It’s a slippery slope when a customer-oriented operation like Vanguard Group has been since it was founded almost 50 years ago begins to get greedy by imposing a whole bunch of changes and chintzy fees on its customers.
In a statement, Ascensus said, "We charge a flat fee for our services, which enables us to deliver streamlined digital experiences with the needs of small businesses in mind, market insights and educational resources." However, since I make my own investment choices and my Individual 401 owns just one stock, I see no need for me to pay Ascensus anything.
So not only will Vanguard not get anything from selling my account to Ascensus, it will probably lose the management fee that it currently gets from my Individual K. To show you that I’m thrifty but not insanely so, I plan to leave my wife’s and my six other Vanguard accounts in place.That’s despite the fact that one of the annoying changes that Vanguard is making involves a new 1% fee on dividends received by its customers who, like me, hold foreign securities and American Depositary Receipts.
Nor am I under any illusion that my move to Schwab will bring Vanguard to its knees. But I sure hope this is a one-and-done behavior and that the company doesn’t do something else in the future that will induce me to have to make another choice like the one I’ve just made.