Many thanks to all who have responded. The sense of the meeting is that
(a) It’s a matter for the feds, most precisely for EBSA
(b) My ex-employer has a duty under relevant legislation (ERISA — the
Employee Retirement Income Security Act) to respond “prudently and in the
interest of [me] and other plan participants and beneficiaries” when
operating my plan, so there is likely some sort of technical violation
here — especially in their having taken three months to notice that my
forms were not completed correctly. However, this is one of those
violations nobody is going to do anything about unless I file a case in
Federal court.
(c) Even then, my ex-employer has all sorts of outs and excuses she can
deploy. The feds regard all this as basically market transactions,
self-regulated by competition. I shouldn’t have signed up to their stupid
401K plan in the first place. (But how was I supposed to know they are
incompetent plan fiduciaries?) Since I have a full paper trail on this, and
since I have said nothing untrue, and since I am seriously ticked off, I’ll
tell you that the employer is A & Z Software Shop of New Hyde Park, New
York, run by a certain A. Kay Silverstein, and advise you to have nothing to
do with their pension arrangements if you can possibly help it.
My only real option here is to file a Federal case, which would at least
inconvenience them, though it might end up costing me money. Anyway, for
the time being, I have put in a call to my local EBSA office & left a
message. (Yes! Can you believe it? A government office that doesn’t pick
up their phone!) I shall report any further developments.