I don't know if a YELP review will help you make a decision about financial investment but listen to my true story. This is a tale about love, maternal love, love of music, and untrustworthy siblings. Back in the late 1960s or maybe early 1970s my mother, who had no means of income being forced to be a stay at home mother by my patriarchal father, somehow found $50 to invest. I don't know why she chose Sanford C. Bernstein, but we lived in Hyde Park so maybe he ate at the Flying Lox Box where she got our bagels. We'll never know. I was a child, not an only child, but I was the sole beneficiary. This was clearly intended for me one day. My mother passed away for no obvious reason in 1985 when I was 24. She was a survivor of the A-bomb blast on Hiroshima so that may have contributed, she was only 50. She left behind only bills, it was expensive to cremate and bury her, at least it was expensive for me at the time. Let's travel quickly in time to 2020 when my brother, still getting paid in full to "work" from home, found himself spending time in online meetings searching for unclaimed money. He found the State of Illinois had somehow confiscated this investment and never bothered to try to contact me. My brother said he thought it was meant for him so he tried to get it, but Illinois said no, his name didn't match the listed beneficiary, so they BOTH knew that I should have been contacted. The State of Illinois has had no trouble finding me for the one two-week paycheck I didn't pay taxes for in 2004 so I don't know where they are coming from, but it seems pretty sleazy to me. When my brother finally copped to the virtual crime (double entendre intended), thus began a long battle with the State of Illinois. They made it well nigh impossible to get this money. Thanks to some strange office of inherited investments at AB, a couple years later I got the money mom left for me. They had no skin in this game, it was just an expensive cold case and after a while iAB didn't even have my cooperation because I quite frankly, gave up. Illinois refused to pay interest for the time they held the account and wouldn't give it to me, and tried to extract the taxes from the 2 week paycheck from years ago (and I have paid that back over and over and over again, now I've paid over $8,000 dollars on a $216.00 paycheck) but AB got all invested money into my hands about a month ago. A gift from my mother from the grave. So my brother, the same brother who tried to get the money in the first place, told me "good, you can use that money to pay for your credit card bill," as I had just spent money on our impecunious and destitute father and put it on credit. My sister had a better idea, she suggested when I go to Barcelona, I use the money Okaachan left me to buy a trumpet. Dad may have paid for the lessons, but Mom made me practice and attended every single performance and pretended I was good. So, I went to Barcelona and bought a new Stomvi trumpet. Mom bought me a brand new Stomvi trumpet! The initial $50 investment minus fees led to enough money to pay for a professional Spanish silver trumpet and the investment stopped increasing in value when the State of Illinois stole it. Thousands of dollars. Okay here are the morals of this story:
1) Time in the market is more important than timing the market. 2) A good mother's love lasts beyond her life. 3) Maybe you can't trust my brother, but you can trust Alliance Bernstein with your long-term investments. read more
