Comments on: Ameriprise Takes Your Money But Doesn’t Give You Your Financial Plan

By: Patricia Bowman

Patricia Bowman — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 09:45:56 +0000

Ameriprise Financial converted my inheritance, amount $200,000.00. This company was referred to as the “devil” by my attorney, what is the problem here?

By: ripped off

ripped off — Tue, 26 May 2009 11:06:52 +0000

I was cold called by a new Ameriprise planner looking for clients. He met with my wife and me, and took about 4 hours reviewing our goals, income, investments and overall financial position & limited understanding of investments. He met with us two weeks later and gave us a list of suggestions – open Roth IRAs. Get disability insurance (he didn’t sell us the policy but he helped us decide our coverage level, he encouraged me to get a life insurance policy, and he presented an outline of various types of investments – some stocks, a few bond funds, some vanguard funds like emerging market and so on. This was not something fast – we agreed to invest about $1000 a month for the portfolio with a $50,000 initial investment which I suggested to jump start my forray into the world of finance. My financial planner charged me $300 for the meetings and for drawing up some specific investments based on my goals and expected returns. He met with me every 90 days for 2-3 hours and reviewed things with me. He never charged me another flat fee akin to the $300 consultation, but he did tell me when a fund had a load or sold at a premium, as well as charging me $40 per trade to buy stocks he reccomended (I hold them, usually, IBM, Msft, Chx, LLL, Dell, Apple, etc). I was very happy with him. Sadly he quit, and my new guy is going to be fired this week after 6 weeks. He charged $900 to ” review” my existing portfolio. He moved me out of some ETFs (spy, dia, qqqq) and into ( BQY and some financial ETF as well as a Dow housing ishare…..) he also told me that the SPS advantage my old guy told me I qualified for when I exceeded $125,000 was “too small” – new guy ” doesn’t allow investors worth less than $500,000 to open a SPS. Adding insult to injury he raised the fee for the SPS from 1.25% ( firm minimum and rate my prior advisor set) to 1.75% of my balance. Oh and told me he was going to charge fee based transactions -at $250 per stock trade. Oh, and he met me once for an hour, and “scheduled a follow-up for 6 months. I had the good, now I have the bad, and it’s well on the way to ugly. And I thought all Ameriprise planners were like my first experience

By: Johnnie Stevens

Johnnie Stevens — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 02:14:48 +0000

I am paying $2000 yearly to an Ameriprise advisor whether he loses or gaing and so far I have only had loses. Is this in line with what others pay for the services. Should an advisor be paid even when he is a loser.or should he be paid for performance. When I instructed the advisor to take me out of equities because of the falling market and he refused to do so do I have cause for complaint?? I am 72 and have less than half of what I entrusted to Ameriprise.

By: MaryAnnM

MaryAnnM — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 20:36:40 +0000

This is a question for anyone who could help. In a nutshell, I have a RiverSource Retirement Advisor 4 Advantage VA (Annuity) and have gone from $235,000 to $191,000 in 6 months due to the market. I understand that if I move, cash out, etc this money, I will pay a penalty and taxes because I am only 42.

Is there another place I can transfer this account without penalties, early withdrawal taxes and have it more secured? I don’t care about making a ton of money on it, I just want it to be safe.

Anyone, please? Thank you, MAM

By: Rick

Rick — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 15:03:26 +0000

My Ameriprise advisor left without me knowing. There was no response after a voicemail and 2 email messages in a span of 10 days. I had to call the vice president to find out what was going on. She was not with the company anymore and they assigned me to the home office, which is a call center in India. They told me to call the home office for help with my accounts. What was the fee for?

By: Jim Provost

Jim Provost — Sun, 15 Feb 2009 17:03:37 +0000

Interesting…my Ameriprise advisor charges me an annual fee and delivers me an annual financial plan updating my goals, portfolio and recommendations. He also has me invested in about 10 different mutual fund families, such as Fidelity, Dreyfus, Franklin, etc. He charges 1% of the balance annually, a fair fee to me.

My portfolio has done well over time. My previous accounts were all held at Fidelity. They did a “free” plan and then gave me an 800 number to call if I had questions. All of their advice was to invest in Fidelity Funds. Not only that, the annual fee for the funds was 1.5%. I also looked at LPL and Commonwealth Advisors, but Ameriprise is a much stronger company.

There are always bad apples in a barrel.
Get over it people, I think people love to blame someone else when the stock market tanks or when they don’t do the proper planning themselves. Your relationship with your advisor is not based on the company sign on the door, it is with the person behind the desk. If you don’t think the advice is good, find another advisor.

By: Julie

Julie — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 07:12:35 +0000

Ameriprise DOES suck, one of their financial advisors (my sister-in-law) placed all my father’s money into her husband’s name, hoping he would never notice, she just said she switched it to a “different account”. My dad is in the middle of a lawsuit.

By: Peter

Peter — Sun, 14 Dec 2008 23:49:00 +0000

Ameriprise is one of the worst companies to have manage your money. They make it seem as though they have your best interest at heart, and yet they continue to sell you their own funds. They in turn make huge commissions, while you are left holding worthless funds that may never make you money. I wish I had never signed up with them. Even when the market was good, I still wasn’t making any money because of all the loaded funds they put me in, mostly their own Riversource Funds. You put your trust into a company, thinking that they will do the right thing, but in the end they are useless. I would rather invest on my own, which I should have stuck to in the first place. All of the information you need to be successful is out there on the web, books, or magazines. Learn to trust yourself, and not the people of Ameriprise. Let’s hope I can figure out a way to cut my losses, and move on.

By: BOB

BOB — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 22:10:47 +0000

I met with an Amerprise financial planner on the recommendation of a friend. I was fortunate that years ago I researched investing in mutual funds and was aware of such things as loads and index funds because this guy tried to get me into in-house, loaded, managed funds. I told my friend with all the commissions this guy stood to make she would be better off paying $100/hour for a non-commissioned, unbiased advisor. To my knowledge there isn’t a reputable person in the world that would recommend a loaded mutual fund.

signed,

Avoid Amerprise Like the Plague

By: Considering Ameriprise

Considering Ameriprise — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 15:56:30 +0000

“They try to sell their own product, when was the last time that you heard or saw Pepsi sodas machines selling coke…or verizon wirelles selling At&T services?”

I wouldn’t expect Pepsi to try to sell me Coke, but if I was looking for a nutritionist, I’d want someone who didn’t work for Pepsi or Coke and could give me unbiased information.

If they’re trying to sell their own product, why the up front fee for the financial plan?

If you sell me a product, you should get paid. But as the customer, I should pay you for the oportunity for you to sell to me?

No thank you.