TLDR: skip to the last two paragraphs
My mother has had an account worth nearly a million dollars at a reputable investment firm for about five years. Over the years I've been on conference calls with her and her financial advisor (recommended to us by her sister, who has been with him for nearly twenty years) and we both held him in high regard.
Three days ago, she texted me to tell me that she was firing him because "we can do better elsewhere" and when I called her to talk through why, she was absolutely furious with him and the account's rate of return. I don't have access to the account and so I can't speak to whether the account has been underperforming or not, but I was taken aback by how uncharacteristically angry my mother was and still is with him and his firm and I have reason to believe that she's not in her right mind. She just turned 70 and when I last visited her about a month ago after not seeing her for over a year (she lives in another state) she had noticeably lost weight and her hoarding problem had gotten out of control - her home upkeep has always been a little chaotic, but now it's become a total disaster that's difficult to even move through.
So when she told me she'd already decided what she wants to do with her money, I was immediately suspicious. Apparently about three weeks ago she stumbled upon the website of a "financial insights" company a 5 hours' drive away from her home in a neighboring state and has convinced herself that this avenue is the best way forward for her money. She sent me a link to the website - I was deeply unimpressed, but it wasn't the most outrageous boomer bait I'd ever seen, and maybe it's possible that this company is, in fact, an honest independent business that caters to small town folks. But I also find it a little concerning that the proprietor of that business drove with his family all the way to my mother's town yesterday and attended church with her today before calling me to discuss his business with the three of us. Isn't it nice they decided to devote a whole weekend to this one opportunity? Either he really is just that wholesome and magnanimous, or he's going the extra mile to lock down a substantial commission with a "whale" of an account (that amount of sleaze would at least be forgivable), OR he's a confidence man fleecing my mother.
In her rage, my mother is determined to get her funds away from our current broker as quickly as possible. I don't appreciate her making hasty and emotional decisions with this amount of money, and I would prefer to explore other options, but right now my main concern is making sure that this man is legitimate. From what they tell me, the plan is simply to open an annuity account at Nationwide - this independent guy isn't directly affiliated with Nationwide, but collects some sort of referral fee. He stressed repeatedly that neither he nor his company is ever in direct contact with her funds. There were two things that worried me in our conversation today. The first is that, when I questioned why there was such an urgent need to move the account, he suggested that "anything could happen" if my mother keeps her money where it's at. He claims he's not badmouthing our current financial advisor, but implying that our current firm could be vindictive is exactly the kind of bullshit my mother is prone to believing right now. But the biggest red flag for me was that, when I said that we ought to have our lawyer double check whatever documents he's going to present my mother, he called that a "waste of money." !!!
When I called her later, my mother did agree to run things by our lawyer first, for whatever that's worth. Maybe I'm paranoid because it's true, I don't have the first idea how the world works. But something doesn't feel right here. Is it a common thing for independent small shops to send their clients to a large firm and skim off the top? I plan to call Nationwide first thing in the morning and find out if they've had dealings with this man or his company before. What other due diligence should I be doing right now?
EDIT: Is BBB accreditation worth anything? I found the company on the BBB website. According to their records, they have been in business for one year and accredited with the BBB for almost three months with an A- rating, but there isn't a lot of information about it otherwise. They also have about a dozen positive reviews on Google, most of which are a year or more old but also few from the past few months and weeks. If it was a restaurant I would think twice about eating there, but I'm not the one making the decisions here, unfortunately.
Submitted September 23, 2024 at 12:24AM by let_me_be_franks https://ift.tt/V7syawE
