Many people had to use their retirement savings during the pandemic.
Among them is Dulce Jimenez, a personal chef.
When the pandemic hit, she said she lost most of her clientele.
“I had five clients, one for each day of the week, all clients canceled,” Jimenez said.
She said the loss of income forced her to look for a way to stay financially afloat.
“As you can imagine, it was very difficult, it was very difficult,” Jimenez said.
In January, she decided to take $ 105,000 from her retirement plan from her previous employer. She said she wants to keep $ 25,000 of that and put the remaining $ 80,521 into a Rollover IRA account with Fidelity Investments.
She said she opened an old account for the Rollover IRA over the phone and handed over a check at Fidelity’s office, following instructions from representatives.
“I saw there was a deposit and I said, yes, my check has been deposited,” Jimenez said.
But she soon noticed that the money was in the wrong account. She said the money appeared in her Roth IRA account instead of the Rollover IRA account.
She feared this mistake would cost her thousands of taxes if not corrected.
Jimenez says she called Fidelity and asked for the money to be transferred to the right account.
“From that day on, I started calling Fidelity. It has been a nightmare for me since that day, ”said Jimenez.
When the error was not rectified a month later, she called NBC 6 Responds for help.
“You called me and the problem was solved the next day. I really couldn’t believe it. That someone took the time to call me, “Jimenez said.
When NBC 6 Responds contacted Fidelity Investments, a spokesperson told us in a statement: “At Fidelity, we strive to provide an excellent user experience and regret any frustration that has resulted from this case. Although we cannot comment on individual customers, this kind of thing is rare and we are glad that our representatives have successfully resolved it. “
Jimenez said that after we contacted Fidelity, she called a representative to inform her that the problem stemmed from the automatic transfer capability associated with the old account.
Once the problem was resolved, she received a letter from Fidelity apologizing and confirming that there would be no tax consequences as a result of the error.
“Sometimes we don’t know what one act of kindness can do for someone, and you did it for me,” Jimenez said.
