I opened 4 accounts at Fidelity at the end of July 2025, transferring about $4M of funds from Schwab. A reason I did this was Fidelity's promotion. I got a $2,000 promotion bonus for transferring these funds. I expected competent brokerage services from Fidelity,
On 11/10/25, my accounts were hacked. A WROS account was added for someone from Idaho, along with an attempt to transfer $45K from another account's money market funds.
In response to this attack, Fidelity closed my accounts & opened new ones. As far as I know, Fidelity did nothing to refer the scammer whose name and address were on the scam account to the police or FBI.
I hired an IT professional & began doing everything recommended: Changing passwords on all financial & email accounts, adding & replacing "authenticators" &/or "two-factor authentications" on all financial/email accounts, checking and deleting any hacker-added filters to my email accounts, etc.
On 11/14/25, before I could even complete all these recommended security measures, another Fidelity hack occurred.
In response, Fidelity overreacted, not only closing my then existing accounts, it locked me out of all of them, demanding a phone call. In that phone call with two Fidelity reps, I was bullied, reprimanded, and threatened that if I did not say the words "I promise to professionally clean all devices," & actually have this done to Fidelity's satisfaction, I would not be given access to any Fidelity accounts. You know, the accounts with MY MONEY in them. The accounts I told the Fidelity reps I had already taken steps to protect, & was in the process of taking further steps, when the 2nd attack happened and Fidelity locked me out and prevented me from completing more protective steps.
I don't know if Fidelity reps talk to all its customers this way, or just to women, just to any customer who's only got $4M in assets deposited with them, but it's clearly inappropriate. I responded with my own threat, that if Fidelity didn't want me as a customer, there were plenty of other brokerages, & I was sure I could find another brokerage which would value me as a customer. The Fidelity rep then restored my access to my newly created accounts. But frankly, at that point, the damage had been done & I was fed up with Fidelity.
I continued to experience this sub-par & even offensive & discriminatory service til May of 2026, when I was still getting statements for the closed & fraudulent accounts even though six mos. had gone by since the two ID theft incidents occurred. Fidelity was unable/unwilling to close the fraudulent/hacked accounts.
After ~6 months of Fidelity not managing to reconcile and close the fraudulent/hacked accounts, I called on 5/1/26 & spoke with a "retirement" rep to ask why I was still getting statements for the fraudulent WROS account which still had a $-.05 balance, going on 5+ mos. at this point. I spent an hour & 12 minutes on the phone with this person, who put me on hold repeatedly while trying to get answers. He told me the following nonsense: 1) "Fidelity doesn't close accounts" (obviously false) 2) I could "hide" this statement online (actually not possible); 3) the only way to close this account with a negative $.05 balance was to transfer $.05 from another account (?!?!?); and 4) the reason this account could have a negative balance is because "of a dividend coming in after transfer." He kept repeating this "dividend" BS, & the final time he returned from a long hold, said "we're going to close your account, but I can't tell you when or how." A few minutes later I got a call from (817) 722-9727 and was told the account had been removed & I would no longer see it displayed on my Fidelity page. This was true: the scam WROS account had finally been removed, proving the guy who kept me on the phone for an hour & 12 minutes spewing falsities had completely wasted my time.
Infuriated, I then sent Fidelity a message, attaching my 3/26 statement for the WTOS account with a balance of $-.05 documenting this fiasco.
Six days later on 5/7, "Tracie C." responded, acknowledging Fidelity's inappropriate threats and incompetence. She wrote "The fraudulent Joint account opened on 11/10/25, and the additional fraudulent login on 11/17/25, indicated security concerns with your device. To further protect your accounts, Fidelity asked that you have your device professionally cleaned to ensure there is no malware active on it. The fraudulent Joint account was removed from your profile on 4/30/26, after your phone call with our representative was further escalated with our Fraud team. We truly apologize for the frustration and inconvenience caused by this phone call and assure you that the relevant parties have received feedback to prevent similar situations in the future."
Again, I was not "asked," I was threatened. Again, the scam account wasn't removed after 5 months or on 4/30. It took 6 mos. & a protracted call with a rep who gaslit me for over an hour. read more
