Ameriprise Financial

My employer gave my an option of 3 third party service providers for my 401k. 2 of those options were Ameriprise advisors. I called all 3 options to discuss the fees that I would be charged to use them for my 401k. I ended up selected one of the Ameriprise advisors, specifically The Permanence Group. Dan who I spoke with over the phone told me that I would have a self-directed brokerage account with no asset under management fee, a $100 annual fee, and that I would have to pay $6 per trade. I was told that I would have access to trade essentially anything: stocks, bonds, mutual funds, ETFs, etc. These fees were already a bit high compared to what I am used to paying with Vanguard or Fidelity, but it was the cheapest of the options I had available. My intention was to make recurring automated purchases of low-cost mutual funds or ETFs, so paying $100/year plus $6/month seemed acceptable.

I gave Ameriprise some money with the intent of getting a small but steady growth and maintain the capital. They said they invested in a safe mutual fund. My advisor moved to a new role and I am not sure who was monitoring my account. After two years, my account is below the initial amount I invested. Ameriprise made money by charging me their quarterly fees though. I would not trust them again.

In my experience a true fiduciary is better for peace of mind. Please do your homework and seek multiple views before deciding on an advisor. My experience was to give more money to my advisor during 2020 who put me in fund and notes that had higher fees and lower returns while churning/selling off assets I already had, as well ones they had previously purchased (Sold many at a loss to watch them skyrocket later). The end result was poor returns, while their site stated 10-12 percent, I wound up with much lower when looking at what I had given and what I ended up with. In addition, a 1% AUM fee is just the beginning, when you add their fees and and the fund fees it's over 2%. There is enough data out there for self directing assets in a Vanguard et al.. Buyer beware or you may wind up behind as the market dips which has now compounded their (my) errors.

I used to have a healthy stock portfolio. Starting out I wasn’t reinvesting my dividends; therefore I wasn’t growing as much either. When I joined Ameriprise Financial and turned over my portfolio to them; they reinvested my dividends- which in turn bought me more stock so that when I needed money to buy my car it was there. The people at Ameriprise are very nice, professional, willing to answer any and all questions that you may have. I look forward to handing over my SIP and 401k over to them to see how they can assist me once again.

Their back office is filled with thieves and scammers. Avoid this platform if you don't want to be stolen from. Choose Fidelity, Schwab, or any of the other options. These people have carefully crafted strategies where they look at their clients' accounts and quite literally search for ways to take large amounts of money from them by trading in the opposite direction. Top tier scumbags in the back office. Run away. Save your money.

My Ameriprise Financial Advisor is knowledgeable and insightful. She is always responsive to my inquiries. Equally important, she listens to my concerns and discusses my goals then then offers advice. I've worked with her for 13+ years and would recommend her.

Ameriprise is an average financial advising/wealth creation agency. They were hiring just about anyone when they first started and because I utilized their services and it wasn't a great experience, it doomed my impression of them right away. They have had some good, well-informed employees who take it seriously and are very engaged and helpful. But overall, I don't have a good impression of their services or staff.

Through my school district, I signed up for a 403b through Ameriprise. When I went to another school district they used a different company. With the help of that agent while on the phone with an Ameriprise agent, we filled out paperwork to roll the funds from Ameriprise over to the other 403b. When the paperwork was faxed Ameriprise refused to release the funds. We tried again while on the phone with Ameriprise. Again Ameriprise refused to release funds. Every appt with an agent to invest the money deposited was cancelled by Ameriprise. For five years they held onto my money without investing and refusing to release the funds.

We were with Ameriprise Financial for over 5+ years and decided to change financial advisors and institutions. I just received my last Portfolio statement from Ameriprise and had a $125 "termination fee" listed. And if that wasn't bad enough... Reading through my statement, I find that they hit me with this $125 fee PER ACCOUNT. We had 5 accounts. They charged us $600 in total as a "termination fee". Funny...I don't recall RECEIVING $600 as a "joining bonus", so I find this fee preposterous and unprofessional.

We recently moved our investments from Merrill Lynch and we couldn't be happier. The attention to detail and concern about each account no matter how large or small is exceptional. It was a big decision to move our portfolio to this company, but given the recent election and unstable economy, I thing we are much better off with Ameriprise.