Exactly what I was thinking. My 403B and, later, 401K contributions were always managed by a plan administrator and the money was out of the company. I’m very surprised to hear the woman thinks they need the CEO to sign off on access to their 401K funds. Perhaps it is as you speculate...somehow they used a bogus “internal IRA,” not one run by and outside plan administrator.
I think it may vary state to state.
Wasn’t it in the mid-80s when a lot of companies were found to be placing the monies for 401Ks into dangerously silly (criminal, in my opinion) stocks?
I’m drawing a complete blank on the companies in general.
I did know one lady whose retirement funds were completely wiped out because of what I would have considered malfeasance on the part of the company.
When the company I worked for merged the first think I always looked for were to see what was fully funded and what was not. Folks laughed at me, not realizing if we merged with a company not fully funded it would hurt us if anything bad happened to happen.