Has TRowePrice lost its mind?

[Nika]

I looked at the announcement regarding their new fee schedules.

Account service fee "has increased to $20 and is charged to certain fund accounts with a balance below $10,000."

This is really irritating, especially if what you have is ROTH, market dipped, and you can't even add any more money for the calendar year.

And I have a good number of accounts (since I thought I was safe from minimums with the old 5K minimum and asset builder)
There is a bunch of other fees, I can't even roll one account into the other without avoiding fees...

And the most insane one:

"Closeout Fee—a $20 fee is deducted from each IRA or ESA mutual fund account that is fully redeemed, transferred to a non-IRA or ESA, or transferred out of T. Rowe Price. The closeout fee also is deducted from SEP-IRA, Money Purchase Pension, Profit Sharing Plan, 403(b), and Individual 401(k) accounts that are closed without being transferred or rolled over to another T. Rowe Price retirement plan.

You can't just decide that you want to charge whatever it is you want to charge for customers to take their money and leave! That should be illegal. Especially since no such fee existed when you opened an account.

Imagine if your bank just said "we decided to charge you $120 per month for the privillege of having an account with us". "Oh, you don't like it and want to leave? That would be $300."
WTF???

I don't want to get out of all my funds now, when everything is down, but I have a feeling I will be needing a new home for my ROTH and my little taxable mutual fund investment.
TIAA CREF perhaps?

Where do I go, what do I do...

[bjl584]

If you have a sizeable account and have been a customer for an extended period of time it may be worth it to call them and see if they will waive the fees.

[Scanner]

You know. . .I think I have to agree with the original poster here.

The investment firms of this country caused a lot of heartache for the people. I know this wasn't T. Rowe Price by and large and other firms, but you know what - they are in the "lot of them." Yet, I can't feel sorry for the People too much when we seek to coddle the Warren Buffet's of the country either through laws and political action (tea party) because well, they're "job creators."

But I think you have a legitimate legal point - what are the contractual obligations of the custodian of monies like you say? Can they just "change the terms" once your money is in? Wave it at you and say, "HA! HA! Come and get it?"???

I have no idea what the financial regulations are but I know this - Laissez Faire Capitalism has failed.

I have some small Education IRA's through T. Rowe Price and I should get the records for them and investigate this.

However, ranting aside, if the fees are small and reasonble, I can get on board with it. It's that I think it should be rolled into the "expense ratio" rather than nickeling and diming you.

[poorgradstudent]

Pretty sure if you get all of your statements delivered by email instead of postal mail they drop the annual fee.

[MonkeyMama]

I was going to say - if you get electronic delivery of statements, there are no fees. (Like Vanguard).

(There may be some fees - but certainly no account service fees or anything like that).

Vanguard and T Rowe are on the low side of the fee spectrum, from my experience.

[Nika]

But what about other fees, particularly the "closeout fee". That one should be illegal.

It was not in the contract and they shouldn't be able to just come up with it now and not give customers an option to opt out and close account. There should always be this option when new fees are instituted.

[disneysteve]

But what about other fees, particularly the "closeout fee". That one should be illegal.

It was not in the contract and they shouldn't be able to just come up with it now and not give customers an option to opt out and close account. There should always be this option when new fees are instituted.

I'm willing to bet that opting out is an option. Read the fine print. If a significant new fee is being added, they generally give you the right to close your account and avoid the fee.

That said, a fee to close an investment account is pretty standard practice.

[MonkeyMama]

I didn't notice that one (probably because I have no plans to close out my account). But, it is the industry standard, so, doesn't phase me.

I also agree with bjl584. If I wanted to close my account because of new fees, I would sure as heck complain about paying a fee for that privelege. I would expect any business to waive the fee in that situation.