Robert: April 13th, 2025. Welcome to the Women and Money podcast,
Robert: as well as everyone smart enough to listen. Hi everybody,
Robert: this is Robert, the producer, and as I said on
Robert: the last episode, Suze and KT are taking some time
Robert: off from new shows to attend to Family Matters.
Robert: And again, Suze knows that you are equipped with the
Robert: actions to take and not take right now, and uh
Robert: she is giving some advice on what's happening in the
Robert: economy on the Women and Money community app when she can,
Robert: you can get that app, by the way, for free
Robert: by going to Apple Apps or Google Play.
Robert: Now for those of you who are brand new to
Robert: the podcast, when Suze and KT take time off, we
Robert: sometimes revisit an older episode that you may not have
Robert: heard or we feel it's worth bringing to the top
Robert: of your feed again, and today is no exception. We're
Robert: going to play part of an episode from last spring,
Robert: all about knowing the signs of financial advisor abuse. Enjoy.
Suze: Now maybe some of you remember.
Suze: The podcast that I did, which was Don't Become Partners
Suze: with Uncle Sam. And in that podcast,
Suze: I talked to a woman who had just lost her
Suze: husband at that point, I think it was 3 months
Suze: prior to that podcast, and I wanted her to know
Suze: that it was really, really me.
Suze: Because she wrote me on Ask Suze podcast at gmail.com,
Suze: which all of you can.
Suze: And she told me her story. I happened to read it,
Suze: and I was so moved by the story I wanted
Suze: to talk to her in person.
Suze: So
Suze: I got her phone number. She gave it to me.
Suze: I called her, and the first thing she essentially said was, well,
Suze: how do I know that this is really you?
Suze: And she was right.
Suze: And I said, listen, I need to prove to you
Suze: that it is me because with artificial intelligence and all
Suze: these things that are going on, you never really know
Suze: if you are really you or if what you're seeing
Suze: is really who you think you're seeing or what they're
Suze: saying is really who you think is saying it, so
Suze: you have to be really, really clear.
Suze: So I said to her, I know on this podcast,
Suze: which I did, which was gonna be that Sunday.
Suze: Don't be partners with Uncle Sam. It's a great podcast.
Suze: You better all listen to it, by the way. I said,
Suze: listen to it, and I'll say your name and everything
Suze: on the podcast, and then you'll really know that it's me.
Suze: All right, I did that. And then after that I
Suze: spent a long time on the phone with her.
Suze: Really telling her exactly what I wanted her to do
Suze: and what I did not want her to do. 57
Suze: year old woman has 4 children ages about 21, 18,
Suze: I think 16 and 12 somewhere in there.
Suze: And her husband 3 months prior to the first time
Suze: of us talking unexpectedly just died.
Suze: And here she is 3 months later and she was
Suze: left a significant amount of money through life insurance policies,
Suze: term insurance, and she was left to the tune of
Suze: $7 million. Now this woman has never dealt with $7
Suze: million in her life.
Suze: And that is a lot of money.
Suze: And what I essentially told her.
Suze: And I want to tell all of you the exact
Suze: same thing, so you are to take out your Susy notebooks,
Suze: and you are to write this down, and you are
Suze: to never forget.
Suze: That I have said this to you.
Suze: Because when it happens to you, if it ever happens
Suze: to you, and I can only pray that it never
Suze: happens to you.
Suze: You want to do what I'm about to say to you.
Suze: So what I essentially said to her.
Suze: Is that listen you are to do nothing other than
Suze: keep this money safe and sound.
Suze: Except obviously pay off debts and things like that, but
Suze: nothing besides that.
Suze: For at least 6 months, 1 year or 2 years
Suze: after suffering the loss of a loved one.
Suze: And then I went on to talk to her about
Suze: this and said, you know, chances are it's going to
Suze: be at least 2 years, maybe 3 years for you
Suze: to feel like yourself again. And you may feel like
Suze: you are making the right decisions and that you know
Suze: what you're doing when it comes to money that you've
Suze: never handled before, but I'm here to tell you.
Suze: You are not in your body. You will get taken
Suze: advantage of possibly, but you will not be doing that
Suze: which you should be doing with this money.
Suze: So she had it in a few places already which
Suze: I was not happy about, but anyway, I had her
Suze: contact those banks where the money was.
Suze: And put it in a major brokerage discount firm in
Suze: their money market account, all $7 million of it in
Suze: a treasury money market account, OK.
Suze: And I said to her, You are to do nothing.
Suze: Do not touch this money. You are just going to
Suze: let it sit there. You are going to make between
Suze: 4 and 5% on it. Don't worry, interest rates aren't
Suze: going to go down so quickly right now. Just I
Suze: care more about you and keeping the money safe rather
Suze: than what you should invest it in.
Suze: So she did that and I was so happy and
Suze: that was that I wasn't thinking about it and then
Suze: just the other day I get an email from her
Suze: and she tells me that at this brokerage firm.
Suze: And it's one that all of you know, by the way,
Suze: that I mentioned many times on the Women and Money
Suze: podcast at this brokerage firm, somebody contacted her.
Suze: And he had her put $2.4 million in two annuities,
Suze: $1.5 million in 1 $900,000 in another. He left $1.5
Suze: million in the money market account.
Suze: So that when she wanted to buy a house, it
Suze: would be there for her, but that's what I had
Suze: already instructed her to do.
Suze: And the rest of the money he was going to
Suze: put it in stocks and bonds, and that's what he did.
Suze: And I said to this woman, I need to talk
Suze: to you.
Suze: Are you up for a talk with me again?
Suze: And she said, Sure.
Suze: So the other day on Friday I spent 2 hours
Suze: on the phone with this woman.
Suze: Cause I felt like she deserves that she lost her husband.
Suze: He was good enough to make sure that she would
Suze: be taken care of by having term life insurance in
Suze: place and all of those things, and she deserved that
Suze: in my opinion. We all deserve that in my opinion.
Suze: We all deserve to know what to do with money,
Suze: to be taken care of, to not have some financial adviser.
Suze: Do things with people's money when they're not ready to
Suze: do it just cause this person may make more money
Suze: or his firm may make more money.
Suze: Nothing upsets me more than that. Back to the story.
Suze: So I get on the phone with her.
Suze: And I said you do realize that insurance companies do
Suze: not operate like credit unions or certificates of deposits or
Suze: even treasury bills, bonds or notes in a CD, if
Suze: you put $1 million in a CD.
Suze: While it is true that that bank most likely will
Suze: have FDIC insurance, you will have $250,000 of that money insured.
Suze: You probably will name a beneficiary so that in case
Suze: you die, the money goes to that person.
Suze: But you therefore would have $750,000 of that million dollars.
Suze: If the bank went down.
Suze: Uninsured
Suze: However, with a CD, whether it's at a bank or
Suze: Alliant Credit Union or wherever, for every beneficiary that you
Suze: have up to a maximum of 5 beneficiaries, now in
Suze: this case this woman has 4 kids.
Suze: So if she put 4 kids as the beneficiaries.
Suze: Of this million dollar CD, she would have a million
Suze: dollars of FDIC insurance.
Suze: So in an annuity in the state that this woman
Suze: lives in.
Suze: The coverage provided by the state's Life and Health Insurance
Suze: Guarantee Association.
Suze: Does not increase based on the number of beneficiaries, so
Suze: the protection limit in most cases for annuities is $250,000
Suze: per contract holder regardless of the number of beneficiaries named.
Suze: Therefore, with multiple beneficiaries, she puts a million dollars into
Suze: this with multiple beneficiaries.
Suze: Still, the total protection of the million dollar annuity would
Suze: still be capped in this particular state at $250,000 but
Suze: she didn't put a million dollars in an annuity. She
Suze: put $1.5 million in one annuity.
Suze: And 900,000 in another annuity contract.
Suze: And when asked if it was insured, is it safe,
Suze: the agent said, Yes, we're insured this major brokerage firm
Suze: is insured SIPIC and everything, but never explained to this woman.
Suze: That if the insurance company was to go belly up,
Suze: it has nothing to do with the brokerage firm. If
Suze: the brokerage firm goes under, that's when their insurance comes
Suze: into place. However, when you buy a stock and the
Suze: company of that stock goes bankrupt, the major brokerage firm's
Suze: insurance isn't going to help you. If you buy an
Suze: annuity at a company and that company goes under.
Suze: The major brokerage firm's insurance isn't going to help you.
Suze: It's the insurance company, the Life and Health Insurance Guarantee
Suze: Association of the state.
Suze: That you live in where you bought the annuity.
Suze: Am I making sense? So I'm like on the phone
Suze: and I said, do you understand to this woman?
Suze: That you put $2.4 million in this annuity.
Suze: And chances are only $500,000 of it if it were
Suze: two different companies, and I'm not even sure it was
Suze: $500,000 of it.
Suze: It is protected if this company goes under but nothing else.
Suze: And she didn't know that. She didn't know that.
Suze: Then I said, Well, why did you do this? And
Suze: she says to me, I didn't want to do it.
Suze: But he was pushing me, Suze. I kept saying, I
Suze: think I need to wait, and he kept saying, no, no,
Suze: let's do this, let's do that, and before I knew it,
Suze: it was done.
Suze: Now I have to tell you I think about that
Suze: as financial abuse, believe it or not, and why do
Suze: I say that.
Suze: When you are a financial adviser.
Suze: You are not a salesperson.
Suze: But you have to be a financial adviser and manage
Suze: the advice that you are giving somebody, and the only
Suze: way that you can do that is to understand who
Suze: the person is, what have they gone through.
Suze: And when she walked in, she told him that she
Suze: just needed everything safe and sound. She told him the
Suze: loss that she had.
Suze: And then she didn't want to do anything really.
Suze: And so first they put all the money in a
Suze: money market account. All right. And the next meeting, it
Suze: was this and that and all of a sudden she
Suze: started to feel OK with this person, and before you
Suze: know it, the money's invested.
Suze: But he never once
Suze: asked her
Suze: about anything to do with her personal financial situation.
Suze: I asked her, did he ask you if you had
Suze: a trust or a will? No. Did he ask you
Suze: if you were sick? No. Did he ask you if
Suze: you have parents and in-laws that you need to take
Suze: care of with this money? No. Did he ask you
Suze: what your mortgage payments were and the interest rate on
Suze: your house was, so that maybe you were better off
Suze: paying off the mortgage on your home that might be
Suze: at 7% than putting it in a money market account? No.
Suze: Did he ask you about anything like that? No, she says.
Suze: I said, So what happened? You walked in, you sat down.
Suze: He knows you have $7 million and what does he
Suze: say to you? He tells me what he wants me
Suze: to invest it in, just that simple, Suzy.
Suze: And I say to her that is not a wealth manager.
Suze: Cause $7 million everybody is wealth for a woman with
Suze: a family of four who just lost her husband and
Suze: doesn't have a clue.
Suze: Where she should go, what she should do, and how
Suze: she should be.
Suze: And so a salesperson, you write this down. A salesperson
Suze: is exactly what this gentleman was. A woman walks in,
Suze: has a lot of money, doesn't ask you anything about
Suze: your situation, and simply tells you what you should invest in,
Suze: and then says to you.
Suze: Let's do it. And you say, no, no, I don't
Suze: think I want to do it right now, and he
Suze: pushes you and pushes you and you're so vulnerable because
Suze: you don't know what to do and you just give
Suze: up your power and say, OK.
Suze: That is.
Suze: Again, in my opinion, financial abuse.
Suze: Because as an adviser you should recognize when a client
Suze: is ready to do something and when they are not
Suze: and even if they want to do something. A good
Suze: financial adviser, knowing that somebody has just lost their husband unexpectedly,
Suze: wasn't even sick a day unexpectedly.
Suze: Should say, you know what, we're not going to do
Suze: anything cause you're not ready to yet. Just let's keep
Suze: it safe and sound, or rather than 2.4 million in annuities.
Suze: They had a 7% surrender charge the first year and
Suze: the second year and so forth. All right.
Suze: Rather than that, so you want to put it in treasuries,
Suze: put $400,000 in 6 different maturity of treasuries, OK, you
Suze: could do that too.
Suze: And probably if interest rates go down a little bit,
Suze: you could probably get out more than you put in
Suze: if you needed it.
Suze: And she didn't even understand what an annuity was. She's
Suze: only 57. I said, you do realize that you can't
Suze: take a whole lot of money out of annuity before 59.5%
Suze: without a 10% penalty.
Suze: She didn't know any of that. She couldn't answer any
Suze: of the questions that I had for her.
Suze: If you ever everybody find yourself in a situation.
Suze: That it doesn't feel right. You don't understand what the person,
Suze: the salesperson is telling you to do.
Suze: If you just start to feel like, oh, I just
Suze: better do it and then get out of here, then
Suze: I don't have to deal with this anymore.
Suze: Please, I am begging you not to do it.
Suze: The good side of this story, because the last thing
Suze: this woman should be invested in is two annuities. Last thing,
Suze: she doesn't need that on any level.
Suze: Is that the contract an annuity contract usually has a
Suze: 10 to 30 day out clause so that she has
Suze: till June 30th to totally
Suze: Get rid of this annuity and get all her money back. Oh,
Suze: and did I tell you? She didn't even know she
Suze: had purchased annuities until she got a package from the
Suze: insurance company that the broker put the money in, and
Suze: that's when she realized, oh my God, he went ahead
Suze: and did it.
Suze: So after I talked to her and everything, she wrote
Suze: the financial adviser who always wrote her right back.
Suze: And she didn't hear from him from his email nothing.
Suze: She calls him and all of a sudden his voice
Suze: box is totally full.
Suze: She wants all the money put back in the money
Suze: market account, and she is just going to leave it
Suze: there until she is ready to do something with it
Suze: and in the meantime it can just sit making 4.5
Suze: or 5% right there.
Suze: So the question I then asked her is, you just
Suze: gave $7 million to this person, so to speak, to
Suze: take charge of for you. What happens when you can't
Suze: get him? Who else can you call? What else can
Suze: you do? Does he have a team? All these questions,
Suze: and she didn't really know. And I said, I tell
Suze: you what you're going to do. It's still Friday.
Suze: It's still early cause you're central time. I want you
Suze: to march yourself down into this brokerage firm into their office,
Suze: and if he's not there, I want you to ask
Suze: to speak to the manager of that office, and I
Suze: want you to absolutely liquidate at no charge to you
Suze: everything that he did against your really wanting to do it.
Suze: So I hope she did that on Friday. Haven't heard
Suze: back yet, but we'll see. But the reason that I
Suze: wanted to talk about this is it still seriously upsets me, ladies.
Suze: How many of you have not gotten involved with your finances.
Suze: You haven't gotten involved with what your spouse is doing
Suze: with the both of your money. You haven't played the
Suze: what if if one of you were to die and
Suze: you've got a lump sum of money, would you know
Suze: what to do with it?
Suze: I still am involved with friends and meeting people.
Suze: Who have a lot of money.
Suze: But the woman doesn't know anything about it.
Suze: And she one day may find herself.
Suze: In the same situation that this woman is in, not
Suze: knowing what to do and getting involved with a salesperson
Suze: who would have probably made a whole lot of money
Suze: on this.
Suze: But the point of all of this really is
Suze: There is a big difference, everybody, between a firm that
Suze: just simply holds money in a money market account.
Suze: And a wealth management firm.
Suze: And when you inherit large sums of money and $7
Suze: million is a large sum of money.
Suze: You want to make sure that you are dealing with
Suze: a wealth management firm, a firm that has lawyers just
Suze: to talk to you and not charge you. Maybe one
Suze: person who only manages dividend paying stocks, another person that
Suze: only manages bonds, and one person that maybe oversees a
Suze: lot of the other things.
Suze: She has enough money to have a bond specialist, to
Suze: have a dividend stock specialist, to have a specialist that
Suze: can tell her if all of a sudden estate taxes
Suze: go down to a maximum of $5 million how to
Suze: plan for her kids so they don't have to pay
Suze: estate tax.
Suze: And that's somebody that oversees the entire team, it's a
Suze: wealth management team.
Suze: You owe it to yourself to do these things, and
Suze: a lot of you think you don't have enough money
Suze: to do it. And what you're not realizing is that
Suze: so many of you have over a million dollars now
Suze: in your 401ks that you've been working so long and
Suze: you have 1 million $2 million.03 million dollars plus the
Suze: equity in your house.
Suze: That's the type of investment advice I want you to
Suze: be not only looking for.
Suze: But I want you to make sure.
Suze: That your family is absolutely protected if something were to
Suze: happen to any of you.
Suze: There's only one thing that I want you to remember
Suze: when it comes to your money, and it is this
Suze: people first, meaning you better know about your own money.
Suze: You better know about everything financially going on in your household.
Suze: Cause you need to be present to know about your money,
Suze: so you know the things that you should buy with
Suze: the money or not buy.
Suze: So that you really no matter what happens can remain unstoppable.