God, I hate Thrivent-Venting
Posted: Wed Aug 31, 2016 9:24 am
Thrivent is sort of Lutheran fraternal benefits non-profit thingie. The profits are fed back to your church or a church camp or wherever you designate. Idea is good, but, my god, the salesmen are some of the slimiest I have ever seen.
From late 2008 to mid 2010-Mrs. S tried her hand there and it didn't work out-however, very little of my hatred for Thrivent is based on her horrible experiences there as I had very low expectations for her there. I had been involved with other similar companies and had seen just how tough it is to establish a career in that field.
Anyway, my parents are in their mid 70's and they have been Thrivent members (or its predecessor companies) for decades. However, they are at the stage of life where they are not going to be putting more money in, not with Thrivent anyway. They are required to take a annual distribution from their IRA's. They both have IRA's with several companies, but I have my mother take her total required distribution from all the IRA's from the Thrivent one.
However, because they are at that stage of life. none of the slimy sales reps from the relevant particular office want to handle their business because there no potential commissions. And yes, that office has the most slimy salesmen I have ever seen. There are 4 salesmen working out of that particular office.
A year ago, there was a young woman working there and she was assigned to that office and had my parents as her clients. They give the newbies the crappiest customers like my parents.
In 2015, my mother and I met with the young woman to take her IRA distribution. During that meeting. one of the slimiest salesmen I have ever met sat in on it. His obvious goal was to convince my mother to reinvest her withdrawal in another Thrivent product. That wasn't going to happen anyway, but he had no chance as both mother and I could not stand the guy from the first second.
As soon as he saw that we were not going to reinvest (and give him a commission)-he said he had to "take a phone call" and he would be back shortly. Yeah right-we didn't just fall off the turnip truck. There was no way he was coming back.
Fast forward a year-Summer 2016 and it is the time that I help my parents with their required IRA distributions.
The young woman who was my parents' agent is no longer with Thrivent (no surprise). However, it would be reasonable to assume that one of the other 4 agents in that office could help us.
2 days ago, I called up there and left a message for an agent. We know one of the greaseballs fairly well through long-time family connections. He was on the phone, but I specifically asked him to call me back that afternoon and what we needed to do.
He did not call me back, so I am a little torqued about that from that point on.
Yesterday, my dad had an appointment with another company for his distribution at 4. So we stopped at the Thrivent office at 3, just to see if we could catch somebody. 2 of the agents were getting ready for a conference call, so they could not see us.
I had talked 2 days ago to a secretary named Mary and left my message, the one yesterday was a different lady and said "I saw the email and we sent it to corporate because none of these reps are assigned to you."
Really, they can't return a &*^%$* phone call and tell me that. Plus, my parents are 50 Year members (or however long) and they are the dog crap on the bottom of your shoes and nobody in the office wants to waste 5 minutes to help them.
Plus there is me. We have a lot of life insurance through Thrivent from when Mrs S worked there-this is life insurance that we needed anyway for business reasons. I write them at least 20 checks a year and you can't return a frickin phone call because it is not worth wasting 5 minutes to help my parents.
I am really glad that we could not see an agent there yesterday-I was pissed and the office just felt slimy-I will never go back to that office again.
Ever since Mrs S was done there-her and I have been assigned to corporate, by her choice, but she always said that there is an agent in another town that she was good to her when she worked there and that we should be assigned to him-so we started that process yesterday for both us and my parents.
From late 2008 to mid 2010-Mrs. S tried her hand there and it didn't work out-however, very little of my hatred for Thrivent is based on her horrible experiences there as I had very low expectations for her there. I had been involved with other similar companies and had seen just how tough it is to establish a career in that field.
Anyway, my parents are in their mid 70's and they have been Thrivent members (or its predecessor companies) for decades. However, they are at the stage of life where they are not going to be putting more money in, not with Thrivent anyway. They are required to take a annual distribution from their IRA's. They both have IRA's with several companies, but I have my mother take her total required distribution from all the IRA's from the Thrivent one.
However, because they are at that stage of life. none of the slimy sales reps from the relevant particular office want to handle their business because there no potential commissions. And yes, that office has the most slimy salesmen I have ever seen. There are 4 salesmen working out of that particular office.
A year ago, there was a young woman working there and she was assigned to that office and had my parents as her clients. They give the newbies the crappiest customers like my parents.
In 2015, my mother and I met with the young woman to take her IRA distribution. During that meeting. one of the slimiest salesmen I have ever met sat in on it. His obvious goal was to convince my mother to reinvest her withdrawal in another Thrivent product. That wasn't going to happen anyway, but he had no chance as both mother and I could not stand the guy from the first second.
As soon as he saw that we were not going to reinvest (and give him a commission)-he said he had to "take a phone call" and he would be back shortly. Yeah right-we didn't just fall off the turnip truck. There was no way he was coming back.
Fast forward a year-Summer 2016 and it is the time that I help my parents with their required IRA distributions.
The young woman who was my parents' agent is no longer with Thrivent (no surprise). However, it would be reasonable to assume that one of the other 4 agents in that office could help us.
2 days ago, I called up there and left a message for an agent. We know one of the greaseballs fairly well through long-time family connections. He was on the phone, but I specifically asked him to call me back that afternoon and what we needed to do.
He did not call me back, so I am a little torqued about that from that point on.
Yesterday, my dad had an appointment with another company for his distribution at 4. So we stopped at the Thrivent office at 3, just to see if we could catch somebody. 2 of the agents were getting ready for a conference call, so they could not see us.
I had talked 2 days ago to a secretary named Mary and left my message, the one yesterday was a different lady and said "I saw the email and we sent it to corporate because none of these reps are assigned to you."
Really, they can't return a &*^%$* phone call and tell me that. Plus, my parents are 50 Year members (or however long) and they are the dog crap on the bottom of your shoes and nobody in the office wants to waste 5 minutes to help them.
Plus there is me. We have a lot of life insurance through Thrivent from when Mrs S worked there-this is life insurance that we needed anyway for business reasons. I write them at least 20 checks a year and you can't return a frickin phone call because it is not worth wasting 5 minutes to help my parents.
I am really glad that we could not see an agent there yesterday-I was pissed and the office just felt slimy-I will never go back to that office again.
Ever since Mrs S was done there-her and I have been assigned to corporate, by her choice, but she always said that there is an agent in another town that she was good to her when she worked there and that we should be assigned to him-so we started that process yesterday for both us and my parents.
--Bob