Confusion
From HPAlumnipedia
...A Short Essay
From the HPAlumnipedia (www.hpalumnipedia.com) on Wednesday, August 27, 2008 at 18:31 • Page last modified: 5/23/2008
HPAlumnipedia > Leaving HP > Confusion
Curt Gowan, October 2005:
Your confusion is just beginning...
I don't remember all the details from my 2002 EER, but I do remember:
- Every aspect of leaving HP was handled separately. And by a different financial outfit or outsourcing company.
- The Fidelity phone rep did capitulate and move my money after I let him spiel for 15 minutes.
- Some of my stuff went through Addison Avenue Financial Partners and some through Vanguard. In both cases it went well, but getting the money to them and in an account took much longer than it should have.
- You need to ask a lot of questions to understand what is going on and to be sure that things are set up the way you want them.
- Ensure that any checks are made out to "{Trustee} FBO {Your Name}" – not directly in your name. ("FBO" means "For the Benefit Of.") While you can work around this, it is best that none of the retirement money touches your bank account. You can have the check sent to your address or to the address of the receiving institution.
- All checks came in regular mail – nothing traceable.
- As always in the financial industry, the time value of your money is disregarded. You will have difficulty catching a special deal, a limited-time rate, or a market opportunity – and weeks go by with big money in limbo gathering no returns.
The whole experience of leaving HP is complex, exhausting, and surrealistic.
A few examples of surrealism that come to mind:
- You get a tiny check from a bank you never heard of. It looks like an error, but it is the sale of the remaining fractional share, minus charges and fees. The largest check anyone reported in 2003 was for $1.78.
- The biggest check you get comes in a window envelope with the amount visible. [Fixed in the 2007 EER cycle. However the check now comes with the amount only in numerals – there is a blank in the space where the amount is normally written out in words. Members report that a few financial institutions have trouble with this. --cg, 7/07]
- You must get a "Medallion Guarantee" to transfer any paper stock certificates.
- etc, etc.
Every few days for months you will get a cryptic mailing that you must decode.
Some of them are merely regulatory boilerplate – but many of them of them are extremely important... And some have deadlines.
As I said at the time: "Each mailing brings you a coded message – providing many hours of suspenseful, character-building entertainment... One very special message playfully implies that you have had no medical coverage for the previous two weeks. This one is truly important! What if you were to injure your head on your desk while reading your mail?"
Seriously, we need to remember how generous HP is being compared to other companies that are reducing staff.
It is hard to decode each mailing to determine what it actually means and what action to take. But each mailing does force you to review some part of your finances – perhaps an aspect that you haven't been paying much attention to over the years.
Jane Bryant Quinn's book, Making the Most of Your Money is very helpful in understanding all this. She explains how things work – including the questionable financial products – and how the hidden charges and expenses creep in. My favorite quotation about buying financial products: "You shouldn't buy anything too complex to explain to the average 12-year old."
