The Upstory

The next time you get an invitation in your mailbox for a fabulous free dinner at a high-end restaurant as part of the chance to protect your wealth and increase your portfolio do yourself a favor and carefully, quickly deposit the invitation into your nearest trash receptacle.

This is what we do almost every month with our handful of come-ons. Until we got one for a restaurant we like. Glenn was hankering for a steak-and-lobster dinner and I said “okay” because this place has crème brulee on its dessert menu. One of the best crème brulees I’ve ever tasted, and that’s saying something.

We blew by all the warning signs on the glossy, brightly colored, 8×10 invitation. In red lettering were the words “Warning!” and we should have taken heed and run the other way. (It actually said: Warning! Pros & Cons of Complex High Risk, High Fee Index and Variable Annuities.)

Here’s a better warning: Never let your tastebuds or your cravings make your financial decisions or decide what goes on your calendar.

Anyway, we knew better. Back in the dawn of time, we had gone to these things and we knew they were a sales tool and a hustle. What we didn’t know was that this time it would get ugly.

So we rolled our eyes at the ridiculous circus copy on the overwrought invitation which was littered with hyperbole, exclamation marks !!!!, red ink, and Random Capital Letters. And signed ourselves up for an Evening of Aggression.  

I took notes. Here’s what happened.

***

Last night was surreal. Team Orgeron went to a two-hour event, described as a “financial workshop” but which was actually more of a “tent revival,” put on by Double Your Money, Double Your Fun Financial Solutions. (Not the actual business name. Don’t want someone waving a torch and a pitchfork and showing up on my doorstep.)

The bait, of course, was dinner at The Keg Steakhouse. We could choose among prime rib and shrimp, lobster and rib steak, and filet mignon. Yum. But little did we know that we would earn our first-rate meal the hard way.

My expectation was that this would be a mind-numbing lecture about who-what-when-where-and-why to invest and manage our hard-earned dollars and a push to sign on the dotted line with this group. But the reality was much worse.

We had more than two hours of a head-banging harangue ahead of us by a zealot named, well never mind his name, we’ll call him Bob. Fiduciary Bob, because the show he’s running is composed of fiduciaries (good) not financial advisors (bad). Remember that.

Bob grew increasingly agitated by his own performance. (I think he meant to whip us into a frenzy so that we would see how pathetic and ignorant we were because of poor financial advice and how much we needed him and what he had to offer, but in doing so he got caught up in his own rhetoric and went spectacularly off the rails.)

There were about 18 of us there and a couple of attendees were right out of Central Casting.

A Greatest Generation guy, sitting in the front and looking for all the world like Mark Twain’s brother, initially was getting some attention from Bob, who tried to engage him in back-and-forth banter about the markets and their history. But Bob gave up when all the old gent’s answers were “I don’t remember” and jokingly “I don’t even remember what I had for breakfast.”   

A Karen to the left of me did her best Teacher’s Pet impression, voicing her agreement to every prompt and answering every rhetorical question. Which is why later in his performance, Bob theatrically handed her a document to verify for the rest of us so that we would know he was telling the absolute truth about whatever point he was making, so-help-him-God.  

At the outset each couple received a three-ring binder with six tabs. It took us an hour to go through the first tab, which was not a good sign if you were watching the time and taking notes like I was. Bob noticed I was writing on a napkin and he drew everyone’s attention to that by interrupting his spiel to tell an assistant to fetch me my very own binder so I could take notes properly on the pages therein.

The problem was that the binder had no blank pages for notes so I would have been scribbling in the margins. But I was a good sport and took the binder and he was a good sport and didn’t comment further on the fact that I was still using the napkin.

Anyway, Fiduciary Bob spent the first half-hour pushing us to fill out our risk profile, name-dropping all the heavy hitters he knew, over-stating his credentials, bashing every financial advisor on the planet, and doing a deep dive into his suspicions about other industry professionals’ practices and ethics. I kid you not.

I thought that after he got all that out of his system, Bob would spend the second half-hour giving us a glimpse of why we should use him for our wealth management needs. But, no. The fact that he was a fiduciary was reason enough. Him good. Financial advisor bad. It was a repeat of the first half-hour with the addition of a laundry list of his successes. And I’m here to tell you this guy invented money, created stock markets, saw the crash coming every time, and so forth.

We were into the second half-hour before Glenn had his first question. Bob was only too pleased to call on Glenn until he heard the question and realized it didn’t fit his narrative. Glenn’s questions often are like that. He listens. He drills down. And most importantly, he gets to the heart of the matter.

Glenn’s questions are no problem for people who have solid facts and who are keeping it real. Like *cough* our financial advisor. But Glenn’s questions can cause heartburn for people pushing an agenda and curating their commentary to fit whatever they’re shoveling.    

Thus, Fiduciary Bob answered Glenn’s question a tad impatiently. And he wasn’t happy when Glenn had a follow-up question. Basically, Bob said, it would take a great deal of time to provide an answer and we were on a schedule so he would talk to Glenn later, at the end of the workshop. (Spoiler alert: Uh-oh.)

By now, Bob was rolling. He was in his groove ending many of his outpourings with, “How many of you can agree with me …” and it wasn’t really a question but a call to arms. He was confiding in us what he knew about the slimy underbelly of the financial world, “You need to know the dirty truth …” and was reassuring us, “… I promise you my firm will do right by you.”

And that got us into Hour Two. Mind you, by now The Keg is in full swing. People are arriving for their wonderful, non-earned meals and through the walls of our private dining room we can hear the muffled chatter and we know that they’re eating and we’re not.

In Hour Two, Bob takes off the gloves and calls financial advisors “despicable.” Bam! And he was naming names. Individuals. Firms. He was calling them all out. They were listed on Slide 342 of the slide presentation and again in printed columns in our binders. (My thought bubble: Dude, isn’t this defamatory? Libelous? Slanderous?)

He also has another little problem with Glenn who has another question.

Bob takes the question with obvious reluctance and front-ends it by telling Glenn that this is the last Glenn-question he’ll take during the presentation. And like before, Bob doesn’t like the question. But this time his filter slips off and in answering he offers this comparison and insult, “… it’s the difference between vinegar and piss” and someone behind me gasps at the force and rudeness so Bob follows up with his reason for the crude comment to Glenn “… it’s the only way I can get through to you.” Now it’s my turn to gasp.

Somewhere well into Hour Two, Fiduciary Bob decides to tell us why he’s our guy because he, unlike those greedy financial advisors, only takes a .95% fee for his services. Karen takes another sip of Kool-Aid and murmurs her approval. Bob moves on. But wait. Insert theme from “Jaws.” Glenn has a question: “.95% of what? What amount are we talking about?”

Bob shines it on with that one, and turns his answer into a Circle of Trust moment and a selling point. But there’s no doubt that Glenn is now a marked man.

We’re nearing the end and we know this because we’re running out of tabs in our notebooks. Also, we’re running over the agreed-upon time we allotted to Fiduciary Bob. We’re hungry and we need a bathroom break.  

Bob closes by telling us all how much he cares for us and wants the best for us and to please, please fill out our risk profile, something he’s been intermittently urging us to do (he holds up the risk profile page each time so we know exactly what document matters to him). He explains that he needs our profile so he can understand how best to help us. He’s the only one who will ever look out for us. Also, this is the first step to signing him up as our fiduciary. Also, why none of the boxes are checked on the Orgeron risk profile.

Dinner finally arrives. Crikey. We are served at our workshop rows of tables, after packing up our pens and binders. The seating reminds me of cafeteria-style eating which is a buzzkill considering the upscale food and elegant venue.  

Mind you by now I have a low-grade headache, want to go home, and have lost my appetite. Karen, to my left, is still burbling away about this and that. I start doing triage on my meal: Need a box for the salad. For the side. For the entrée. Can’t box the dessert because it’s ice cream and will melt before I get it home. (Sadly, creme brulee wasn’t one of the workshop dessert choices.)

Meanwhile, Fiduciary Bob beckons Glenn to come up front so he can get his questions answered. Glenn now has food in front of him and wants to eat. But Bob insists. Because he’s a people person and cares *cough.*

And that’s when things get real. I’m watching from the peanut gallery and I see Bob’s body language and pretty soon I can hear, everyone can hear, what’s being said. Glenn thinks they are going to talk portfolios and strategy. He’s prepared for a civil conversation. Not Bob. Fiduciary Bob is going to get a few things straight. Bob gets a little loud. Bob gets a lot overbearing. Bob wants to know who we’re using for a financial advisor. That’s when Bob loses it and in high decibels and with hand gestures slams the financial advisor, ending with a vigorous Italian chin flick.

Yikes. The room is quiet because everyone is self-consciously staring at their plates and concentrating on their food.

A stunned Glenn exits the conversation and comes back to the table. A few minutes pass. Bob gets control of himself and then Bob comes over to Glenn. Now Bob is smarmy and ingratiating. But not apologetic. Bob really wants that risk profile.  

What an evening! Needless to say, we are reverting to our standard modus operandi for these come-ons, which is to toss them in the trash. Because there really is no such thing as a free lunch.