sunflowery's Diaryland Diary ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I May Have Signed It...But I Didn't Read It! I just took a doozy of a call. First off, the banker says, "I have a customer who has a question about surrender penalties and I don't know how to explain it." I say, "OK, go ahead and put me on speaker and I will go over it with both of you." So she HANDS the phone to the customer who begins to LAUNCH into a diatribe about how we STOLE over $800 of HER money because she decided to take $10,000 of it ONE MONTH after opening it. Whoa, whoa, whoa there little buckaroo. Slow down and let me tell you a little something we like to call, Surrender Penalites and Surrender Periods. She was having NONE of it. She said no one explained that to her either at the time she signed up for the annuity or when she took out the withdrawal. I explained that she did sign a disclosure that would have outlined the surrender periods and penalties. She actually said this, "I might have signed it, but I never read it." OH! OK! Well then here is ALL your money back Mrs. Cranky McCustomer! Then, as I was trying to explain that an annuity is NOT like a checking acct, you have a high interest rate, sure, but in exchange, you have your surrender periods/penalities...she interrupts me/talks OVER me and I just keep talking hoping she'll shut up long enough for me to clear this up. NOPE! She eventually says, "I don't WANT to learn about annuities, I just want my money back. You WILL NOT steal from me, just for taking what was mine to begin with." OK then. Listen...if you had $25,000.00 to invest in something, aren't you going to make DARN SURE you know what the heck you are investing in? Aren't you going to keep track of every penny? Aren't you going to be as familiar with the product as possible and read the fine print? Yeah, me too. Some people's kids! 3:09 p.m. - Wednesday, Apr. 28, 2004 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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