Ready
Thinks s/he gets paid by the post
I get at least one "free dinner" invitation a week in the mail, and I routinely throw them in the garbage. But a few weeks ago, I got an invitation to a free dinner at a restaurant within walking distance to my home, which is quite good. And a chance to attend a free seminar on planning for retirement, with a promise there would be no sales pitch, just an informational session. So I thought, what the heck, I'll give it a try and see what they have to say, and have a nice meal too.
So I attended the event, which lasted about an hour. The guy calls himself a financial adviser, but it became clear that he was pitching fixed income products. He spent the entire hour talking about what's wrong with stocks, bonds, tax rates, social security, blah blah blah. I can't say that anything he said was incorrect, it was just very general in nature.
I was waiting for the sales pitch on whatever product he was selling to start. So the very last slide referred to a fixed income product that he personally invested $50,000 in about ten years ago. He showed how the investment went up in value by 20% when the stock market went up 20%, but when the market went down, he did not lose any money. He said he routinely works with many different fixed income products, and he gets paid a finder fee from these companies to "write up the paperwork". He assured us the products he sells have no fees of any kind.
He never mentioned the specific type of investment this $50K was in. It was apparently just a teaser to convince us to set up an appointment for him to come to our home and review our situation. He wants to look at our tax returns and investments to help us determine if his products will be a good fit.
I found it odd that we were never invited to ask questions, and he left as soon as the presentation was over, rather than joining us for dinner. It was as if he did not want anyone to ask questions, perhaps out of fear that we might debunk his claims.
His assistant politely came over to our table and asked us when would be a good time for him to come by our home. I suggested she could call me, basically just to avoid committing either way.
My DH sat through the presentation bored to tears, but wondered why I didn't want to take the meeting just to see what this guy tries to pitch us. So far, they haven't called, so I don't know if I'll have any further contact with them.
I was definitely the youngest person there. Most of the group was in their sixties or older, and clearly had no clue about investments. Many of them had already been duped by other annuity sales people. They were confused between index funds and indexed annuities, thinking they were one and the same. I did my best to suggest a few things, including a fee only hourly financial adviser if they wanted unbiased advice. And I warned them that in my experience, any financial investment you have to purchase from another human being is generally a bad idea.
All in all, it was a very interesting evening, and I suspect if this guy ever comes over to my house to do his sales pitch, it will be quite entertaining. It's also a bit sad to see how many elderly people out there rely on a guy like this, thinking he has their best interests at heart.
I'm curious if anyone can shed some light on the investment he was referring to, and how they make these products look so great when they obviously are just high fee investments designed to make the sales people wealthy.
So I attended the event, which lasted about an hour. The guy calls himself a financial adviser, but it became clear that he was pitching fixed income products. He spent the entire hour talking about what's wrong with stocks, bonds, tax rates, social security, blah blah blah. I can't say that anything he said was incorrect, it was just very general in nature.
I was waiting for the sales pitch on whatever product he was selling to start. So the very last slide referred to a fixed income product that he personally invested $50,000 in about ten years ago. He showed how the investment went up in value by 20% when the stock market went up 20%, but when the market went down, he did not lose any money. He said he routinely works with many different fixed income products, and he gets paid a finder fee from these companies to "write up the paperwork". He assured us the products he sells have no fees of any kind.
He never mentioned the specific type of investment this $50K was in. It was apparently just a teaser to convince us to set up an appointment for him to come to our home and review our situation. He wants to look at our tax returns and investments to help us determine if his products will be a good fit.
I found it odd that we were never invited to ask questions, and he left as soon as the presentation was over, rather than joining us for dinner. It was as if he did not want anyone to ask questions, perhaps out of fear that we might debunk his claims.
His assistant politely came over to our table and asked us when would be a good time for him to come by our home. I suggested she could call me, basically just to avoid committing either way.
My DH sat through the presentation bored to tears, but wondered why I didn't want to take the meeting just to see what this guy tries to pitch us. So far, they haven't called, so I don't know if I'll have any further contact with them.
I was definitely the youngest person there. Most of the group was in their sixties or older, and clearly had no clue about investments. Many of them had already been duped by other annuity sales people. They were confused between index funds and indexed annuities, thinking they were one and the same. I did my best to suggest a few things, including a fee only hourly financial adviser if they wanted unbiased advice. And I warned them that in my experience, any financial investment you have to purchase from another human being is generally a bad idea.
All in all, it was a very interesting evening, and I suspect if this guy ever comes over to my house to do his sales pitch, it will be quite entertaining. It's also a bit sad to see how many elderly people out there rely on a guy like this, thinking he has their best interests at heart.
I'm curious if anyone can shed some light on the investment he was referring to, and how they make these products look so great when they obviously are just high fee investments designed to make the sales people wealthy.
