Vanguard Australia

The representative I spoke with on the phone was not good and did not instill confidence. After hearing very positive things about investing with Vanguard from people in America I was 95% ready to jump in but after chatting with this particular rep on the phone I'm thinking I may be better served looking at other options such as Fidelity. The person I spoke with seemed unenthusiastic and disinterested in answering my fairly simple questions to help get me on board and she didn't always speak clearly, she didn't even have the courtesy to say goodbye when I was concluding the phone call. If that's an example of the quality of customer support Vanguard australia offers then I'll need to consider other options because if there's a sudden unannounced system change that locks me out of my account I don't want to be relying on that kind of customer support to resolve it.

Called to ask customer service a simple question about my managed fund. After putting me on hold close to 30 minutes they hang up.

Most useless company I've dealt with in a long time. No return on my investment whereas my other managed funds have performed brilliantly.
Worst of all was customer support. Login portal completely rubbish and you wait forever on hold when on the phone. Lousy business. Look elsewhere for better investment opportunities and customer service

Avoid Vanguard at all costs. I made the mistake and I cannot even access my account now they changed to a new system and everyone is completely locked out. Then they do not inform customers at all. There is no email, no sms, nothing at all, not even on the website. Seriously how hard would it be to keep customers informed? And you can try calling customer service many times they never answer (it hangs up on you after waiting 20 minutes) and the callback service they never return the call. I seriously do not understand a company with this poor customer service can still be operating. If i could give zero stars i would. Don't just believe positive reviews as they are easily faked or written by people with no clue of the real situation. It was a bad omen right from the start when they took almost two weeks to set up the basic Australian and international index fund after taking my money.

Excellent Index investments accounts. Performed as advertised, and low fees usually below 1%. Other funds have insanely high fees, and not clear about it.
Website has plenty of educational and clear product info. Overall good fund performance for long term investors.
But slow and difficult to do business with. Need to improve service delivery.

Slow to respond. Phone is busy for long periods, even all day. Email can take weeks for reply. I suspect they're under staffed. Vanguard is a low cost and long term fund. So I didn't mind the slow responses.
You can transfer funds in easily using BPAY.
Online accounts show balance and contact details.
You CANNOT transfer funds out online, and no reporting tools.
You can go to the individual product pages and see unit prices. Usually a 2 day delay on 'Prices & Distributions' info.
Quarterly performance reports are emailed.
Currently they require any change, or request to be done by paper forms. If you change contact details you have to post a form each time.
Only accept mailed hard copy or fax for 'security'.
Absurd and illogical. Post and fax are less secure and slower than email.
They can call or text customers to check email and identity.
Also offer self service tools like internet banking.
I emailed my feedback on the above points for management. At least CS replied, but I don't think they cared. In 2019 this is ridiculous.

Be mindful it is not fast or easy to access your funds later. After saving for 1.5 years I decided to withdraw my funds, and emailed the form.
First time they replied so fast. Only to reject my emailed form. Was worth a try. They suggest using fax.
I sent fax and got a confirmation of successful send. I gave it a few days and emailed to follow up. No reply.
One week passed so I called. CS claim they never got it. They request fax but it's unreliable. Very strange. They seem behind in communication methods.
Finally posted a printed form. Another week later and they processed my request. Inconvenient and backward way to do business. What a shame. But for long term savings and investments they work well as advertised.