Things Are Unnecessarily Complicated

A few days ago I wrote about how lousy my 401k was performing and how they wouldn't allow me to no longer make partial withdrawals. Instead I have to either take all of it in cash, incurring a huge tax penalty, or roll it over. I'm sharing this because I wonder if anyone else ran into this.

What I did was I opened an new IRA account with the bank I have online. Filled out the form to transfer my 401k to them on January 3rd. Today (January 12th) I called them and they said they never received the form. IMAGINE THAT!

They suggested I reprint the form and send it to another address. Problem is my printer gave up the ghost three days so I couldn't do that. BTW I Googled and found out most printers last only about 3 years. Mine is over 6 years old.

So instead I went back to my 401k's website which said it was only a simple matter of calling them if I wanted to rollover to a outside banking account. It couldn't be done online. After jumping through the hoops to finally get a rep she said she'd transfer me to a specialist for rollovers. After holding for 5 minutes or so .. To make a long story short, a half hour later he was as confused as I. So instead I settled for going back online and opening yet another IRA account with them instead.

Theoretically I could have done all of this over a week ago. If everything works out, in 3 or 4 days my money will be with these same administrators. Then I'm supposed to be able to transfer money from that account to my online savings, then from there to my local checking account at yet another site and finally start paying my bills. This should take about 9 business days.

The problem is I had unexpected bills I hadn't budgeted for. The printer that blew up. A furnace that quit and a new computer. For the first time since my retirement I know how people feel who live paycheck to paycheck. At this point I only have $16 in checking and need to get my hands on that money PDQ!

Anyone have a similar experience?