so I called vanguard on Thursday.
Less than an hour later, my ira account was set up and I had the LOA and LOI on letterhead in hand with full instructions. Easy, peasy. This morning, I just checked my bank -- I already received the "ping" transactions on Friday!
Meantime, at the place where I work, it took 10 days for them to receive the paper application (they're a 4 hour drive from here). They called me with a question. Somehow their call didn't bounce to my voicemail. I picked up and immediately got a message that I would be charged $1/minute for the call. 
I'm assuming it's due to being a tracfone, but who knows. So I hung up. Someone checked for me at work: they apparently misplaced the voided check I'd enclosed because they were calling to verify my banking information.
I had written a note on my asset xfer form that Fidelity won't be sending them the check, they will only send it to me, so I need the instructions. I meant to add "so do NOT send them an LOA" but ran out of space. Somebody checked at work yesterday. They sent out the LOA to Fidelity.
Too late. I'm going with Vanguard. No fuss, no muss, everything is set up and ready to go. I like being a "concierge" customer. I'm so used to being kicked around, this is a nice change 
= new reply since forum marked as read
they confirmed they updated my social security number as requested.
it's not my imagination. we are a bunch of total eff ups!
