Full Version: Tiaa-creff
I have never encountered such a mess as I have with Tiaa-Cref. They were fine all those years of putting money in but their retirement options are muddled and trying to get anyone to help is near impossible. I have been passed around like a French ###### and just wanted to warn anyone else. My advise is to find a good financial advisor who knows their way around the 403b options and let them help you with this stuff. Also every transfer out of their accounts is slow and they do not reimburse you for any losses due to market down turns during that time. Mutual funds by comparison liquidate in a few hours and you get what you expect. Fixed annuities work the same way but somehow Tiaa-cref takes their dear sweet time and the consumer is left holding the bag for their slowness.
QUOTE(Polosport02 @ May 21 2009, 03:19 PM) 
I have never encountered such a mess as I have with Tiaa-Cref. They were fine all those years of putting money in but their retirement options are muddled and trying to get anyone to help is near impossible. I have been passed around like a French ###### and just wanted to warn anyone else. My advise is to find a good financial advisor who knows their way around the 403b options and let them help you with this stuff. Also every transfer out of their accounts is slow and they do not reimburse you for any losses due to market down turns during that time. Mutual funds by comparison liquidate in a few hours and you get what you expect. Fixed annuities work the same way but somehow Tiaa-cref takes their dear sweet time and the consumer is left holding the bag for their slowness.
Perhaps you could enlighten those of us who are not preppies and therefore are ignorant of your angst with the basis of your confusion arising from the "muddled retirement options" at TIAA-CREF. Are you referring to options under the GRA contracts or the supplemental GRAs?
Or maybe the SRA?
Why do think a financial advisor will be able to solve the riddle of TIAA-CREFs benefit options?
QUOTE(intruder @ May 21 2009, 03:34 PM)
QUOTE(Polosport02 @ May 21 2009, 03:19 PM)
I have never encountered such a mess as I have with Tiaa-Cref. They were fine all those years of putting money in but their retirement options are muddled and trying to get anyone to help is near impossible. I have been passed around like a French ###### and just wanted to warn anyone else. My advise is to find a good financial advisor who knows their way around the 403b options and let them help you with this stuff. Also every transfer out of their accounts is slow and they do not reimburse you for any losses due to market down turns during that time. Mutual funds by comparison liquidate in a few hours and you get what you expect. Fixed annuities work the same way but somehow Tiaa-cref takes their dear sweet time and the consumer is left holding the bag for their slowness.
Perhaps you could enlighten those of us who are not preppies and therefore are ignorant of your angst with the basis of your confusion arising from the "muddled retirement options" at TIAA-CREF. Are you referring to options under the the GRA contracts or the supplemental GRAs?
Or maybe the SRA?
Why do think a financial advisor will be able to solve the riddle of TIAA-CREFs benefit options?
Hi Polo,
Welcome to this site. I think you will find that we are fairly honest around here because most of us have no financial bias, we help people because we love this stuff.
I have a question and a comment:
How does one get a "good financial advisor who knows their way around the 403b options" when through the history of the 403b, those so called "good" advisors have been pushing only expensive TSA products?
I don't know if you are talking about a transfer or a move between funds within TIAA CREF. I have made changes in my fund allocations within TIAA CREF with a few mouse clicks. Please tell me which company pays you for loses that you had during market downturns? With all due respect, I think you need to educate yourself on how investments work. Everybody who had investments has lost money this past year. Why would you think you are immune?
With regard to transfers from tIAA CREF, I only recently transfered money from TIAA cREF to Vanguard and it took about 3 weeks. That is fast. I have never heard of any company taking just a few hours. My goodness, there are security matters to deal with, forms to sign with obtaining a bank guarantee signature to assure that I was the one on my account making transfers and not someone else. Yikes! I would never want my money in a mutual fund company that has loose security standards.
I suggest that you read some of the discussions and articles on this site. You might realise that you have been very fortunate to have TIAA CREF all of these years. Many of us have been ripped off with expensive TSAs from large insurance companies. I have used TIAA cREF for my 403b for years and have been very happy. I still have a REIT account with TC.
If you want us to help you, you need to be more specific. What do you want TIAA CREF to do that they are not doing?
Steve
I have just a few quick observations. In working with this provider from an administrative point of view firsthand, they are not the most efficient, in fact they can be quite the challenge to work with. They tend to have issues such as incorrectly posting participant funds, not posting funds at all, not taking responsible line when these errors occur and I have heard plenty of similar stories in regards to movement of monies.
Low expenses are important, but they sometimes come at a cost. This certainly does not justify the other end of the spectrum either, expenses just to generate revenue. One actually may prefer reasonable costs with a good service model than lowest cost with poor service model.
I would also say that though Steve may not feel there is a financial bias through the site and I tend to agree, like everything in life there is bias.
In this case it is the inference being made by his statement of all so called "good" advisors. I would at least disclose the personal bias that is being made and often is in some of these posts. That bias being advisors are bad, greedy, self interested people, which I tend not to agree with as a blanket policy. Just my two cents,,,
Low expenses are important, but they sometimes come at a cost. This certainly does not justify the other end of the spectrum either, expenses just to generate revenue. One actually may prefer reasonable costs with a good service model than lowest cost with poor service model.
I would also say that though Steve may not feel there is a financial bias through the site and I tend to agree, like everything in life there is bias.
In this case it is the inference being made by his statement of all so called "good" advisors. I would at least disclose the personal bias that is being made and often is in some of these posts. That bias being advisors are bad, greedy, self interested people, which I tend not to agree with as a blanket policy. Just my two cents,,,
Hi Pat,
My responses are in red,
Steve
I have just a few quick observations. In working with this provider from an administrative point of view firsthand, they are not the most efficient, in fact they can be quite the challenge to work with. They tend to have issues such as incorrectly posting participant funds, not posting funds at all, not taking responsible line when these errors occur and I have heard plenty of similar stories in regards to movement of monies.
Every once in a while we get a poster who complains about TC. It usually turns out to be that the issue is that he or she invested in the annuity that pays the highest rate but has restrictions. This poster has not told us as requested by Intruder. Most people on this site who have used TC have found NO problems and it continues to be a good place for 403b money. The pros do not like TC for obvious reasons.
Low expenses are important, but they sometimes come at a cost. This certainly does not justify the other end of the spectrum either, expenses just to generate revenue. One actually may prefer reasonable costs with a good service model than lowest cost with poor service model.
TC has been upgrading their software and this may have reflected on some of the criticisms. Heck, I have criticisms for VG as well. Low expenses are the number one variable that significantly affects the bottom line. Lots of studies varify this. TC does not have a poor service model, the participant needs to know a little about how TC and investments work, but just because a totally naive participant complains about TC does not automacally mean that they have a poor service model. Perhaps, they talked to the wrong person. People do make mistakes.
I would also say that though Steve may not feel there is a financial bias through the site and I tend to agree, like everything in life there is bias.
I cannot speak for this site, but I know I am totally biased towards the investor. Life is full of biases. We need some good biases for the educator because out there in the school cafeteria and union halls, the bias towards the sales people are as common as the number of grands of sand in the universe. Sales people have NO accountability and will do anything to get a commission.
In this case it is the inference being made by his statement of all so called "good" advisors. I would at least disclose the personal bias that is being made and often is in some of these posts. That bias being advisors are bad, greedy, self interested people, which I tend not to agree with as a blanket policy. Just my two cents,,,
I was responding to the initial posters suggestion that we need to get a "good adviser". Its nothing personnal but its been my experience that I have only found a handfull of advisers who had excellant fiduciary ethics. The 403b system is corrupt and nobody but an financially literate educator can keep himself or herself from the sharks. The other 99.9% are prone to those sharks. I have talked to far too many educators in this day and age that are still getting sold a fixed annuities, bonus annuities and other high fee products that fatten the sales force wallet and not the educator. Its pathetic.
My 2 cents,
Steve
My responses are in red,
Steve
QUOTE(Pat B @ May 22 2009, 03:49 PM)
I have just a few quick observations. In working with this provider from an administrative point of view firsthand, they are not the most efficient, in fact they can be quite the challenge to work with. They tend to have issues such as incorrectly posting participant funds, not posting funds at all, not taking responsible line when these errors occur and I have heard plenty of similar stories in regards to movement of monies.
Every once in a while we get a poster who complains about TC. It usually turns out to be that the issue is that he or she invested in the annuity that pays the highest rate but has restrictions. This poster has not told us as requested by Intruder. Most people on this site who have used TC have found NO problems and it continues to be a good place for 403b money. The pros do not like TC for obvious reasons.
Low expenses are important, but they sometimes come at a cost. This certainly does not justify the other end of the spectrum either, expenses just to generate revenue. One actually may prefer reasonable costs with a good service model than lowest cost with poor service model.
TC has been upgrading their software and this may have reflected on some of the criticisms. Heck, I have criticisms for VG as well. Low expenses are the number one variable that significantly affects the bottom line. Lots of studies varify this. TC does not have a poor service model, the participant needs to know a little about how TC and investments work, but just because a totally naive participant complains about TC does not automacally mean that they have a poor service model. Perhaps, they talked to the wrong person. People do make mistakes.
I would also say that though Steve may not feel there is a financial bias through the site and I tend to agree, like everything in life there is bias.
I cannot speak for this site, but I know I am totally biased towards the investor. Life is full of biases. We need some good biases for the educator because out there in the school cafeteria and union halls, the bias towards the sales people are as common as the number of grands of sand in the universe. Sales people have NO accountability and will do anything to get a commission.
In this case it is the inference being made by his statement of all so called "good" advisors. I would at least disclose the personal bias that is being made and often is in some of these posts. That bias being advisors are bad, greedy, self interested people, which I tend not to agree with as a blanket policy. Just my two cents,,,
I was responding to the initial posters suggestion that we need to get a "good adviser". Its nothing personnal but its been my experience that I have only found a handfull of advisers who had excellant fiduciary ethics. The 403b system is corrupt and nobody but an financially literate educator can keep himself or herself from the sharks. The other 99.9% are prone to those sharks. I have talked to far too many educators in this day and age that are still getting sold a fixed annuities, bonus annuities and other high fee products that fatten the sales force wallet and not the educator. Its pathetic.
My 2 cents,
Steve
QUOTE(Pat B @ May 22 2009, 01:49 PM)
That bias being advisors are bad, greedy, self interested people ..."
Most people operate from a position of self interest. If investors really think that
(I do not consider fee-only planners to be in the same category as salesmen.)
Of course, there may be exceptions. But as a rule, I don't think that anyone is going to be more concerned about my own financial well being than myself.
QUOTE
But as a rule, I don't think that anyone is going to be more concerned about my own financial well being than myself.
Of course, John Bogle is the exception. Of the hundreds of thousands of people in the financial management profession over the last 100 years, hundreds of pros equal to Mr. JB's stature and influence, but only a handful match his ethics. One of the downsides to capitalism is that there is no requirement for ethics because one has the freedom to use ethics in decisions or not. No economic theory is perfect, I suppose, but there are near perfect people and JB is one who has it all.
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