Episode Transcript
Speaker 1 00:00:05 This is annuity Straight talk. Since 2008, your host Brian Anderson has helped clients nationwide navigate the complex market for annuities with Brian's assistance, hundreds of clients have achieved a profitable and secure retirement. I would know because Brian has answered many of my questions concerning annuities and retirement planning so that you can benefit as well. Let's get started. Here's Brian.
Speaker 2 00:00:48 Hello and welcome everyone to the Annuity Straight Talk podcast episode number 97. My name is Bryant Anderson. I'm on vacation right now and I had to get this done cuz it's been weighing on my mind. So I'm in a hotel room and I brought the minimal type of stuff to record this episode. It needs to be done. I'd rather not do it. But we're gonna talk about some annuity, straight talk reviews and obviously I'm doing this not because it's a great review, it's because it's a bad review. I figured it's best for me to get out in front of it. It's not something I'm gonna hide from something I'll own and I'll talk about I'm not perfect <laugh>, not at all. And I think a lot of you guys would understand. Some people appreciate this quality about me, but I do have my reasons. I've got an explanation for it.
Speaker 2 00:01:30 But earlier this week I got a review from a lady that I sold an annuity to, oh three or four years ago, probably a little over three. Started talking to her about four years ago. I'm gonna respond on it. Was posted on the Better Business Bureau website. I'm an a plus rated credited business on the Better Business Bureau. I've been told that it's not gonna affect my rating. The comment doesn't really say much but I figured I'd share it with everyone and you guys can make your own decisions and if you decide you don't wanna do business with me because of this, I don't know. One of the hallmarks I have about myself and how I do business is I'm honest and I'll tell you right now, not everybody likes me. Apparently this person's upset and I do not think it's justified, but I certainly understand she is entitled to her own opinions.
Speaker 2 00:02:21 I got an email from the Better Business Bureau, I think it was Monday evening and I'll read it to you. And the comment itself is copied in the email. It says the worse <laugh>, not worst, worse, but it's not for me to correct spelling errors. Stay as far away from Brian Anderson as you can get. He is volatile and hot tempered and I will be lodging my complaint with a better business bureau. I would've given zero stars but the system made me put something in the star field. So she gave me one star cuz she had to.
Speaker 2 00:02:56 Okay, it's tough for me to do this. I'm gonna get ahead of it cuz it does grate at me and I do not like it. But this comment or this complaint was lodged publicly. I'm gonna respond publicly. I tell everybody about the good, it's only fair. I tell people about the bad. I do believe this is a misunderstanding. I'll try to explain that but I'm gonna share the story. You guys be the judge. So I met Dolores in 2019. I left her voicemail this way saying if you want to be public, it's gonna be public and I'm gonna respond publicly. I will not say her last name. I won't tell you where she's from cuz that's not disclosed anywhere. But I met her in 2019. She was pulled in a lot of directions and that's no different than a lot of other people. So I took a lot of time explaining her options.
Speaker 2 00:03:42 We didn't just talk about annuities or what she could do. She did not like the market. Did not like taking risk. So we talked about social security, Medicare, retirement distributions, required minimum distributions for ira. That was gonna be an issue in the future. She had plenty of savings. There was no hurry to rush into anything and she was in money markets and stuff like that. So she had the time to figure out what she wanted to do and place everything where she wanted because she had so many different points of view. I went and you guys all know this, back in 2019, I wasn't doing the podcast but I was writing newsletters every week. She got two newsletters dedicated to her concerns specifically because she needed a little bit of extra explanation and it gave me an opportunity with them being fairly common. Concerns gave me an opportunity to really do a good job for her cause I knew it would also help other people.
Speaker 2 00:04:34 You guys need to understand when I'm able to do that for anyone, it represents a a lot of effort and time commitment on my part. I gotta get it right. It's gotta under, it's gotta withstand scrutiny. The written word on the internet. A lot of people can pick it apart. So I gotta be really careful and it takes a huge investment in time for me to do that even once. And if you get that, I'm happy to do it. But you need to understand how invaluable it is. We sifted through all that stuff and I helped her set up a bunch of the other stuff and answer a lot of her questions. Just generally relating to entire retirement. I took no compensation for that whatsoever. And I do that for anyone. That's what I'm here to do. When she started buying annuities, uh, she really liked the multi-year fixed annuity.
Speaker 2 00:05:18 This was 20 19, 20 20. Rates were at the bottom. She's very risk averse. Didn't like the complexity of indexed annuities. I talked to her about both of those things. But she wanted the highest rates. She was a rate shopper and she chased the highest rates. You guys will know, I talk about this all the time. Even now I'm not selling the very highest rates, private equity led companies that are B rated. I think taking too much risk, I'm not gonna chase the highest rates she wanted. The 4% or so that was maybe around from some of the B rated companies back then. And it's something I don't want to do. I've talked a lot about Colorado banker's life in the past few years was one of those B rated companies. That's not one she had, but they were putting a receivership and everybody's got their money locked up because they were chasing rates back then.
Speaker 2 00:06:08 And I just don't think it's prudent to do. That's not what annuities are for. They're for safety, they're for security, they're for peace of mind. You don't chase substandard companies just to get a little bit more rate out of it. I will never ever compromise that principle. I'm only gonna offer rates from the companies that I do recommend doing business with something I can live with as well. They're gonna be more stable and you maybe have to give up a little bit of yield to do it. But if you want that highest rate, then go buy it from someone else. I don't care. The other agent she talked to were more than happy to get the business, whatever they could do to make a sale, that was fine with me. So long as she understood the risk, I didn't really care if she got what she wanted.
Speaker 2 00:06:49 It wasn't on me. So she went and did it. The whole process of doing that plus all the other questions she had took about a year. We had a good relationship and it was fine. I helped her out a bunch. I I guess looking back, I think she realized I had done a lot of stuff for her and decided that she would gimme some business as a thank you, which some people do that. And she again asked, what do you have? She didn't like the rates and the fixed annuities. I said, Hey, blend it up. She had put a lot of money into these other fixed annuities. So we'll just put a little piece of something in the index annuity, leverage the low rates, take a chance to earn more. That's what they're all about. And the risk is 0%. Your downside is is zero and you might make a little bit more.
Speaker 2 00:07:35 You do well if you make just as much, it's no big deal. Plus I was giving her an annuity from an a plus company. It was gonna be the highest quality paper in her portfolio. The only thing that was a rated or better, so she decided to commit the deal was about 15% of her portfolio. Hardly the type of investment that's gonna make or break her retirement. And this is a woman who was well set up, she didn't even really need the money. Only thing she really had to worry about is require minimum distributions. But she was well before the age where she had to do that. This is where it gets in the index options. We chose for the first year, I think we used it, a blended index with rates jumping and the market being volatile. It didn't perform well. The market was mostly flat, maybe up a little bit, maybe down.
Speaker 2 00:08:17 But I remember she came through the first year and didn't really make a whole lot of money right off the bat. She came at me saying, I never should have done this. I can't believe you talked me into it. Those kinds of things. And I did defend myself. We had a couple of tense conversations about that. I said, you have to be patient. I'm gonna tell everybody this. You have to be patient with these contracts. The market is not always up. The key is that you're not losing money. And when the market's up, you get a piece of it and you lock that in, right? Then we go through a second year, same thing. Markets down a little bit, the contract comes back, didn't make a whole lot of money again. How could you ever do this? What's it gonna cost to get me out of it? I wanna take a free withdrawal. She took a free withdrawal the first two years. So by this time she'd taken about 20% of her p of the money out of it that she put into it in the first place. Okay?
Speaker 2 00:09:16 So she said she threw her hands up and she just said, and this is where I have the email that says, listen, just put it in the fixed rate. The fixed rate's 2%. I wanna make sure I get something out of it and I'm gonna run this to the end. I just wanna get rid of it. I don't like it. And so she was always coming at me with those threats. And I honestly think it was a lot of the other, the other people that she had dealt with were saying, what would you do this for? Why did he get you to do that? There are some people that don't have original thoughts of their own, don't think for themselves that well. I'm not necessarily gonna say that's who she is, but I know she's very, she very susceptible to persuasion from other people. And I think a lot of the comments I got from her came from another person and sure that that <laugh> that didn't make me very happy.
Speaker 2 00:09:59 So the third year she goes through with the fixed account makes a couple percentage points. It's guaranteed. Now that's where we're running to the problem cuz now we're in earlier this year when she reset her contract, typically what I do is I'll email a contract owner when I get the statement, I send an email, Hey listen, annuity's up, we got X amount of time to change allocations. Let me know when you have time to chat. I didn't hear from her. And so when that happens then I follow up with a phone call. Now I don't do this for everybody and not because I don't want to, but there's a lot of people that are self-sufficient. There are a lot of people I talk to on a regular basis that already know they can get ahold of me. So that's one thing you need to know.
Speaker 2 00:10:42 You gotta get ahold of me. So anyway, I left her a voicemail a week later. I had to look back at this after I got the the complaint because I wanted to go see what it was. I talked to her about six weeks ago, didn't verify it anyway, she never got back to me. And so what happens with the annuity is it's gonna stay with the same allocation going into the fourth year. So now she's gonna make another 2% and that's all there is to it. She didn't see the email, what she said. Um, she didn't get the voicemail, no communication. The only other O option I have is to fly out, rent a car, drive to her house and knock on the door. I'm not gonna do that. As much as I'd like to see everybody face to face, I don't make enough money to and have enough time to travel all over the country.
Speaker 2 00:11:29 Every time there's an anniversary, that's the typical spot. So she had expressed to me that she was very disappointed. I don't know when uh, she got the idea that I'm ill tempered. But there were some tense conversations. I think I have, I have an assertive voice and I will defend myself against accusations. When someone tells me, oh hey, you pulled one over on me or I shouldn't have done this. Maybe you shouldn't have got me into this. I can't believe I listened to you. That kind of thing. Cause let's not forget, I did an incredible amount of work for her for free. She never lost a penny. She never paid a fee. She's made $10,000 in the last three years, no big deal. And she's now pulled out almost 30% of the portfolio. So she's had liquidity, no fees, no risk. And she made a little bit of money.
Speaker 2 00:12:15 I don't really see what the problem is. Apparently she just doesn't like me. What's interesting is, and I'm gonna say in this case, the problem with one of the problems with her feeling like maybe I didn't get, I didn't communicate well enough is right after she bought the annuity, I noticed that she unsubscribed from the email list and I asked her about it. I said, why did you unsubscribe from this? And she said, it's because I know you and I talked to you and I don't need to keep reading all this stuff cuz it confuses me anyway. And so I just decided to not get the emails anymore and I'm gonna tell anybody that does business with me. Even if you don't read those, it's important to stay on the email list so that you see communications from me regularly, whether it's personal or not, it's an opportunity for you guys to know that I'm here, remind you of how I'm here, like what my phone number is, all that stuff in case you forget it.
Speaker 2 00:13:05 But you see me out there all the time. And it's a way to interact as well. So you don't have to read it, you don't have to watch every video, but you get to see that. So oh, two, three years ago, she's unsubscribed from the email list. She recently resubscribed to the list and I noticed that she has a different email. Is that possibly why she didn't get the emails that I sent trying to communicate with her in the first place. I do not know there's a different type of advisor out there. And I hear from dozens and dozens of people every year bought this annuity, never hear from the guy. So I'm probably better at communication than 95% to 99% of other people that are selling this stuff. And so gimme a break. Sometimes I'm busy, you can call me. That's why I give you my phone number.
Speaker 2 00:13:56 I tell you, every single one of my clients, everybody who's ever bought something from me has my cell phone number. A lot of people text me, you can email me, you can call me. I'm very available. Answer phones on my, uh, answer the phone on my vacation. I'm sitting here doing a ding podcast when I'm on a trip right now I'm always around. And one thing I will tell you about Dolores is I was available to her and she knew she could call me. I do not think that there's a single time where she ever called me. She might have had to leave a message once or twice. I always called her back most of the time, picked her, picked up the phone. And when she called me six weeks ago saying that she wanted to submit a complaint, I told her where to do it because I want everybody to have the voice that they need to have.
Speaker 2 00:14:43 And if she's, and I said, if you're gonna lodge a complaint, then I'm gonna respond to it. We can either handle it ourselves and we can talk it through or we can do it publicly. She shows chose to do it publicly. So I'm gonna be there and I'm gonna say it and I want to, I guess right now, I'll apologize to Dolores. I only meant to help. I think I did plenty to do it. I made a little bit of money on the annuity that you did buy. You've been pulling money out of it ever since, uh, you started. That's decreases my compensation over time. No big deal. I want you to do what's best for you, what you think is best. So that's fine. And anybody else, I'm available. It works. If you change your email address or your phone number, you need to let me know.
Speaker 2 00:15:25 If you unsubscribe from my email list, realize you're not gonna get regular communications from me and that's gonna happen. So I'm gonna take this and again, share it with everybody. Like I said, I don't, I'm gonna move on. I think possibly there's some people out there who would have a different side of the story. I don't think I would be here if everybody felt like Dolores feels, and I sure hope things work out for her. I'm gonna continue to, as long as she's got the contract, I'm gonna continue to offer advice and support and help her do whatever she has because that's my obligation for having sold it a few years ago Anyway, but I hope she feels better that she got to say something. The complaint doesn't say a whole lot except I, I think everybody knows like, yeah, I get fired up sometimes.
Speaker 2 00:16:09 I'm very passionate about what I do. Not gonna apologize for that, but we could all do better a better job at, at reading people sometimes. So maybe I got that to improve on. It's a humbling, uh, experience for me. I'm grateful for the opportunity to actually take a step back and look at it. And I'm gonna do my best to make sure I continue to help people as much as I possibly can and, and make up for the mistakes that I have made. So I do not think this is indicative of the person I am or the advisor that I try to be. And I think there's a lot of people out there that would agree with me. Please, I would love some comments from you guys. Share your stories. Share your impressions if you want. This is not, again, like a great positive deal, but I'm not gonna ignore it.
Speaker 2 00:16:50 I'm not gonna put my head, head under a rock and pretend that it's not. There it is. And we move forward and do the best we can. So thank you for joining me for the most unpleasant of all my podcasts, episode number 97. Please, like, subscribe, or comment on any of your favorite podcast platforms or on YouTube. Hit me up at 804 3 8 5 1 2 1. If you want to chat, you wanna schedule an appointment, use the top right corner of any page on annuity straight talk.com. Schedule a call button, that's what it says. Pick your time zone, pick your time, write some notes. Tell me what you want to talk about again. 804 3 8 5 1 2 1. My name is Brian Anderson. I appreciate you joining me and here's my commitment to continue to do the best I can.
Speaker 1 00:17:37 You have been listening to Annuity Stray Talk. The proceeding information is for informational and educational purposes only and does not represent tax, legal or investment advice. Reviews expressed by guests on this program are their own and do not necessarily reflect the views of annuity, straight talk or its partners. No information presented today should be acted upon without meeting with a qualified and licensed professional. It is important that you read all insurance contract disclosures carefully before making a purchase. Decision guarantees are based on the financial strength and claims paying ability of the insurance company.
