The good news is that thanks to all the great info I've been reading here, last week, I started trying to transfer my IRA from Edward Jones to Fidelity. Yay! But now EJ keeps throwing up road blocks and gaslighting me. I thought I was prepared by everything I've read, but good grief, this is extremely frustrating and now I need help. Question:

Should I step back and first transfer my holdings from this awful EJ "Guided Solutions" account to a "Self-directed" account, so that I can then liquidate the four securities that Fidelity says won't transfer in kind? That would also clear the negative balance that EJ created in my Cash account when they charged me their closing fee. Or should I just liquidate the entire EJ IRA holdings and transfer the cash to my Fidelity IRA where I'm ready to buy my three new holdings?

FYI, at the end of today, the EJ branch manager tried to tell me that my situation is VERY unique (I told her I don't believe that), that their transfer department said I can't transfer my account because those four holdings can't be liquidated! The branch manager went on to say that she and my FA have NO idea how to resolve this, so they are waiting for answers and would have to get back to me tomorrow. That's when I interrupted and told her that of course my money can be moved, that they are just trying to hold it hostage to squeeze as many fees out as possible, and the answer they are going to get back from the Transfer Dept. is that because I'm in a "Guided Solutions" acct., my holdings will now have to be liquidated and then the cash transferred to the new Fidelity account. And because it's an IRA, this won't trigger a taxable event. Then I called her back and said, please also send the message to my FA that I may take the other option which is to change to a self-directed account and then take care of it from there. But that option doesn't seem like a good one now.

Did I get all of that right? What am I missing?

Thanks again for your help!! I'm just really glad I'm awake now. I'm 63 years old and I really want my money to last as long as possible without the EJ vampires sucking me dry.