I agree with your last point. The problem here is the transfer agent didn’t get anyone who wasn’t automatically converted enough notice to even do a transfer be

I agree with your last point. The problem here is the transfer agent didn’t get anyone who wasn’t automatically converted enough notice to even do a transfer before the stock went public. They also didn’t include the paperwork needed to transfer stuff. So even if you did everything right, you would still be screwed because the email that some employees got with incomplete information, didn’t arrive until Friday night, ahead of a Monday morning IPO.