This company makes me want to vomit…read more
A year after college, when I had all of $3,000 to my name, I got a call from a persistent (aka annoying) "financial advisor" from Ameriprise. She'd acquired my contact info from a loose-lipped friend who was her client. Ameriprise thrives on feeding off of leads they demand from you, so bear in mind they will hound your parents, siblings, children, and best friends if you hand over contact information.
Anyway, having NO financial knowledge other than to be really, really frugal, I finally agreed to a meeting. Here, they promised me rainbows and butterflies if I would only start a retirement plan today. I could be a milionaire in 50 years, they'd say. All they asked was $500 upfront, and they'd take care of the rest.
I was paired with one Amy Limas-Hanson or something (hyphenated names ALSO make me want to vomit). She worked hard on a presentation about how I should, in addition to my student loans, car payment, and 401K, buy a disability plan EVEN THOUGH my company provided a rather generous one for me already.
She then set me up with a variable life insurance policy (VUL). Nevermind that I don't and do not plan to have children. Nevermind that VULs are one of the worst "savings" plans you could possibly get. Nevermind that in the 2.5 years of my plan, it has gained NOTHING and lost the $20 monthly premium I pay.
And after that, I hear nothing My payment was to yield me a year's worth of help and four quarterly meetings. After the initial set-up process, I heard NOTHING from her.
I call Ameriprise to see if I could possible convert my VUL to a Roth IRA (of course I can't). On the phone, the rep (not Amy), said, "you're HOW old and you have a VUL? WHY?" My point exactly.
Look on Careerbuilder.com and you'll see several Ameriprise ads looking for someone, ANYONE, to come be a "financial advisor." They even tried to recruit my friend, who has a major in AGRICULTURE!!! How in the heck is an AG major supposed to know what to do with my financial net worth?!!!!!
They openly say "no experience necessary," so I should have known what I was getting into. I was young. I was dumb. Now I'm pi$$ed. I, along with thousands of other customers am now part of a class action LAWSUIT against Ameriprise for faulty practices and selling financial plans not personalized to the individual client, but were sold in the best interest of the advisor because the commission rates were higher.
If you choose Ameriprise (by gawd, DON'T!!), request...no, DEMAND an advisor with a degreed background in finance, investing, etc. You should demand they have an MBA or at least several certifications. If they don't have such qualified staff, that's probably because qualified individuals know better than to work for this company.
But honestly, you're better off going with someone you know personally or can trust based on true reviews.