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Home > Opting Out of a Savings Program?!

Opting Out of a Savings Program?!

November 15th, 2004 at 03:05 am

Yup, that's what I did today. On Thursday we had a lady out to tell us about an RESP plan the she was selling. She was really nice and gave us a rundown of the "pooled" RESP plan that she was selling. Just when things got hairy with the kids she pulled out the paperwork and said "Can you spare $25 a month?" Well, that led to us buying 5 "units" of this plan for each of the kids and an 18 year commitment to at least that $25 per month per child. Before I knew it she had us signed up. Boy, she was slick.
After she left I started looking at the prospectus for this plan. $100 per unit signup fee (that's $1000 right there). 100% of contributions to go toward fees until fees are 50% paid. 50% of monthly contributions to go toward fees until the remaining 50% is paid. Fees may be refundable if child qualifies when education assistance amounts are disbursed. HUH?
It all just didn't sit right with me. I mentioned it to Dh and asked for his opinion. His response was "If you're not comfortable with it, I'm okay with cancelling it." I wish he actually had an opinion sometimes... I tossed it around in my head all weekend. RESP- good, Fees- bad, Nice lady- good, Increase in cost per unit based on age- bad etc, etc.
Then I was reading another financial planning book and came to a chapter on "Free Financial Seminars" and the pitfalls therein. Something in that chapter hit me. I remembered that the reason this woman started calling me 4 months ago was because I agreed to receive information about RESPs when I purchased Zach's hospital pictures. The catch was that if I agreed to receiving the information I got a free 5x7 print. Hmmmm. Do I really want to give my money to a company that solicits customers this way? Do I really want to give my money to someone who works for a company that solicits customers this way? Um, no. So I called and cancelled the plan. luckily the paperwork wasn't processed yet and it was easy to opt out. What a relief. Beware the travelling RESP salesperson.

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