Ms. Garcia
1/5
Educational planning resources came to my daughter’s high school and offered parents assistance on how to fill out FAFSA, to have a better chances obtaining scholarships, grants and tuition assistance. I’m a single parent and needed guidance on how to make ends meet and at same time prepare my children for a better future and be able to send them to college so I’ve met with one of their brokers. He was actually more focused on gaining all information about my finances as he explained- “ so we can fill out FAFSA more accurately”, he was more fixated about what investment policy we needed instead of educating me on how to fill out FAFSA. He was able to convince me to buy a policy that he explained will be my terminal illness/long term care insurance, and that this policy will also serve as our emergency fund like bank account but with higher return, a policy that I can also borrow for my children’s college education. He convinced me to transfer my savings account and also tried to convince me to transfer all my retirement funds into this account. I made him very much aware how much retirement fund and existing life insurance I have since he instructed me to disclosed all of my finances, present him with documents. I gave him my full trust. I transferred money from my bank account and some from my retirement funds and bought the policy that he explained as our emergency funds. I contributed a lumpsum of almost $20,000. Six years later my 2 daughters and I were in crises that we needed our so called “ Emergency fund”. I had a hard time getting hold of him as he said he was busy or got mixed up with our appointment date etc. He directed me to contact the policy provider co. and that’s when I found out that this broker actually sold me a half million life insurance, not a terminal illness or long term care insurance policy or a policy that will serve as an emergency fund for my children and I. I ended up losing a lumpsum of almost $20,000. I will never forget what he did to us - me , my 2 daughters and my kids school, he took advantage of my trust, took the opportunity to mislead us knowing that I am a single parent. (I also came to realize that my kids actually knew how to fill out their FAFSA and his guidance never made a difference on how they filled it out so trust your kids more than these brokers) I gave him my full trust thinking that since the school let them do their parent presentation, school must have done their diligence and that these group of brokers can be trusted, I was wrong. I ended up reporting them to the school and I’m now sharing my experience with the EPR to you parents, hoping that this will never happen to anyone of you..
