ShareBuilder Account Transfer Completed

The whole process took less time than I expected.

An email from ShareBuilder arrived yesterday, informing me that a check has been issue to me. Since I didn’t make any withdraw request myself, it could only be part of the account transfer process. So I logged in to my Zecco free trading account and was quite pleased to find that the 155 shares of PFM used to be held at ShareBuilder are now in Zecco’s custody. It feels like it was just yesterday that ShareBuilder told me the transfer could be completed in 30 days. Now, in less than a week since I got the last update, it’s done!

As you can see from the above picture, though all the shares are transferred as they are, the history of transactions at ShareBuilder is lost as the cost basis at Zecco is now showing as $0. Fortunately, I keep a record of all the transactions in Quicken, so the cost basis of my position is preserved, kind of, despite the move.

In general, the transfer was quite smooth without noticeable delays. Following is the timeline of the transfer process:

1. On June 20th, I faxed my account transfer request to Zecco;
2. Original transfer form was mailed to Zecco on June 23rd;
3. ShareBuilder informed me on July 8th that the transfer couldn’t proceed because of missing signature guarantee;
4. ShareBuilder *changed* mind and gave the transfer the go-ahead on July 11th;
5. The transfer was completed on July 17th, exactly 4 weeks after the request was submitted.

On ShareBuilder part, a $50 transfer fee was deducted from my account on July 12th. Since I had a little over $60 in cash (in ShareBuilder money market fund actually) at that time, no additional liquidation of shares was needed to cover the cost. Whatever remained in the money market fund plus the proceeds from selling partial shares are paid in check instead of being transferred to Zecco.

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