A federal agency that manages government workers’ retirement accounts appears to have bungled a website upgrade, leaving employees unable to access their accounts and make stock market trades, just as a souring economy has many needing to access their nest eggs.
The government in late 2020 awarded Accenture a contract to revamp the Thrift Savings Plan (TSP) technology and make it more like the 401(k) plans offered by private employers. But the system, which managed $644 billion for some 6.1 million federal employees and members of the uniformed services, is a mess, say employees.
“I have a pregnant wife who is a stay at home mom who now has to consider going back to work because everything is so expensive,” David Hicks, a former federal employee who spent more than two and a half hours on hold with TSP, told The Daily Wire. “Getting this withdrawal from my TSP account would be a lifesaver for both of us, but I have no access to it. And I know I’m not alone.”
The new website requires users to recreate their accounts, but the process is plagued with problems. The user interface has dropdowns that are below the visible portion of the screen, graphics that flicker when the website is scrolled, and often directs users to a blank page.
“We are experiencing high volumes of participants setting up their new login for My Account,” a banner on the site reads. “This is also affecting ThriftLine call volumes, making hold times longer than normal. We’re working to address these issues. Thank you for your patience.”
On Reddit, one poster said his home purchase was falling through because of the website’s problems, after a year and a half of attempting to buy a home in a bad market. He said he called repeatedly and got various answers that did not solve the problems even after waiting on hold for a combined 16 hours.
“My closing agent is losing faith in the TSP to deliver my funds and there’s nothing I can do about it,” the man wrote. “I feel helpless watching my one opportunity to own a home slip away. I just don’t know what to do.”
Another Reddit post said “During this up and down market, the inability to get into your system and change your holding is absolutely ridiculous. This is a 600-700B portfolio holding… CLASS ACTION LAWSUIT is all I can say,” he wrote.
A third federal retiree wrote, “The TSP failure is the way the federal government works… This is the culmination of decades of a sloppy contracting philosophy bringing a halt to the everyday self management of $750 billion in retirement savings and investments of six million Fed employees and retirees. I have never seen anything like this.”
Yet another poster said “No beneficiaries saved, no history saved, no transactional history and year to date performance saved in this transition!! Total disaster. Whoever made this TOTALLY screwed it up!”
Kim Weaver, a spokeswoman for the Federal Retirement Thrift Investment Board (FRTIB), which manages TSP, told The Daily Wire the revamped system is working for most people.
“We’re well aware that some people are having trouble creating a new login, but roughly 85% of people who have attempted to create a new account have been able to do that,” Weaver said. “We’re seeing people doing withdrawals, making contributions. I’m not diminishing the frustrations of people who are having problems, because it is frustrating. Had I been one of those people, I’d be more than irritated.”
Weaver said many users’ accounts did not retain their beneficiary designations when the switch was made. She acknowledged that the agency got 120,000 calls just last Wednesday and could not keep up with them.
Stacey Jones, a spokesperson for Accenture, did not return a request for comment.
Even as the retirement website struggles, Accenture was in May awarded a $175 million contract with NASA, with an executive saying “We are thrilled to help NASA leverage innovative methodologies, including fit-for-purpose crowd-based challenges and competitions, to deliver its mission-critical products and services.”
The collapse of a federal website at a time when it is most needed is reminiscent of the Affordable Healthcare Act website, which dealt a heavy blow to “Obamacare” after CGI Federal’s website did not work. In 2014, Accenture was brought in to fix it.