Photos of USA '06

lessons learnt

well i know i have not been posting photos and blogging as much as i should and i have to apologise as i have been really busy lately with eBay and currently with woot! (http://www.woot.com), a website that sells one thing a day but the last 2 days, they've been having a woot-off which means they sell a new item after another one has sold out. its a pretty interesting website and you can find really great deals such as a WD Hard Disk 250GB for only USD54.99 including shipping.

well the reason for this post is because i just needed to let out some frustration. some of you may know that back in october/novemeber last year, i engaged in the help of a financial planner to help me with my finance planning. he was recommended to me by a friend who was interested in finance so i thought he must be pretty good and all.

but boy was i wrong. right from the start, there were problems. my plan was suppose to start in december when i handed him the cash but apparently it did not. some of you would know that in december i was in the US and when i returned to check on the status of the policy, he told me it was not started because he consulted with his manager who thought another plan would be better suited for me.

thanks for the thought but couldn't you have told me that through phone/email/sms? i was available through those 3 methods while i was in the US at that time. and even then, it was me who called him when i returned from the US a couple of days later and he told me that it was not started. if you ask me, it sure shows a lack of professionalism when your client has to call you and then you update him on something so important.

if that was not enough, when i contacted him several times via emails and sms to find out the status and some information about my plans, not once did i get a reply. when i called him a couple of times, he said he would get back to me but did not. when i texted him once to say i wanted to cancel my policy, boy was he fast to call me back and to talk to me about it.

so i decided to hang on but when i asked for some more additional information later on and did not get a response, i guess that was the last straw. i know some of you may be wondering, why i'm hands-on on this finance thing when i have a planner. well the thing is, i was interested to see and understand my plan even more so as to better plan ahead in the future.

anyways, when i did not get a respond from him, i again told him that this time i wanted to terminate my policy and told him to get the documentation ready for me to sign. point to note: it was somewhere during my examiniation period and i couldnt spare the time to go down and sign it at that time so i had him prepare it beforehand and i would come down after the exams to sign it, as i was runnin on a tight schedule, with me flyin off 10 days after the last paper.

what happened next was really unbelievable. when i went to meet him, he said the documentation was not prepared and that we had to do it personally at the AXA buildin. however, when we got there and through hearing the conversation between him and another planner there (i was sitting with them anyways so its not like i evesdropped)., i learned that the documentation was freely available. which got me wondering why my planner did not do so in the first place.

the date we went to sign the documentation was may 11th. i brought everything on my part and he was suppose to bring my 'book' which he said was with him. but somehow, it slipped his mind and the documentation to terminate my policy could not be submitted at that time. sheeesh. so he told me that he would do it for me on monday, may 15th. fine by me coz i was flying off on saturday, may 13th.

but guess what. my dad emailed me last week to say that there were letters from AXA that said that my plan had been terminated (not cancelled) because of insufficient funds in my account. now when i terminated that plan, i transferred all that cash into another account so it was nearly empty. but the thing that surprised me most was that my plan was TERMINATED (and not cancelled as i had requested) on May17th. this was somewhere bout 2 weeks after i left when my dad emailed me on may 30th or june 1st.

so i sent another email on june 2nd to check with the planner. and no reply. i send another email on thursday, june 8th. and finally got a reply. and what did he say? i shall quote it to you below:

Dear Tariq,

The document has been sent last week for the termination. Sorry for the delay as after you left, I also went for a short business trip overseas. Sorry for the late handling and it should be settled by this week or so.

Thanks and regards,

XXX

can you believe the nerve of the guy. if he said it was sent last week, chances are he had totally forgotten about the policy until i emailed him again. so you can only imagine how i must be feeling right now.

well i shall keep his name hidden but if you are planning to look for a financial adviser, ask me and I will tell you who to avoid. on the other hand, if you could wait a while, I have another friend training to be one and i know he will be a great one with time to come. i could also give you his name once starts working.

thanks for readin this rather long post. just had to let it out.

posted by Tariq @ 10:53 AM