It was a glitch that was a little more that "prevented her account from being displayed". The reps could not see it ever existed. Meaning the backend really snafued.

But there was more than likely post mortems and days of meetings over it. Since it sounds it was a edge case upon edge case they didn't plan for.

>When she called on Monday, she received some more clues on what went wrong: Since her account was originally opened with a tax identification number (she was a permanent resident at the time), a system glitch emerged when she recently opened a custodial Roth I.R.A. for her daughter using her own Social Security number. Even though she said she had used her Social Security number at Fidelity for years, it appears her profile and accounts hadn’t been properly merged and updated. A work profile set up by a former employer more than a decade ago with her Social Security number may also have complicated matters. (She said she had never activated or used it.)