Fidelity Investor Center

It’s really too bad that the prior review of Fidelity was so bad. I’ve been using Fidelity Investments since the 1970s. Having a local branch is very convenient. I’ve used them for a variety of services, all of which have been and continue to be well managed.
In the times I have been there, they have always been professional and pleasant and provided whatever service I needed quickly. If you need to wait, they have butter cookies, candies and a Keurig Coffee Maker with a variety of choices.

So my company has a 401(k) through Fidelity. A couple of things happened this year, so I decided it would be a good idea to sit down with someone and go over my 401(k), my brokerage account, et cetera…
I called the local branch for their hours, and was told that the first available appointment was over two weeks from now. They added that walk-​ins were welcome, but that I may wait 30 – 45 minutes, if I didn’t have an appointment.
I walked in, and waited. When I finally got to sit down with an adviser, I had to sign a form just so they could access my account (I’m fine with that)… Andrias was nice enough, and he did give me some solid advice (recommended all Fidelity funds, of course), but at the end of the review (which was online), I said something to the effect of «Sounds good, let’s do that», and was told that they can’t; I’d have to do it myself either online or by phone.
Fast forward to today (3 days later)… I pull up my personalized portfolio review, and begin the arduous (and ultimately futile) 90-​minute attempt at actually executing the moves that Andrias, the portfolio review ‘tool’, and I had settled on… only to find out 90 minutes and one phone call into this fiasco that 7 out of the 8 investments recommended to me by the portfolio review ‘tool’ on my company 401(k) page aren’t even offered under my plan!
So now I’m back to square one– if I don’t want to use the Fidelity ‘Freedom’ funds (half of which I don’t qualify for, and on top of that, I’ve heard mixed reviews of these so-​called ‘Freedom’ funds), that eliminates well over half the choices available to me, leaving me 15 plans, only one of which was actually recommended on my portfolio review. So now I need to go back, read the (overly-​rosy and optimistic) prospectuses* (prospecti?) on the other 14 (*but remember– past performance is not an indicator of future results), get through two or three before they all start sounding the same, then ultimately employ either the dart-​board and/​or billiard table method to try to decide which funds to invest in.
Fidelity– Thanks for NOTHING.