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Warning: Fidelity Cash Mgmt Account DOES NOT cash third party bill pay checks

KnnNike

Just got through an hourlong hold with Fidelity, where she had to speak with 5 different back office reps to find this information.

If you use Quicken Bill Pay, or any other 3rd party bill pay service, and Fidelity Cash Mgmt is your funding account, ***DO NOT*** use the 'Send a check' option. The biller will receive the check, and show it as "cashed", then like a week later you'll get a notice from the biller that Fidelity refused to the funds request.

It appears (again, took 5 different back office people to get this info) that Fidelity's policy is to blanket refuse any and all third party checks. So unless the physical check being cashed is from the checkbook that Fidelity themselves sent you, they will automatically reject it.

This policy isn't published anywhere that either I or the Fidelity rep could find.

Fidelity touts their deep partnership with Quicken + the fact that the Cash Mgmt accounts are 'just like a checking account'...yet no checking account I've ever had in 20 years of using QBP has had this policy.

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KnnNike

UPDATE 1:

When you check your Fidelity cash management account online, there are two numbers shown: routing number and account number. That account number is what I have fed into QBP, and it has worked successfully dozens of times for electronic/ACH transfers.

In 20 years of using bill pay, with any bank that includes an online portal, that online-displayed "account number" has exactly matched the "account number" on my physical checks from that bank.

Now, as I'm looking at my physical Fidelity checkbook...they don't match. The "account number" on the physical checks is different than the "account number" shown online.

I'm back on the phone with Fidelity now, as I'm now questioning their earlier explanation of "we won't cash third-party checks". Maybe it is indeed because the third-party check used the online account number, maybe not. Either way, it's a hassle that I've never heard of or encountered with any other bank or credit union. What a pain in the ****$.

KnnNike

UPDATE 2: Another 45-minute call with Fidelity, multiple back offices. Nobody knows for sure.

The rep I just spoke with claimed to speak with 2 different back office groups. Group #1 is insisting that Fidelity will, in fact, not cash/honor any third-party/QBP checks with the account holder info on them. Same as I was told before.

But Group #2 is insisting that the problem is that the third party checks must use the account number starting with 7710, which is what the physical Fidelity checks have, not the online account number starting with 399.

What an incompetent mess. So I guess I need to find a biller that won't charge me a returned check fee and test out Group #2's hypothesis.

NotACPA

@KnnNike Fidelity is a brokerage, not a bank. Thus, legally, Q can't actually create a true "checking account". A Fidelity (and Schwab and Vanguard, etc) MMF works like a checking account, but isn't really.

If you look closely at your checks that you received from Fidelity, they read, in the small print next to the Fidelity logo, "UMB Bank, NA". It's that bank, previously known as United Missouri Bank, that processes the checks for Fidelity and it's the "7710" account number by which UMB knows the account … NOT the 399 number.

KnnNike

https://community.quicken.com/discussion/comment/20545099#Comment_20545099

I'd appreciate it if you would try to view things through the lens of an average Joe, versus simply trying to find the exact counterargument/"oh here's why you're wrong" point to what I'm saying.

First of all, Fidelity's cash management account is absolutely not the same thing as a MMF. The CMA is still FDIC-insured, with a real bank (UMB, as you state) on the back end. MMFs are neither FDIC insured, nor do they use anything other than the investment firm itself.

Fidelity goes to great lengths to advertise that its CMAs function exactly like a regular checking/savings account. And that includes bill pay…yes, they advertise that you can use the CMA to do bill pay. What they don't do, is make it clear on what the exact limits of that are. At the very least, they need some simple disclosure like:

*for electronic/ACH bill pay only. Bill pay using third-party mailed checks is not supported

How hard is this?

NotACPA

When I sign into MY Fidelity CMA, here's what it shows for that CMA account.

NOT "bank account".

Fidelity isn't a bank. It can move your money TO a bank account … but at Fidelity it's still a MMF.

KnnNike

Holding cash from a CMA in a MMF is not the same as the CMA being a MMF. I'm not saying the back end is simple. But again…the CMA is FDIC-insured…a MMF is not.

If my HSA holds some of my money in an investment account, it doesn't make my HSA an investment account…it remains an HSA, with all of the legal and protections and functional expectations around that. Ditto for a CMF.

The fact remains that the complexity of Fidelity's CMF with respect to bill pay is not nearly well-enough explained by Fidelity. And I posted here as an FYI to anyone else who runs into the same issue.

Yet, again, you seem hell-bent on trying to…I don't even know, say "here's why you're wrong". What a bizarre behavior…

NotACPA

So, prove your point by displaying your counterpart to the graphic that I put up.

And, I keep saying that you're wrong because you are. Take a look at my credentials.