I have to start out by saying I am extremely impressed with Fidelity's customer service. I spoke to three different people and they were all polite and very helpful.
The first person I spoke to wasn't the person I needed to speak with, but I messed up the logging in process at the beginning. Goes to show you how many times I've actually called them--NONE! He verified who I was and then very politely transferred me to the correct person.
The second person handled the 401K area only. He very respectfully let me know that he would be happy to help, but that he didn't have access to the pension accounts. We went through the whole process of making the request for a check made out to Vanguard so I could rollover my funds without IRS penalties. He then transferred me to the pension department.
This last person was also very nice. Apparently getting the pension transferred takes a bit longer along with additional paperwork. It amazingly takes up to 90 days to get it closed out and that's assuming all the paperwork goes back and forth within a reasonable amount of time. Because of the nature of a pension, my husband will also have to sign the form along with notarization. I don't have a problem with that and it will be a good time to get the wills notarized too while we're at it.
So now the next step for me is to open the Vanguard account as soon as I receive the 401K check. I can only hope the process will be as easy for my husband's old 401K with Merrill Lynch, but I have a feeling we won't be as lucky. We've heard they have a tendency to make things difficult when you want to rollover funds.
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