crisis (that's really how you spell planners)
Saturday, January 03, 2009 (2:27 PM)
having faced siege by countless financial planners, i've begun moving towards what a particular friend does. he never gives his real phone number. i always gave mine. somehow, i just can't say 'no' and my ability to lie, or the lack of, is not helping. thankfully none of my friends made me smoke or take drugs.
even so, i've barely given a fake number. i've tried giving something close to my real number and just altering one of it. sometimes i have this fear that they may try calling me on-the-spot. they always pretend to say, "i'll give you a miss call so you know when i'm calling you mah!" but c'mon, i'm no fool.
sometimes, i give people my old number which my mum is using. she used to tell those who look for "jh" that i've changed number and she'll say "wrong number" to people looking for "ljh". but i've since told her to say "wrong number" to whomever calls her because i've notified everyone of the number change already and if they don't bother to update, then don't bother looking for me.
through the years of meeting the new age of insurance agents, i might've written myself into the blacklist of the financial planning industry because some people are just looking for it. so i give it to them. there are those who are so pesky, they insist i sit down when i insist i simply have no interest and that i've heard of their plans for the nth time already. but they like to play the smart aleck and test me on what i know, whom i've heard it from and the likes. with these people, i always end up sitting down with them and the more i sit down with them, the more i start to play the offensive game. these games also made me realise that many of whom are not very financially literate either. they just recite what they were taught. and also...
they are not interested in helping your finances.
what they are interested in is to close more deals to up their own commissions, win awards, get promotions, and reap higher commissions. in a nutshell, financial planners are really just planning for their own finances. most importantly, with the influx of youths obssessed with being self-employed, many don't know their stuff well enough to help you.
a very memorable financial planner from a very prudent company once made me this offer: save $70 more a month and get a samsonite bag worth $300 free!
and as if to transfer the excitement by osmosis, she said excitedly, "you see, $70 only and you get $300 worth of bag. worth it right?"
i asked to borrow her oversized calculator and she proudly handed it to me. i double checked while keying the figures in, "$70/mth right?" she said assuredly, "ya!" so i keyed:
$70 x 12 months x 25 years = $21000
i was like, "wah! $21000 for a $300 bag."
the next day i went past the same location again, her colleague behaved the same way she did the day before.
"hi! can i talk to you for 5 mins?"
"er... yesterday your colleague talked to me already"
"is it? ok, which one?" she said smugly, 101% certain i was lying.
just then, my victim from the previous day came up and told her, "no, no" and i was like, "there, this one." and i left...
i understand their persistence but many a times, it feels more like they are challenging the wits of their target more than trying to clinch the deal. interestingly, both times i was in my army no. 4 uniform and i very obviously tried to avoid them but as if by magic, they always manage to phase through the crowd and appear in front of me before i can travel 30cm.
there's a reason why women should go ns. their phasing skills are a few levels higher than the men.
i suspect the reason they like targetting ns males is cause of their age and their circumstances. at that age, their hormones are usually hyperactive and being in an environment where the males outnumber females by 100,000:1, they are quite predictably more horny and thus, will sit down and listen to the rare female breed on the streets.
i have to admit, males in ns are horny. but the truth is, we are not indiscriminately horny. so don't take us for animals...