Buried deeply in the bowels of our ridiculous IRS tax code is a clause/section that states one can transfer money from a 403 or 457 retirement account to a government sponsored account. My pension plan is considered a government sponsored account that allows participants to buy service credit with either retirement account money or out-of-pocket contributions, the former of which is what I wanted to do. It's in effect what's called a rollover.I’d be interested in hearing the details of this if you want to talk about it.
I called Fidelity and asked them to send me the paperwork so I could begin the process. Two different employees said that was not permitted by law and I politely stated that it was and even offered to send them the section of the IRS tax code wherein it states it's allowed. They still refused.
So I filed a complaint with the SEC with the details and they said if you don't hear from Fidelity within 10 business days contact us again.
Nine days later I get a letter from Fidelity's compliance officer that stated that I "alleged" that they said they would not allow the transaction. "Alleged" my ass. Anyway, the letter finished by saying they would allow the rollover and assigned a "specialist" to assist me. That so-called specialist was an idiot and said he had never heard of such a transaction before and was not familiar with how to do it.
Great.
He finally was able to get me the proper paperwork after talking to other employees and I filled it out and sent it back. I also called my pension plan to inform them of incoming funds to buy credit years and asked if others had had problems doing the rollover like I had had. The lady I spoke to laughed and said they have had more problems with Fidelity than any other vendor. I believed her too because I did an identical rollover with Tiaa-Cref and it was a breeze.