunate to get my Mutual Funds out of VCM a month
ago. A SEC Govt attorney helped. Been with USAA for 47 years. I think the Board of Directors of USAA should research how and who decided to give away their investment branch to VCM
and take appropriate action against their incompetence.
You are kinder than I was. I told USAA management whoever voted in favor of the decision should be beaten with a rubber hose.
I mailed a check for over $8000 to Victory Capital for an IRA yet the USAA mobile app shows only $900 in my account. I can’t get through on the phone to transfer my funds & feel I need to report this but to whom? Do I need an attorney? I’m unemployed & need my money!
I have been on line and phone for 4-6 hours per day. Member of USAA for 47 years.
Substantial money in USAA funds. Can not get anywhere. When answering USSA phone prompts they sent me to the one and only Victory Capital main phone which no one answers or return calls. Cannot log into
VCM site from USAA. Called SEC. Got a call
Back from an attorney for SEC, Washington,
DC. They have had several complaints and will be ripping Victory Capital and USAA
a new asshole. Federal regulations say you must have access to your financial balances.
By the way, I also E-mailed Wayne Peacock
Ccuurent CEO of USAA. He never answered me. If you research enough you can find contact info. Thank God I have a distant relative that works for USAA so that helped in my contact research. After 47 yrs, dine with USAA and taking a lifetime of investments out of Victory. Good luck,
be wise!
Oh gosh, what a hassle! I am so sorry that you are dealing with this!
John I am in exactly the same boat. I literally have been unable to access my investments for over a week and when I get a Victory Capital rep on the phone after an hour wait, they keep saying they can’t help me, one even hung on me after she realized I was not going to accept that answer. I honestly think there are grounds for a class action lawsuit, given the loss of income from their negligence. If you have the number for the SEC atty can you share it. They need as much ammunition as possible.
Much the same experience except they (VC) are still looking for the $80k that my wife had in her USAA IRA mutual fund
E-mail SEC (Securities and Exchange Commission). I did. A
Government lawyer called me in 2 days. It is a Federal offense to keep a client from their investments. USAA and VCM have had so many complaints that they are being investigated. They put Bernie Maddof in prison for life.
I have now gotten all my funds back. I also E-mailed the CEO of USAA. I am not a computer person and hate computers but I looked up all the E-mails, took care of myself and got my money back. So can you. USSA not the great company they used to be!
I was a 47 year member. Done now.
What us the e mail for SEC.
I have been unable to access or transfer from VCM. Can’t even see account number. They should be fined!
Thank you for sharing … I am late but need to move mutual funds and IRA out of VC. Most likely to Charles Schwab to consolidate with the already transferred stocks.
I am about to do the same. My brokerage account was transferred to Schwab and I like their interface. I want to move my ROTH IRA there as well.
Any recommendations or issues with the transfer?
I agree. Also looking at Schwab.
Thanks for your article. I just began the transferring process today after USAA moved my IRA mutual fund over to Schwab (but still controlled by Victory Capital, so I can keep my old mutual fund that I loved, but can not set up auto investing like I had at USAA). I waited until now because I knew it was going to be a pain in the hind end and was procrastinating. So now I have to research all over again and decide to buy into a new fund or keep this one and manually invest every month. I mostly love USAA, even though they are usually more expensive than other insurance companies, but they really put it to us with this move. They get a 1-star from me…
USAA since I was an Ensign. Victory and Schwab came as a surprise Summer 2019. There have been some adjustments needed. Nothing spectacular (Schwab) so far……mostly needed RMD adjustments caused by not crossing the t’s and dotting the i’s during the transfer. The 2020 RMD relaxation was just in time.
Final Victory transfer wrap-up is now “3rd Quarter 2020. We shall see.
USNR (ret.)
I was given the WRONG phone number for Victory Capital from a USAA agent! For three days I tried calling the number that the USAA rep. gave me – ended up doing a web search to find the correct phone number for Victory.
Three days of panic thinking my savings had disappeared into a black hole.
Shame on you, USAA!
I am closing out all of my USAA accounts as we speak.
It took me almost 4 months to get my son’s 529 college plan away from Victory Capital to my broker I now use. Sign this…then oh you need to do this …on and on. When they finally sent the check it was sent to the wrong address even though it was clearly stated on the paperwork where to send it. Cancel check/ send new check another 2.5 weeks. My mother passed away in January and I am the trustee on a trust account. My family has had to hire a lawyer to get Victory Capital to release the funds. I’ve been the trustee for 40 years but VC doesn’t like the way the trust was set up so they’ve frozen the account. Shame on you USAA for selling out to these footdragging expletives deleted. They will gladly take your money but my experience getting it back is way too difficult. Every person at VC has been very nice and courteous but the people upstairs are another story in my opnion.
Do you have any suggestions about where to move my roth ira accounts? I don’t like what I am reading about VC and dealing with them hasn’t been great. Thank you!
Hi Debra! I can’t endorse anyone in particular. I have moved mine to Vanguard, but I just as easily could have chosen Fidelity or Schwab. I tend to like bigger companies, but that’s just me.
Here’s a great article about things to consider when opening an IRA; the considerations are the same for changing. https://www.nerdwallet.com/article/investing/how-and-where-to-open-an-ira
I find it a bit ironic that someone who admits that investing is not her thing would invest with Vanguard. Vanguard is a do it yourself investment firm. You will be on your own. They have good products but you need to have a grasp of investments in order to manage your own portfolio. You mentioned Fees. I would rather pay fees if value is added. The opportunity cost could be a lot higher than the less than 1% you may pay by having an advisor.
Hi Ken! Good observation! I may be downplaying my interest and abilities when I say “investing is not my thing.” I don’t love it, and I’m not naturally drawn that way, but it’s definitely something I can manage.
But I do have an advisor. I’m not paying anywhere near 1% – it’s a fee-for-service model, not AUM, and he’s for strategy, not investment advice. They provide an objective third set of eyes on the big picture stuff: the best way to structure business income to move health care expenses up the tax waterfall, whether we have the right amount of life insurance or want to add a policy (and if so, for how much and for how long), how to strategize using our college assets in the most effective manner, that kind of stuff. And yes, considerations about investments. But this is a planner, not an investment “advisor.”
Glad you brought this up!
I am a USAA member and when the notification was sent to us about the move of our investments to Victory Capital, I intended to transfer to a local broker to be able to do face to face business. We have been faced with repetitive delay tactics on Victory Capital’s part. We have submitted 5 different iterations of requests for three accounts, and are still getting excuses for delays more than 6 weeks after our initial request. I filed an SEC complaint form, and am getting ready to file another and start pursuing legal action. My recommendation is move everything you can away from USAA and Victory Capital. USAA is not an exclusive military only club, they have targeted military families. Check insurance rates, fees, and all of their products and do the comparison. Many military families have been lulled into a false sense of security that USAA sells on their commercials. Get out while you still can. They will throw every excuse in the book at you (wet signatures, details on fax cover sheets, only accepting paper copies, etc.) They change their reason every time. Likely to avoid “losing” a member, or keep their stats at a certain level, or delay until the market is low so they can use the difference. I don’t know the reasons, I simply know it has been a 6 week nightmare.
Hello Mark. I E-mailed the SEC at: help@sec.gov 3 days later I received a call back from an agent/attorney on a
800 number out of Washington DC. He told me I was not the first to notify them and they were investigating the
transistion from USAA to VCM. I called and called USAA many times (it is out of their hands now) and VCM. I
finally got a call back from VCM. I have withdrawn all my funds. Both companies know things went bad and
blame it on internet technology and website being over loaded. Good luck.
What did you do to withdrawl funds? I want to close my account. Thanks!
You can E-mail Victory at the address on your site. Calling someone there is impossible. I got a call 3 days later from a rep and requested liquidation of all my accounts by check. Had everything within 1 week but I had to be demanding. Done with that incompetence nightmare!
How can this be so hard to sell the funds? Do they not allow you to sell them using a few clicks on the mouse? I would like to get my money out of there and put into vanguard, but I think I may need to go the liquidation route and get a check sent to me instead. Did you try to sell the funds through the victory capital site without having to speak to anyone? Was it not possible? This shouldn’t be that difficult, and almost sounds illegal.
They are having I.T. problems with their site and finally admitted that to me. Liquidate by phone. Their on line banking incompetent.
Did you attempt to sell by using the website without having to talks to anyone? It should all be electronic and take a few clicks on the mouse. I can’t believe this is what it takes to get your money out. I’m appalled. I have 35k in their hands right now. I feel like I need to get it out ASAP, but transferring the funds sounds like it would be too difficult. I think I need to just liquidate, as you did. Let me know if you tried to sell the assets by just using the website without having to email / call anyone. In this day and age, you should not have to go to those lengths to get the money that “YOU!” Earned and invested!
Thank you for posting the SEC info. Just started the transfer to Vanguard and will keep this info handy just in case. Thanks again
After successfully transitioning our account from USAA to Victory Capital and signing on to VC for several days after completing the two step verification we began getting a popup saying our attempts to connect exceeded the allowed number, check back after 24 hours (now 4 hours). Three sessions with their tech support did not solve the problem. We are attempting this from my wife’s profile. I also have a USAA number from my time in the military. I can’t use mine to create a logon because either USAA or VC has my birthdate entered incorrectly, which I’ve tried to correct twice. In literature this is known as foreshadowing, and indicates the problems we will have when we move our investments to another broker.
It took me five months to move my funds out of Victory Capital. Multiple form submissions, complaints, but it’s over. It left a bad taste in my mouth concerning USAA, whom I feel was responsible for this extremely time consuming experience. It’s not the USAA I joined 20+ years ago, and I hope they know what they can do with their unsolicited “we’re concerned about your retirement” emails.
Wish I had found this useful thread earlier. USAA mbr 60+ years. The sad decline – deteriorating wealth mngmt service, reckless spending of millions on tv ads, hostile treatment from Victory Cap, … . Long phone wait times with USAA; INFINITE wait times with VC. 529 account transfer to VC incorrectly done and no one willing to help. Not sure how the USAA front-line telephone operators can keep smiling with such indifferent top leadership. Moved to AAFMAA for IRA/Annuities, etc.
Were your issues ever resolved and we’re you able to get your money from victory capital?
No. Still can not obtain an accurate portfolio statement on ugmas not yet moved out.
I will never deal with a Texas-based company, based on my experiences with USAA and Victory Capital. I’ve been trying to move my funds out of the latter; they are making it hell. I waited 45 minutes to speak to a Victory representative, due to a letter that firm sent directing me to reach out to them within five days lest they force me to renew my external transfer application again, from scratch. Their letter didn’t say why. After a 45 min wait, their representative didn’t have information on why I needed to call the company and why they couldn’t process my request! I’m to wait for his call. Deal with Victory Capital if you really want to understand what ails this country: nobody’s word means anything, and no one knows what they are doing!
Did you ever get any resolution on your issue? I need to get my money away from VC as soon as possible. I just want to have as much info as possible before I start the process. Thank you.
I left USAA investments back in 2017. USAA has changed over the years but has been going in the wrong direction. Fortunately, I was able to move everything to Vanguard before there was talk about selling that part of their business to a third party. Returns were not that good and USAA’s costs ratios were not competitive. The process was accomplished through Vanguard and it was easy. No hassles accessing my account or arranging transfers from my credit union to Vanguard. I also ended up ditching USAA’s banking after 35+yrs. They’ve been fined by the feds several times for not protecting member accts, and other various issues. They still haven’t learned anything.
I have been trying for over 100 days to move some money out of the Victory Capital account with no success. Emails go unanswered and phone calls are ignored.
USAA really screwed over their customers on this one.
Unfortunately it will cost me money with a lawyer just to get my money.
thank you so much for publishing this. I was notified June about the change to VC and then my money disappeared. I didn’t receive an email that I needed to create an account with VC or what steps to take. The fact that this is my money and it’s being handled without my consent, upset me. I’m also leaving VC and seeking another investment firm that shows decency and transparency in their banking business.
Another unhappy 45 year USAA customer. Can’t see any of my accounts in VC and they are not helping. Supposed to call me today at 12 pm – no call. The Rep I talked to last week said he could see my accounts even though I can’t. So, my funds are not accessible by me.
Almost 40 years with USAA with banking, stock accounts, annuities, and several insurance accounts. Was terribly upset with their placing me into Victory Capital and Schwab. All with no input from me!! Impossible to get VC on the phone. Have very little confidence that the amounts used by them are correct. A super senior worried about the health of USAA but do not know what to do.
I wouldn’t have minded so much if USAA sent my money to Schwab. Instead I was sent to Victory. Trying to get my money moved to Schwab. I cannot set up Victory as an external account for a transfer. Apparently Victory is not a large enough entity for Schwab to have it in its extensive list. Doesn’t bode well.
Can anyone instruct me on where to find the transfer paperwork needed to transfer my ira accounts out of VC to Vanguard?
Thank you!
Melissa, you can initiate this paperwork through Vanguard 🙂 Hope that helps.
I just went though my vanguard account. There is an option to transfer funds. They will ask you questions then you print the form, sign, and mail back to Vanguard. Very easy but we’ll see if it gets transferred w no issues
I blame USAA for making this I’ll-advised move of our assets to Victory Capital, which I would call “Defeat Capital.” I have tried to move my assets out for FOUR MONTHS! This despite numerous letters snd phone calls. I had seven retirement funds which USAA sent to Victory. Three have been transferred successfully. Why they didn’t move the remaining four? No one will say. Time to get the regulator involved.
I too have been going through a nightmare with Victory Capital. They incorrectly wired my money and now after 11 days I might get it into my account at Bank of America. Trying to contact them means very long waits on hold to be told another office must handle the problem. I can’t imagine why USAA went with this company but I have emailed Wayne Peacock and the BBB of San Antonio. After I see my money in my account I will be contacting the SEC with my complaints. I will be celebrating when all my money is out of that company and looking forward to the future days NOT on hold with Victory Capital.
Hi Kate,
Do you think part of your difficultly was because USAA did not finalize their deal with VCM? Also, is what you are saying that it would be better to transfer the funds as they are, in kind, and not cash them out?
My 3 retirement funds are now set up with VCM, I can see them, and I want to move them to Vanguard, where I have to set up an account next. I am going to use Vanguard’s pay for, .30%, advisor services. I will start the paperwork at Vanguard as you recommended earlier.
Thank you for the timely article!
USAA sold my mutual funds to Victory Capital which was fine with me, as I assumed USAA had our best financial interest at heart (Wrong! like any financial institution, it is their interest only). When I attempted to make changes in beneficiaries, I received a form from Victory stating I had to agree to their terms and conditions. I’ve always treated such forms as I do EULAs on a web site. If I want the service, I scroll to the bottom of the long boring document and check I agree. This time I read through Victory’s T & C and was stunned as I neared the end of the document where I discovered that I was agreeing to not holding Victory responsible for errors in the account due to negligence, including intentional negligence (and this is my best recollection as I no longer have the document, I recommend you read the document as my recollection of the exact wording and intent could in error.) I cashed out my account in August and started a new account with Schwab.
My first experience was attempting to add my yearly allowable to my ira, ($7k). They were nice enough but wanted me to fill out a form and send in a voided check. Kinda weird but I did fill it out and sent a paper from my checkbook with my name, address and routing numbers; probably the check reorder form. I do not give out voided checks. Well that wasn’t allowed, so I mentioned looking at Vangaurd and the response was, “oh”. So I did not put that money with them and here I am the next year and still going to TDA. Obviously they don’t listen to calls with customers.
Other than that I haven’t interfaced with them. From the comments it doesn’t sound like it will go well. If I was restricted from my hard earned money, it would become very bad. I believe they are in cleveland, ohio.
Victory Capital’s website is like working with the Flintstones in Bedrock.
It is clunky and not user friendly which was my experience with USAA. I had a UTMA acct for my son and college. Now, all I want to do is change the owner, and remove me from this account. It has a very small sum of money in it. No one seems to know how or ‘who’ should initiate it.
Terrible choice to take over accounts from loyal USAA customers. I am slowly moving other services away from USAA.
I seriously doubt USAA will ever again be the organization I once loved to be part of. We once trusted our business with USAA because it was a member relationship organization that promoted and supported the successful values of the entire military community. Around 2015 we started seeing a change in direction from USAA’s leadership. I don’t believe this was the direction most long time USAA members expected or wanted to see. Many social forums reflected this concern but it fell upon deaf ears at USAA. This became the point at which a lack of trust began and some members chose to leave USAA and are still doing so. Though we didn’t always agree with those decisions we wanted USAA to be all that it could be, sound familiar? Since then USAA has become unrecognizable to us, it is just the same as all the others, actually worse in some cases. We moved most of our business to various places that are more closely affiliated with our values. Sadly, only 1 bank acount and 1 Coverdell fund remains and we want to move that but oddly Victory provides NO references on their website to accomplish that, only to get your money. This gives us a bad impression of Victory and we are determined to get our money out of their control once and for all. Brand reputation is everything!
Contact the SEC (Securies and Exchange Commission)
In Wash DC. A financial watchdog for the US Government. An attorney contacted me in 3 days. That is how I got all my investments back from VCM.
VCM is incompetent and USAA has gone downhill.
-a 47 year member USAA.