BOSTON -- Fidelity Investments is cutting off phone privileges for 30,000 investors who jam the company's lines, some calling every hour, with routine queries for stock quotes and account balances.
The mutual fund giant is now routing calls from these customers to representatives who've been instructed not to answer such questions. Instead, the callers will be directed to Fidelity's automated telephone and Internet systems."I feel like I've been blacklisted," said Joseph Bellock, a special counsel in the New York State Attorney General's office and one of the frequent callers cut off by Fidelity.
Fidelity's move is designed to save money: a phone call fielded by a human being costs Fidelity an average of $13, while an automated phone call costs only $1.
The company wouldn't say how frequently a customer had to be calling to make the list, which represents a tiny fraction of the 6 million mutual fund and brokerage accounts at Fidelity.
Only 34 of the 30,000 customers singled out as frequent callers have complained.
Fidelity receives about 680,000 calls a day, 77 percent of which are handled by automated systems. Most mutual fund customers call four or five times a year, while those who trade stocks in a brokerage account call an average of 15 times a year.
Last week, Fidelity sent letters to 25,000 customers who call repeatedly for balances, quotes or other information, instructing them on how to use its Web site or automated phone system instead. The same letter was sent to 5,000 customers last year.
David O'Leary, an industry analyst at Alpha Equity Research in Portsmouth, N.H., applauded Fidelity's move, saying the customers who call so frequently are just lazy, retired or have nothing else to do.
"The more they can drive their customers to the Internet, the more they reduce their costs," said O'Leary.
The frequent callers will still be able to talk to a phone representative to ask more complicated questions, said Anne Crowley, a Fidelity spokeswoman. Many people simply need instruction on how to use the automated systems, she said.
"Most people, once they've been shown it, said, 'This was great,' " Crowley said.