Oppenheimer & Co. Inc. - Bethlehem Rick Slifka: Me and 4 other family members terminated our entire multi-million $$$ relationship with this Oppenheimer agency for several reasons, here are only 4:
1. We purchased several large annuities totaling in excess of $600,000 through his firm. Here is the rub - Oppenheimer then reduced our managed-portfolio by that $600,0000, telling us those funds were no longer being managed by Oppenheimer. Please understand what happened here...this agency sold us the annuities, recd a huge commission for it, and then said our management fee could not be reduced because the size of our portfolio was now $600,000 less!!!
When we fired this agency, they tried to keep us by FINALLY agreeing to reduce our fee to what it should have been . He never did!
2. In FEB 2013 through this same Agent we purchased a Whole Life insurance policy with a 1-time payment of $75,000...through a Met Life agent they brought in. Last year we learned that the policy had lapsed. After hours of discussions directly with Met Life, they agreed the agent failed to properly write up the policy, and agreed to supposedly re-write it claiming "Met Life agent error". We completed the necessary paperwork AND contacted our local Oppenheimer agent just to make him aware of what had occurred under his watch and through a sales rep he brought into the transaction> ... we never heard a reply. He of course, once again, got his commission off that policy in FEB 2013. Last week we recd from Met Life an Account Summary only to notice that our $350,000 face-value policy was now worth only $212,000.
Our new, professionally astute and ethical financial advisory, learned directly from Met Life that "we do not sell 1-time premium whole life policies; your client purchased a policy with a $5000+ annual premium and a $70,000 rider". Needless to say we canceled the policy that day, FRI 2/24/17.
3: Some family members could not get hold of the Agent, I.E., emails and phone calls were not responded to.
4. I would strongly urge you to make it crystal clear to anyone in this agency to make you aware of every single investment decision. There were times when large sums of $$$ were fully invested invested into equities by the Oppenheimer agent .
Finally, please understand that I and none of my family members are experienced financially educated/trained Advisors, annuity experts, nor are we licensed insurance agents. And because of that we always assumed the Agent was doing everything in our best interest...his fiduciary responsibility of every licensed advisor.
Bottom line, please make sure that you always understand what is happening with your hard-earned money, make sure you understand what Fees you are being billed and if you decide to enter into any sort of arrangement with people THEY bring into their agency and are representing - you might want to get a 2nd opinion because you do not know what questions you need to ask!
Good luck and keep in mind there are hundreds of high quality financial advisors in your community!
