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American Express Financial Advisors

AEFA • Client Complaints • NH Sues AEFA

Vern of St. Louis writes (1/13/03):
We incurred a loss of 52% due to mismanagement of our portfolio while we were paying $200-$400+ monthly management fees to American Express. We did not receive the expert advice expected of an American Express Certified Financial Planner to protect our portfolio during volatile times. American Express and our Certified Financial Planner were not looking after our best interests.

We were kept in the same mutual funds although we emphasized to our Financial Planner on several occasions that we could not afford the continuing decline in our portfolio. We were assured that the funds would be moved to safer investments. We discussed with our Financial Planner using the annuity in our Universal Life policy to pay the premiums. He assured us that this would be all right, but he failed to advise us of the negative implications of using the annuity funds in this manner. If we had understood this, we would have continued to pay the premiums out of pocket to avoid the increased premiums in future years.

The annuity balance in our Universal Life policy decreased from $94,736 to $24,930 -- a 74% loss. Today, while talking to our new American Express Financial Planner for our Universal Life policy, we learned that the annuity funds inside this policy could have been moved to the fixed account where they would have earned a guaranteed 4.5%, and we could have used dollar cost averaging.

Steve W, our previous American Express Financial Advisor never offered this option to protect our funds. If he had, we could have protected our funds and assured some growth. In regard to our annuities, IRAs, and ROTHs outside the Universal Life policy, we also learned today that our previous Financial Planner could have moved these funds to guaranteed 4% fixed accounts. We were never given this option to save our portfolio.

In a desperate effort to salvage what was left of our retirement funds, we decided to remove them from American Express. To add insult to injury, American Express slapped us with $1,250 in termination fees. We are being punished for trying to salvage what little we have remaining for our retirement.

We trusted American Express and even refinanced our home upon the advice of our previous Certified Financial Planner, so we would have additional funds to add to our portfolio. He is well aware that we are in our mid 50s and can ill afford to lose our retirement funds -- we told him this over and over again. In desperation, we consulted with Financial Planners from two other firms, and the first thing they both said was that we were in too volatile a mix of mutual funds for people our age.

We also know now that other mutual funds were available but never presented to us. Why did our Financial Planner do this? Was there a conflict of interest? He was not looking out for our interests. Perhaps the American Express fee schedule has something to do with it. We don't have the means of exploring the benefits to American Express and our Certified Financial Planner for his course of action, since compensation between American Express and our Certified Financial Planner does not appear on our statements.

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