issues w/ wells fargo direct transfer
my aunt passed away in january and left me part of her pension and part of her IRA. i walked into a wells fargo branch on friday afternoon to set up an inherited IRA account for myself for the pension…after about 20 minutes of trying to explain to the person what exactly an inherited IRA was, he called their HQ and got the details he needed on what forms we needed to fill out. everything was filled out on an inherited IRA form, with my name and info and my aunt’s name and info…it was all mailed out to wells fargo’s processing center on friday, along with the paperwork from the pension plan to have them release the money directly to wells fargo.
so far, so good…until i looked over the wells fargo form and noticed a slight mistake that could mess everything up: on the note for how the current custodian is supposed to make the funds payable, they screwed the names up.
wells fargo, custodian for _________________________, beneficiary of ______________ (decedent) IRA.
this means my name should have been first, and my aunt (obviously) as the decedent. however, they had the first field blank and my name in the second field.
the rest of the form appears to be correct. my aunt is on there with all her info as the original owner, and me as the new owner / beneficiary. i called WF this morning and they said that once it’s mailed it goes directly to a processing center, so they won’t even see my paperwork before the account is opened to correct it. i went back to the branch this morning and talked to the guy that i worked with on friday, he corrected the form in pen, gave me a copy, and said he’d have to call and get some info but he’d take care of it.
is this gonna be a problem? am i screwed here? what steps should i take to make sure this gets done correctly? should i call the pension plan and direct them to make sure they don’t release any funds payable directly to me?
Permalink Submitted by Alan Spross on Mon, 2012-04-09 16:03
As long as you keep a copy of the incomplete form and document your discussions with Wells, even if the IRA is not titled correctly and receives the funds, this can be corrected with no consequences other than jangled nerves.
More serious an issue would be a check made out directly to you with no mention whatever of an inherited IRA, but that does not appear to be a potential outcome here.
Permalink Submitted by matthew greco on Mon, 2012-04-09 16:23
i no longer have a copy of the incomplete form, because when i took it back in this morning he crossed out my name on the decedent line (and wrote her name in over it), and wrote my name in on the “custodian for” line. he gave me a copy of the newly corrected form, though.
should that suffice?
Permalink Submitted by Alan Spross on Mon, 2012-04-09 16:39
Yes, just keep some side notes, eg who you spoke to and when and who made the handwritten changes. Fortuneately, the back room people who will get this mess are much more competent on these matters than the branch staff, since they deal with it all the time. They are extremely unlikely do act if there are any questions in their mind after seeing the paperwork. It should work out OK.