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Dinner Spam. anyone else!

edited June 2015 in Off-Topic
Not a week goes by when I Don't receive a letter in the mail (postal service) from a CFA or some other entity to attend a retirement seminar, or estate planning, or financial planning seminar that come with a dinner. Some weeks I am blessed (or not) with 3 invitations in one week from 3 different planners.

Is anyone else plagued by this?

Yes, I can ignore and recycle the letters. No, contacting DMA, and the credit reporting agencies doesn't stop them.
Somehow, for the last 3-5 years every retirement planner in the region has sent me a Dinner request.

I am beginning to think, either every out of work person has recently become a CFA and is ambulance chasing would be baby-boomer clients, or that this is the latest maketing nuisance.

It used to be every week I would get a credit card application in the 90's. Thank goodness I got off that list.

Just curious, if anyone else out there gets these letters with such frequency.

Theoretically I could eat out at least once a week for free (If I had the desire to withstand a seminar that preceded it and most likely the endless followup calls).

Comments

  • I get about one letter every two months so not as bad as your situation. Insurance companies are the culprits in my case.
  • edited June 2015
    I wish there were a federal "Do not invite me for a dinner seminar" opt out list.

    But then again, it would get hacked by rogue CFA's and insurance company marketers and you would probably get invites for breakfast and lunch as well.

    Next thing coming... pharmaceutical companies sending out letters for their latest and greatest over-priced drug that you don't need (with a free sample enclosed). Then in small print (once starting this drug, stopping this medication may be life-threatening).
  • Me three here, interspersed with Medicare informational dinners. Yup, could have had dinner 2-3 nights a week but I wasn't confident in my ability to sit there without committing suicide or homicide. Just hold your nose and continue recycling as you have been. It starts to drop off after you've passed the signup period or age 65 and a half, whichever comes first. Or not.
  • beebee
    edited June 2015
    Dinner on them...the rest of night is on you. Nothing wrong with being courted so long as you keep your wallet/purse and your pants /dress on. Combine appetizers at Costco with one of these dinners for the ultimate retiree's night out.
  • Hi @Accipiter

    About 1 invitation per month is my average. I always run a FINRA check on these folks. Most have a clean record, but the last one had a legal action against him......can't recall now; but whomever filed the complaint for "the reason" was the winner and this "planner" had this negative whack on his record.
    I would probably become to aggravated by the stories and speeches about the insurance or brokered account trying to be won. I am sure I would be asked to leave after asking questions.

    Take care,
    Catch
  • Yes, I have received these dinner offers for more
    than ten years.
    Laid end to end, they would likely encircle my neighborhood.

    I did however attend a free seminar (in 2005 or 2006)
    sponsored by CNBC.
    As I recall, it was then called a CNBC University seminar.

    After many years of hearing CNBC talking heads and their
    “expert” guests suggest that “you can’t time the market”,
    the speaker – in a sharkskin suit – claimed that CNBC
    University could show you how to time the market for
    only $3,500. What a bargain!

    After his initial “you’ll go broke if you don’t sign up
    for this information” spiel, he proceeded to misinform
    about the simplicity of “propriety” technical analysis.

    The gentleman next to me turned and asked,
    “What do you think?”
    I said, “Leave now.”


  • edited June 2015
    I go for the free meal. They call freeloaders like me "plate lickers".

    financial seminar plate-lickers

    http://www.advisorinternetmarketing.com/how-to-stop-feeding-financial-seminar-plate-lickers-once-and-for-all/
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  • edited June 2015
    Truly scary. One such "financial advisor" had his own 30 minute program on a local TV station that ran on weekends some time back. Pretty certain it was a paid advertisement - but the station didn't appear to acknowledge that. Tactic was to scare older people about the dangers of investing on their own using his own charts and "razzle-dazzle" - pretty slick routine. Near end of show he'd invite them to a "free seminar" - where it seems an attempt was made to sell them an annuity.

    Once I got a letter from him. He apparently had been able to tell that I had watched the program a few times (probably thanks to DirecTV's marketing of viewer information). He assumed I'd be eager to attend one of his free seminars.

    As someone has probably already pointed out ... if you attend one of these things, it's YOU that's on the menu!
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  • edited June 2015
    Thanks Maurice. I agree with you (and your article) that DirecTV does not air targeted advertising based on viewer habits. I've never seen any evidence of that.

    However, there seems to be a "gray area" as to whether or not DirecTV (or cable providers) do in fact reveal clients' viewing history to certain third parties. The linked article suggests that: (A) if I'm producing and telecasting my own program and (B) Jane Doe tunes in to watch my program and (C) is doing so through DirectTV's distribution system; than under those circumstances DirecTV may share that specific information with me.

    http://www.techlicious.com/blog/whos-gathering-your-personal-information/

    Excerpt: As for how the company will share information, DirecTV says, in part: "We may also share your information with third parties: (1) that own content and technologies used in our products and services to report on and account for use of such content and technologies by our subscribers; or (2) with whom we offer co-branded, joint or customized products or services. We take reasonable steps to require these third parties to safeguard your personally identifiable information."
  • "Not a week goes by when I Don't receive a letter in the mail (postal service) from a CFA or some other entity to attend a retirement seminar, or estate planning, or financial planning seminar that come with a dinner. Some weeks I am blessed (or not) with 3 invitations in one week from 3 different planners."

    @Accipiter- No sir, I can truthfully say that I've received no such trash mail in many, many years now, ever since I installed an advanced design filter. Her name is Carolyn, and this service is one of many reasons why I have remained married to the same woman for 45 years. The only incoming mail that I generally need to consider is the current issue of The Economist and my driver's license renewal, and occasionally some urgent matter that if left unattended might result in my incarceration.

  • @FundStudent: "...The research for this project took me about 1 hour. In that one hour, all I did was Google different topics on Social Security and take bits and pieces from different sites and put them into my own brief words..."
    Using actual bound books made of paper, that sounds just like the way I approached my academic papers. Hee hee.

    Which tells you how valuable my papers were. Same for these financial planning marketers. It's about marketing, not reality, truth, nor beneficial planning.
  • I now have financial seminar offers with dinner coming to me in brief micro-bursts---a flurry for a month, then 5 months of radio silence. Blessed silence. On the other hand, I did receive a lovely card from one of my CC "stakeholders" yesterday (created for their use by special arrangement with Hallmark Expressions, I kid you not), wishing me a Happy Birthday (!) and reminding me that, if I ever need help, they are in the business of helping. I can't tell you how much that meant to me. Really, I can't.
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  • DTV - Gotta love it! Thanks Maurice.
  • Interesting, since I , too, receive these often. However, the person sending is certainly NOT a CFA credential holder. Occasionally they are a CFP credential holder, but most often they are simply an 'advisor'. Note the invitation disclosure always includes the line 'securities and insurance products available through (brokerage/insurance firm), member FINRA'. I would be tempted to attend one of these, but knowing how these folks check their attendee lists, I am sure they would find out and dis-invite me. In almost every case, the topics include something like 'how to get a guaranteed lifetime income without running out of money,' or how to maximize your social security benefits, or how to protect your assets from taxes or probate, or some other high-trigger topic that the average investor finds attractive.

    In truth, almost all of these 'free' dinners are ways for the salesperson (notice I did not say 'advisor') to get folks interested in annuities, trusts that they don't need, or some other gimmick du jour. I know one couple that go to almost every one of these dinners to which they are invited. They tell us it is never information that is not available for free, that it almost always has something to do with variable annuities that have a guarantee of some kind, and that the Social Security information is sometimes just plain wrong. (The husband is retired from SS Administration!).

    It is interesting that I never receive a dinner invitation from anyone who is a fiduciary, fee-only advisor. Funny, that!
  • @ BobC: Nice comment. Having hit the 80's I don't get many of these (guess I am beyond salvation), mostly just retirement colony dinners.

    However, many, many years ago, being a totally uninformed noobie investor, I attended a class at the local Community College. Decided to check out working with the instructor (the only investments I had at the time being IRAs). He worked up a list of investments that would have "equalled or bettered" my current investments ( which I recall were mainly Acorn, Mutual Shares, Gabelli) -- none of which I had ever heard of -- but I was assured would have done "just as well" but "with MUCH less risk": ie, my current choices -- altho successful -- were MUCH too risky! Being inexperienced but not stupid, I looked into these proposed funds, with all of which I was totally unfamiliar. As you already guessed, they were all up-front fees etc etc etc. But at the time I was switching my job from engineering development to computational modelling -- and the question I still recall word-for-word over the many years since it was posed during a review by the lab chief's assistant: "Can you modellers EVER get the right answer when you don't know the results in advance???"

    I guess that with a nice warm friendly dinner ( etc etc) people don't often ask this question ( or equivalent), but I highly recommend it. Or at least the mind-set behind it.
  • "People who live in glass houses..." BobC. I'm still waiting for a call from you.
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