At the end of the year, I will be ceasing my investment in TIAA-Cref funds for retirement. There are less expensive options at Vanguard, and TIAA-Cref’s customer service record has been spotty. I haven’t had any problems lately, but other people still face difficulties.
My original post about my problems with TIAA-Cref from almost two years ago still receives occasional comments. Here’s the latest comment, from Ed, with his experience.
After two months of wrangling with TIAA-CREF [to cash out], I was finally able to get a portion of my money. When I called to get the rest, the company told me that they had made a mistake and that it would be 12-15 business days before they could send out the rest of the funds. I knew from my previous interaction with them that they have a system in place to “walk through” payment requests and to get them processed in 3-5 business days. I pushed for the 3-5 day process.
To make a long story short, I told the customer service phone rep to send a message to his supervisor informing him that as soon as I hung up the phone I was going to follow up with the SEC regarding the complaint I filed against TIAA-CREF (I gave them the name of the staff attorney and the file number for my complaint).
You can file a complaint against TIAA-CREF with the SEC here.
The outcome was that the balance of my money was in my checking account in less than 24 hours. Furthermore, it was seemingly impossible to get anyone at the company to do anything that would help me or resolve my case. But after mentioning the SEC, I received at least two calls from TIAA-CREF employees following up—finally—on my case letting me know how sorry they were.
Ed’s success came from filing a complaint with the Securities and Exchange Commission and making sure the customer service representatives were aware of the full complaint information. This escalated his case, and he was able to get some results.
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5:01 pm (reply)
When will investment firms ever get it that it’s not their money, it’s ours!
I shifted most of our retirement assets to Vanguard a couple of years ago and while we’re not retired yet and drawing on them, Vanguard is a class act. Plus they have some nice perks you may be eligible for.
11:33 pm (reply)
Sounds like an awful company. Thanks for the warning!
11:44 pm (reply)
I personally have had no problems with TIAA-Cref, but from their record if I did have a problem it seems it will be very difficult to solve. One the upside they are the best company for a 403B which is what my wife has from the school she teaches at.
9:53 am (reply)
I am a regulatory compliance “geek” in an independent consultant capacity. We also provide expert witness assistance as well. I happened upon this blog (showed up in my Google news) and found the investor oncerns raised herein to be disturbing.
This is not an ad for a service offering. We focus mainly on firm compliance and are a private, referral based entity. If you need investor assistance, you’ll want to contact a regulator and/or your legal counsel.
Good for the host(s)and contributors of this blog for providing guidance concerning dispute / complaint issues. No one should ever hesitate seeking assistance from a regulator when dealing with firm problems – they want to hear from you. In many situations, you might think you’re the lone person w/a complaint… only to find that many folks are having trouble.
You may wish to try the firm’s compliance department first – if you get no response (unlikely – but possible), send a duplicate marked, “Second Request” and copy that one to the appropriate regulator. We like to send one via fax and one via the mail (to ensure receipt). Keep copies of your communications. The “cc” to the regulator should be an attention getter. If no response (that would be a surprise), then follow-up with the regulator w/the copies of your attempts to resolve the matter and request to file a complaint.
No firm wants to get to the point where a regulator is following up with them on an investor issue that hasn’t been given appropriate attention.
Best wishes to all – don’t let a few bad situations scare…there are lots of firms out there that are pleased to help you invest and strive to deliver excellent service.
Kind regards,
ComplianceGeek
6:14 pm (reply)
To TIAA-CREF: SHAME, SHAME, SHAME!!!
I have been a customer at TIAA for over 11 years and have witness that this company has changed from the top of top to the bottom of bottom in terms of fund performance, customer services, managing accounts online (such as downloading), to security and best practice… It is now full of tiaa-craps and is a total waste of my time each time when I call their customer abusing call center, where green hands freshly hired simply are STUPID, HELPLESS, and USELESS! I cannot understand how can such a giant in mutual fund and retirement business for the highly concentrated smart people of higher leanings be ruined by Allison so quickly in such a short time ever since this jerk took over its top position.
To Allison: Shame, Shame, Shame!!!
I will manage to get all of our accounts (acount 20) transferred out if I have a change and the engery to tackle on them in the months to come.
Also, I will be the first one to sign up if anyone is going to file a class action lawsuit against it! Any takers?
5:08 pm (reply)
Ack! I’m in TIAA hell!!! Last year, I got flat-out wrong advice on a Roth IRA conversion from a TIAA rep. They also lost the paperwork to set it up, got it on the second try, then lost the paperwork to undo it (my income made me ineligible to do the conversion, so I had asked to undo it). Now, I’ve got a headache of unbelievable proportions. I’ve dealt with one great person there and five that ranged from incompetent to insulting. Unfortunately, I can’t even find a way to complain up the chain of command.
TIAA-CREF was great 10 years ago. They’re awful now. Every other financial group I’ve dealt with has been better.
8:37 pm (reply)
We need to get busy and vote on TIAA-CREF with our feet by: a) stopping our colleagues from giving additional contributions and b) convincing our non-profits to eliminate them from their options lists.
I first became in involved with TIAA-CREF in 1977. Looking back, it turned out to be a dismal day. How dismal only became apparent during the past decade or so as I approached retirement!
TIAA has never had a useful program for paying out lumpsums. Once they’ve got your money, you are absolutely out of luck. It will be annuitized on a mysterious schedule that favors them, and leaves you destitute. There is no realistic way to track the performance of any asset allocation you may choose in the annuity program. The only thing you can be certain of is that your money will underperform any other way to invest your retirement contributions you can imagine. This explains why TIAA-CREF has no true lumpsum program. If they had one, noone would annuitize with them.
Today, with all the 403b options available, any non-profit employee who gives these turkeys even a single additional penny of their retirement contributions is nuts, no spell that NUTS. If you have friends who are using them, get them to stop NOW. Let’s vote with our feet.
If your non-profit is still using these jerks as one of their options, get them to STOP (and set up their 403b program with a place like Fidelity or Vanguard), and be a hero to your friends by keeping them from getting screwed. It is also a benefit to your non-profit, because their precious funds will magically start doing more, instead of less good.
5:42 pm (reply)
I won’t go into detail, but suffice it to say that our experience with TIAA regarding our late father’s account has been just as horrible (or even more so) than detailed here. Our counsel is recommending a lawsuit.