My in-laws hired Vic in 2008, shortly after retiring to the Alexandria area to handle their…read moreinvestments. Vic was a very "hands on" money manager, buying new and selling older investments for them twice per year, every year. I was well versed in low fee index fund investing and followed my own closely, watching the market indexes double and triple from the 2008 lows. I assumed, incorrectly, that my in-law's investments were following a similar pattern. In 2017, shortly after my father-in law passed away, I met with Vic and my mother-in-law to review her investments. In hindsight, it should have been a bigger red flag to me that he was unable to tell me what her return was for the last year. He then offered to exchange an annuity, with better promised guaranteed returns than the one they were currently in. How nice! He also suggested two new Columbia (owned by Ameriprise) mutual funds and then persuaded her to sign up for what was called Ameriprise Strategic Advantage, without disclosing the very high, ongoing fees associated with this program. A few years ago, her and I were talking about the markets and I mentioned that my investments were up substantially, she asked why hers were not. I volunteered to review her past several Ameriprise statements and spent a few days digging in, focusing specifically on fees. I was amazed at the number of different mutual funds that he had her in. Many of these were issued directly by Ameriprise as class A shares, with front loaded sales fees/commissions as high as 5.75%. (I recall that when I met with Vic, I specifically asked if these were "no load" funds and he said "Yes") As he was buying and selling her investments twice per year, I can only assume that this was an ongoing long-term practice. I also saw that he had placed a portion of her money in non-marketable "alternative investments" with sales commissions as high as 10%. The loss on these currently is substantial and, again, these cannot be sold on the open market until the company offers a redemption event sometime in 2026. The Ameriprise Strategic Advantage turned out to be an advantage only for Vic and Ameriprise, with ongoing fees of $500 per month. When I pointed this out to her, she contacted Vic and asked him to remove her from this program, he strongly suggested that she stay with it, which she did. I also saw that in 2022, Ameriprise was sanctioned and fined $5,000,000 by the SEC for the annuity exchange practice that he suggested while she was grieving the loss of her husband. Essentially, Ameriprise developed a list of annuity holders that were underperforming and incentivized their "trusted brokers" to exchange current annuities for new, thereby increasing Ameriprise/Broker's bottom line. https://www.sec.gov/files/litigation/admin/2022/34-94978.pdf (pulled quote from PDF) (7. During the Relevant Period, certain RDI wholesalers developed and implemented a sales practice that involved the creation of lists of variable annuities that were still in effect and owned by AFS customers, and then color-coding those lists to highlight exchange opportunities, including information about commissions from exchanges that could be earned by AFS registered representatives. Some RDI wholesalers were trained on how to create and use these "in-force" annuity lists. For example, at a meeting in June 2017, attended by members of the wholesaling department, an RDI wholesaler presented on how to create in-force annuity lists by pulling the AFS registered representatives' book of business and then filtering it so only annuities underwritten by RDI were left on the list. The list would then be color-coded based on the compensation that AFS registered representatives would receive if the variable annuity was exchanged. (8. The AFS registered representatives' compensation depended, in part, on whether the annuity contract was out of the surrender period or how long it had been out of that period. Depending on the annuity, if the contract was out of the surrender period or had been out of that period for a certain number of years, AFS registered representatives would receive full compensation on any exchange. On contracts that were not out of the surrender period or had not been out of this period for the requisite number of years, the registered representative's compensation would be reduced. (End Quote) We have since moved her investments to another advisor, a fiduciary, who is onboard with low cost, low fee index fund investing. He gently pointed out that over the past year she had paid $14,000 in fees to substantially underperform the markets. When she contacted Vic via email and let him know that she was going in a different direction she received no response. None. Taking all of this into account, it is clear to me that he was working first in his own interest as a salesman, that of Ameriprise stock price second, and my Mother-in-laws a distant third. Investor beware.