NASD Partners with NEA Valuebuilder?

NASD - Press Room - News Release - 11/8/06

This has to be a joke. This link will take you to a press release that announces a grant that will involve the NEA Member Benefits with investment education. What follows is my e-mail to the NASD:


"I wanted to convey to you my shock with regards to the NASD partnering with NEA Member Benefits. The NASD should be investigating the NEAMB, not partnering with them. The NEA has been selling the NEA Valuebuilder product - an excessively priced Variable Annuity and Mutual Fund program to its members for years. This program is worse than the one Spitzer busted in New York (ING and NYSUT). The NEAMB is an RIA and they are not fulfilling their fiduciary responsibility to the plan. There is excessive revenue sharing, poor oversight, and kickbacks to unions and agents involved. You should not be endorsing NEAMB, by doing so you are endorsing an entity that exists to transfer retirement assets from its members to the NEAMB (probably to subsidize other programs). You should be sending subpoena's, not endorsements."

This is absolutely ridiculous. NEA Member Benefits has been ripping off teachers for about a decade now and they are getting rewarded for it by regulators, what world are we living in.

Scott Dauenhauer, CFP, MSFP, AIF
www.meridianwealth.com