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A word about investment seminars with free mealsOnce people get close to retirement age, they start receiving invitations to FREE investment seminars with a meal thrown in. Some of these invitations specify that husband and wife must attend, and some claim that because the materials distributed at the seminar are copyrighted the invitation is not valid for certain people such as accountants and attorneys. Some people must be responding to these invitations and attending the seminars, because the invitations keep coming. What happens at these seminars? A brochure I recently received from a lawyer who has made a career out of helping people who made costly investment moves after attending these kinds of seminars describes what all too often happens. Confident (after the seminar) that their investments will support them, some people quit their jobs and retire too soon. Some bail out of their employer’s retirement plan or 401k and take a lump sum, which they then invest with the broker who gave the seminar. The investments are often in variable annuities and mutual funds shares that carry a hefty back-end load. The lawyer’s brochure goes on to say that many retirees do not even realize they were misled and that they may have legal rights to recover what they lost. Many so-called “senior advisors,” the lawyer says, are just interested in selling seniors a product that carries a high commission even if it puts the senior’s nest egg at risk. The flip side of all this is that few people enjoy working for free, so the “senior advisors” like to get paid, and you don’t attract business unless you market your services. The lawyer with the brochure is trying to drum up business just as much as the senior advisors. We have so many laws that it’s easy to break them. I think it’s the attorneys, accountants and finance experts who should attend these seminars so they can filter out the hype and the bad information. When a seminar invitation states they aren’t welcome, it’s a good sign the sponsor wants genuinely naïve people in the audience. Seminars that claim you can make your assets judgment-proof and avoid virtually all taxes are especially suspicious. It would be useful to hear from Fayette County people who have attended some of these seminars. I suspect those who attend are pressured to disclose a lot of personal information and, in the end, to enter into financial transactions designed to benefit the seminar sponsor up front, while the customer takes all the risk. helpful lawyer's blog | login to post comments |