Tuesday, February 27, 2007
I spent a very frustrating afternoon and evening trying to sell stock. I've got stock in about 14 remaining companies that I have to sell so Piper can move it into bonds and mutual funds. Some of it is piddling little stuff like 3 shares of Avaya (a spinoff from some other stock), and 4 shares of IDEARC (a spinoff from Verizon), and I don't even know what IDEARC is.
The stock is all "book entry", and I thought I had online accounts with the various transfer agents. But the last time I dealt with most of them was in 2002, and every single company has, in the meantime, changed agents. I had to track down the new folks. To register with them, you have to do the SS# bit and all that, and then they'll send a confirmation number by snail mail, which you then have to use to get to the account.
On the other hand, you can call their phone number and sell the stock with nothing but the social security number.
I gave up on the online idea. I now have to wait until Thursday to make some calls (busy tomorrow).
It turns out this is good. The market crashed and burned today. It was the deepest drop since 9/11/01, and I didn't find that out until the 11 o'clock news. If I hadn't had all that trouble finding out who and how, I'd have really messed me over. I'm not selling anything now for a while.
I did manage to get to one account, and I'm worried. I should have a decent block of Wells Fargo, but when I got through to my account with their transfer agent, the account shows "number of shares = 0". Huh? If they think the account is abandoned (which can happen if they've got the wrong address and mail is returned to them), they'll turn the stock over to the state. So I went to the state unclaimed funds site, and I'm not listed there at all. Where did that stock go? Did that get sold last spring and I forgot to note it? This is why I hate book entry. I like having certificates in my hand.
It is now midnight, and I'm not going to sleep until I have the tax stuff together. It's going to be a long night.
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1 comment:
Sometimes when the universe insists on telling you no, you just have to listen. It's frustrating when we're used to getting our way most of the time.
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