Q. I don’t understand how a systems update could delete all of my financial accounts and existence at Fidelity, with no meaningful explanation or apology. This experience has been and continues to be one of the worst of my life.
— Marta Gruntmane, Eagle, Colo.
Nobody thinks about the enormous amount of faith we put into the invisible infrastructure that continuously tracks and documents our financial accounts, until that one day when things go very wrong.
For Ms. Gruntmane, a 35-year-old physician assistant, that moment came on the Friday morning before Easter, as she was getting ready to take her daughter to school. Fidelity Investments sent messages alerting her that her phone number and email address had been removed from her profile — and to contact Fidelity if she hadn’t done it.
Alarmed, she quickly logged in, “only to find that all of my accounts had disappeared and my balance showed zero dollars.”
It seemed that Fidelity had eliminated all traces of her longstanding financial relationship with it, erasing the tens of thousands of dollars she held in three accounts, including the Roth individual retirement account that her father had set up for her when she was 16 — and where she had made regular contributions ever since. Her online statements and tax documents had also vanished, so she couldn’t immediately find any of her account numbers, she said.
Now in full panic mode, she called Fidelity on her way into her clinic; it told her that she didn’t have any accounts there.
“Are you sure you shouldn’t be calling Schwab?” Ms. Gruntmane recalled one representative saying, referring to Charles Schwab. “Are you sure it’s with us?”
Even if her account was closed or deleted, the reps told her, they could usually see that. They also refused to connect her with the fraud department, Ms. Gruntmane recalled, for the same reason — if there wasn’t any trace of her accounts, how could there be a fraud?
“When you’re just being treated like you’re kind of crazy,” Ms. Gruntmane said, “it doesn’t feel very good.”
After a call that lasted more than an hour, with many departmental transfers and holds, a Fidelity representative left her with two options: Send “a letter of instruction” by mail detailing what was wrong, or drive two and half hours to the nearest branch in Denver with her identification.
Ms. Gruntmane felt she had little choice, and was forced to cancel her 20 or so patients for the day. After a quick stop at home to retrieve her personal computer, identification and other records, she got back into her car and started driving. “It just felt out of, like, a psychological thriller,” she said.
As she was driving through Vail, she called her mother, who suggested trying to reach Fidelity’s fraud department one more time. She pulled over, and finally reached a rep who was more helpful. He also couldn’t immediately find any evidence of her accounts, but she had found one account number to share with him. After a second hourlong call, he promised they would continue to investigate, but said it was most likely a systems-related issue.
A little later that morning, a back-office specialist called her and confirmed that her predicament was indeed a systems issue and said Fidelity should complete a fix within 24 hours. He gave her the department’s direct phone number and told her to call if the issue wasn’t resolved by Monday.
It wasn’t. The holiday weekend slowed down the process, but it ultimately took about six days for her accounts to reanimate and for her balances to be restored.
When she called on Monday, she received some more clues on what went wrong: Since her account was originally opened with a tax identification number (she was a permanent resident at the time), a system glitch emerged when she recently opened a custodial Roth I.R.A. for her daughter using her own Social Security number. Even though she said she had used her Social Security number at Fidelity for years, it appears her profile and accounts hadn’t been properly merged and updated. A work profile set up by a former employer more than a decade ago with her Social Security number may also have complicated matters. (She said she had never activated or used it.)
“What is most concerning is not only the technical issue itself but the complete breakdown in communication and safeguards,” said Ms. Gruntmane, who had noticed her budgeting app still reflected her balance in the days she was trying to get her accounts to reappear. “Customer service had no visibility into the issue and could not escalate it appropriately.”
Fidelity said it could not share specifics related to Ms. Gruntmane’s experience, out of concerns for privacy and account safety. The company declined to say how often these kinds of snafus arise, or why customer reps had no insight into this issue.
The firm told Ms. Gruntmane that her money hadn’t gone anywhere; it just wasn’t visible to her on the mobile app or the website. “There was no warning that I would not be able to access my accounts for five days,” she added. “If I had to use that money, it was completely inaccessible.”
From here on in, she said, she’s going to be sure to keep physical evidence of her accounts and balances in a secure place. Her tale serves as a reminder that we all should adopt that habit.
Tara Siegel Bernard writes about personal finance for The Times, from saving for college to paying for retirement and everything in between.
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