I wish to acknowledge there has been a big trend to invest your IRA money in self directed investments. You need to be warned that this is quite often not a good idea or way to handle your money. First you need to be aware that Quest will do very little if anything to verify that your investment is a good one. They basically do nothing to help you evaluate or maintain your investment. I have experienced numerous problems with this company - for example when I was caught in a scam - I requested they provide me the backup copies of my investments and they could not locate all of the files. There are some very good people who work here and some that are not very good - regardless I have had to followup and check that almost everything I request to have done - credit card payment, deduction from account, close account, transfer money, interest payments received in the account, adding investments - you name it -- you almost always have to follow-up and verify it happens correctly. It is your money not theirs so you need to constantly stay on top of it. Say for instance that your contract is loaded into their system and it is not signed by one of the parties. They do not care and do not track this. Every year they will ask you to have a certified person re-value your account and you will have to pay an accountant $$$ to get this form filed out.
So here is how this works - First you will open your account with Quest and they will charge you a fee. You may have a fee for every type of investment you do depending on the type. You will fill out all the paperwork and transfer your IRA funds to invest. The transfer may cost you money and there may be a percentage charged to move the money into the account and out of the account. Next they will charge you a quarterly fee to hold your investment. Initially this amount sounds harmless ($400 to $500 a year) but it adds up over time to the tune of $1000 to $1500 dollars if you have $250K or more invested. It can be 5 to 15% of your investment over time. By the time you add in the account fees, the interest charges, the transfer fees, the overhead of time to get the money to and from the account, and overnight transfer fees it is a big deal. On my IRA 5% interest investment I made very little. Do not invest in unsecured investments!!! Remember most IRA investments are not FDIC insured nor are many IRA investments SEC licensed investments. Contracts are just a piece of paper and our court system makes it almost impossible to collect. I have only been paid back by good friends. I spent $33,000 to get a judgement and then the lawyer told me to go to a collection agency. In another case the DA and defendants lawyer made a deal with the judge in my opinion, Mllions of dollars was stolen, but only 6 months in jail because our jail systems are over crowded and the justice is distributed inequitably.
For example If you own the first mortgage on a property you are good as long as you can buy it from the bank. Oh and it may cost you 6 to 9 months house payments plus legal fees to get it back. If you are the second or third lender good luck - do not believe anyone that tells you this is a good investment. The US legal system is a justice after the crime system and justice occurs only in some cases. The defendant has all the rights and you will be a victim over and over. For investments the gov't encourages people to steal by providing loss write-offs on taxes, insurance companies that pay 10 to 20% on the dollar, and first time criminals get off easy for white collar crime. Everyone is a liar --- the defendant, the DA, and the judges it just depends on your point of view. Integrity only exists between family and friends sometimes.
When I lost my money Quest was very quickly done with me and they continued to collect quarterly fees until I could absolutely prove that my investment was lost. This company is not your friend. I loaned money at 5% and got stock options for every dollar investing in a startup. The value of the investment was $80,000 for example. When my monthly check for $5000 came back to pay off my loan - instead of maintaining the value of the account as $80,000 they added funds received to the principle - thus the first month my account was now $85,000 then $90,000 the next month. In a few months my investments went over to the next higher quarterly fee charge and they started automatically deducting another $100+ dollars a quarter for the fee. . Thus every month I had to call them to get the value of my account set correctly.
When you invest in anything - search to make sure the person or business has no past or current legal cases, check their previous businesses, verify if they have been bankrupt, check their credit, search the superior courts where they have lived. Make sure all contracts are valid and call the businesses and people who have signed to make sure they are valid.
Self Directed IRA accounts are not for me. read more
