I'm not sure why you're so defensive. I was not calling you a liar. I was pointing out that the process is very involved. You need to send out notifications about "blackout periods", where people can't make any changes to their holdings so that a proper snapshot of holdings can be taken and transferred. It seems unlikely that the notifications would not have been sent, if for no other reason that it causes panicked phone calls to HR when you log into your account and either can't do anything or can't see anything. Unlikely is not impossible, of course.My email was up to date. They did not provide any notification. I didn't fail to take action, they did. PRetty brazen of you to call me a liar and then double down on it.I'm sure they sent notification, via email, to whatever your last contact info was.I am a former employee and active participant of a 401k plan in which the employer previously paid all plan fees. Recently, and unbeknownst to me (since I was not provided any notification), the company switched the 401k plan to a new custodian. I just learned about this by logging into my account under the prior plan and seeing a $0 balance. I called the plan advisor to find out what was going on, and that's how Iearned the plan had changed. Again, I received no notification of any kind. On that call, I asked them if the employer was continuing to pay all plan expenses under the new plan, and they said "yes, nothing has changed relative to fees" in their email response.
I recently logged in to the new account and I see monthly fees are in fact being taken out of my account. I contacted them again and they said "oops, I was wrong, they are now making former employees pay admin fees."
My understanding is that 401k plans are required by law to provide advanced, written notification of plan changes including fee changes (so that, in part, employees can make informed decisions about whether they want to stay in the plan). However, I was provided zero notification, and I still don't have any documentation of the new fee schedule. Is my understanding correct that they are required to provide this beforehand? If so, do I have any recourse to recover the fees that they've already deducted from my account?
How would you recommend I approach this?
This is one of the dangers of keeping 401ks with former employers.
You don't get to opt into the fees. Your only action was to have transferred it to an IRA before the blackout date. Your lack of action was taken as consent.
You can try to file a complaint, but they'll easily be able to defend it since I'm sure they provided notice. Transferring plans takes a lot of effort. I really don't think it's possible for them to have forgotten to notify anyone.
And yes, it is possible that they forgot. Just look at the next post after yours.
What you want is a copy of the "summary plan document", which they are required to supply to you when you request it. "Summary" is an odd choice of names, since it documents everything about the plan, but that's what it's called.
If you want to file a complaint, it's the Employee Benefits Security Administration that handles ERISA plans.
Statistics: Posted by exodusNH — Wed Jun 19, 2024 7:48 pm