Like most 9-to-5ers, I contribute to my company’s 401(k) retirement program. My employer has a matching plan to match 50% of my investments up to 4% of my wage.
That means for the first 4% of my wage I’m actually “contributing” 6% of my wage but it only costs me 4% (thanks to my employers match).
This results in effectively a 50% ROI – at least when the money first goes in. After that it’s up to my investment choices and the market’s performance.
Today I decided to do a little re-balancing in my account. I’m cleaning out the “near net-zero” accounts, those that I haven’t made or lost much, and funneling those funds into the “riskier” international funds (which are VERY low right now).
I’m also trying to “bail out” of what little investments I have in some so-called “mortgage” accounts, to try and cap my losses there (I should have done that a few weeks ago!). When trying to do that I got the following message:
This is the first sign of “Black Tuesday” prevention that I’ve seen – ever!
Have we really gotten to that point?
As a side note, silver is trading for $10.85 today.
I was just interviewed by the Wall Street Journal regarding this issue. She found my article and has read all of your comments.
I'll reply with any information she gives me regarding publishing of her story as soon as I know more.
– http://www.JoeLevi.com
In October 2008, my husband contacted Principal Financial Group to ask them to transfer the majority of his money in his 401K fund (U.S. Property Separate Account) to another fund. Via Principal's website, my husband received an important notice stating, "U.S. Property Separate Account: You currently have transactions awaiting processing." Principal put the transfer on hold. They sent my husband a letter stating, "We are applying a built in contractual limitation which will delay the payment of most withdrawal requests. Those requests will be honored proportionately as sufficient cash becomes available for distribution." In the meantime, the transfer did not take place as directed by my husband and we have lost to date $15,000. We are told that we might be able to make a move in the fall of 2009. This is our money how can they tell us that we cannot transfer it to another account. This should be illegal. How do we get a class action suit started? Tell me where to sign up.
The broker hired by my husband's company to oversee their 401K is going to call Principal Financial this week to inquire about the delay of payment. Have you heard anything since your last email to this website? An indefinite delay of payment does not sound legal.
I took an early retirement in October, had put in a transfer of funds in September, and received my notice that the funds were being held. So now 7 months later and 8,000 dollars poorer, with no end in sight. I also am of the mind that there should be something we can do legally to get our money. This account was advertised to be a safe fixed fund account with a long history. I knew I was getting close to retirement, and was tired of losing money in risky stock market accounts, so I chose this as one of my 2 fixed account options. Now I wish I would have left it all in the only real fixed account they had, even though it was paying nothing. With all the bail out money being given to these people, we as honest taxpayers, who worked hard for our money. And who were only looking for safe gains in our accounts, are now being raped by another company who under bad management has taken our money to make themselves rich, and leave us with nothing in our retirement. If I had years to work yet and time to take chances in the market, this would still be an account and a company that would still have me boiling under the collar. Who can we trust anymore, how can we get the President our congress to realize that this act should be illegal. Will gladly join any class action suit.
Joel,
Do you have a copy of the Wall Street article? What is currently going on with this issue with Principal Financial Group? Is anyone going to file any legal action?
Please contact me tlinstrom@bctonline.com
Thank
Tom
In 2008, they told us perhaps in the fall we could move our money out of the U. S. Property Separate Account. I called today, October 5, 2009, and they told me they do not know when we can move our money. We have lost over $40, 000 invested in this account. Are they waiting for the account to go down to zero before we can make a move?
I have lost over $80000 in this account. I will do all I can to warn people not to let this company touch their money, and I would advise everyone else to do the same. This “fixed income” investment was more volatile than any of their other investments…………..should have left it in a high risk investment , it would have been safer.
I'd be happy to sue my ex-employer e.magination network in Baltimore MD for not giving me a copy of the group contract, and for offering this high risk US Properties Separate Account as part of our 401K plan.
Also, Principal should obviously be sued for their fraudulent actions – for not informing their clients of the “built-in contractual agreement”, and putting a freeze on the withdrawls. If they don't have the liquidity to honor the withdrawl requests, they should declare bankruptsy.
Any lawyers willing to help? Is anyone in the government listening?
brupe@comcast.net can you please send
I just stumbled on this website and I also have money tied up in the Principal Separate scam. I would be pleased to join in any legal action, civil or criminal, against Principal.
We have to get what's rightfully ours or somebody will have to pay big time, one way or another.
Heinz R.
i wasn't able to identify a lawyer who would take this case. i've contacted
two firms and haven't got a response from them yet. if you do, let me
know.
the argument is that if Principal cannot pay us the money, it should declare
bankruptcy. also, it did not clearly disclose to the investors that they
could 'limit' (read “freeze”) withdrawl. they did not publish this
information on their website, not even on the pages available to the
investor.
i don't have a lot of money invested in this account, but still it is an
amount. i believe in God, the Angels, the Prophets, Revealed Books, Heaven
and Hell, and the Day of Judgement, so i'm hoping to collect then.
I had contacted an Orlando law firm that deals with stock and financial issues and they also didn't take the case, they left me with the feeling that what Principal is doing is perfectly legal. That actually makes it worse than the Madoff screwing. We need to rattle every possible cage of every elected official, congressmen, governors, attorneys general, AARP, anybody that has some clout, and call attention to the legal rape of American workers in these times of economic disaster when whatever money we have left goes to bail out millionaire executives. That's the stuff revolutions are made of.
Try the FTC. http://www.ftc.gov/
BTW, the Principal Financial Group runs the Principal U.S. Property Account
sham through the “Principal Real Estate Investors” which manage the account.
Interestingly, these highway bandits have acquired more property in San
Antonio TX, in Q3 2009
http://www.principalglobal.com/resa/RecentAcq/1...
Try the FTC. http://www.ftc.gov/
BTW, the Principal Financial Group runs the Principal U.S. Property Account
sham through the “Principal Real Estate Investors” which manage the account.
Interestingly, these highway bandits have acquired more property in San
Antonio TX, in Q3 2009
http://www.principalglobal.com/resa/RecentAcq/1...
They released a Whopping $13,000 to me on 1/29/10 still have a lot more to release did anyone else get any released????
Bobby Rupe – they released around $700 of mine, which is around 10% of my recent (significantly reduced) total amount in that account. What percentage of your total amount did they return?
In the meantime, they continue to siphon off the money and not file for bankruptcy, as well as giving their executives obscene bonuses and buying further properties.
Does anyone know how the class action against AT&T mobile’s early termination fee was won? The AT&T contract stated that an early termination fee would be charged but the consumers still won the class action suit against it.
We should ask for the amount that was in the account at the time we had requested the withdrawl. At least they should return the amount that was due to us the day they processed our application (the maximum period for processing the request is 2 weeks, if I am not mistaken).
Bobby Rupe – they released around $700 of mine, which is around 10% of my recent (significantly reduced) total amount in that account. What percentage of your total amount did they return?
In the meantime, they continue to siphon off the money and not file for bankruptcy, as well as reporting a profit, giving their executives obscene bonuses and buying further properties.
Does anyone know how the class action against AT&T mobile’s early termination fee was won? The AT&T contract stated that an early termination fee would be charged but the consumers still won the class action suit against it.
We should ask for the amount that was in the account at the time we had requested the withdrawl. At least they should return the amount that was due to us the day they processed our application (the maximum period for processing the request is 2 weeks, if I am not mistaken).
Joey, Mine was about the same 10%
Joey, Mine was about same 10%
I lost a substantial amount of $$$ with this fund, and am still losing…. has anyone found any class actions yet? I can be contacted at dmyhre943@aol.com…
Lizbeth,
What about those of us who have been terminated and were led to believe that a 401k plan was portable? Worthless PFG lemmings working for Zimpleman have told me that my 401k is portable, just not the US sep real estate account. What a bunch of crap, I don’t feel sorry for any of those phone people who continue to facilitate robbing from the unemployed in order to feed their CEO 5.7 million a year while the rest of us are applying for food stamps.
Ted,
The DOL in Michigan will not help me. They say that since there is wording in the perspectus and that it is my fault that I did not read and understand the risk with this non-portable 401K fund.
Can you imagine what loop holes they would look for if you had them for your life insurance and your family needed to collect?
Ready for more bad news kids? My office for ERISA issues in Kansas City finally got back to me. It took them weeks to get the requested paperwork from PFG. they are now telling me that this does not fall under their rules for a lockdown or blackout. No help, nada, zip! We need an attorney that will fight this as a class-action lawsuit. Oh..and by the way. There is now $837.8 million dollars in their distribution que. Thats over 17% of the funds entire net asset value. We may never see another dime without a lawsuit.
I agree a class action is the only way. Any word on the possibility of one? It would seem with the hundreds of thousands of $ involved some attorney would be interested in 30 to 40% of some type of recovery. At this point I don’t see us having anything left if we don’t. I had moved all my 20 plus years of 401 K money into this account and planned on moving it outbut was just a little too late. This will require me to just keep working until I die I guess. I didn’t think this kind of thing could be done anymore. I guess I was wrong.
I’ve contacted an attorney. Will have a sit down with him next week. One thing I’ve discovered through this process is Principal is very very good at stalling, delaying, and generally just kicking sand in your face when you request anything from them. I will keep this site posted as to what I find out. Please someone else do the same. Individually I don’t hold out much hope, but as a class-action, who know??
I have e mailed the atty handling the other class action involving Principal and asked if they would be interested in this situation. I gave them this site to look at also. I have not heard yet. Will let you know if I do. Suggest others e mail them also.
Rob I have a copy of Principal Finanical Group contract they filled with the California Department of Insurance. ziggy@ombengrs.com
My big complaint with Principal is they failed to disclose the withdrawal limitations prior to taking my money
I don’t have to imagine, I’m experiencing it. My company had a group disability policy with Principal. I have been fighting for near two years to get the coverage they purchased for me. The clincher is what happened in the last two weeks. After requiring I go for an Independent Medical Examination and a Vocational Evaluation, a representative told me they were overturning their decision to deny my claim. My file was sent to the next analyst who was calculating benefits. I was told what my monthly payment would be and when I would be receiving it. I was also told she was meeting with their CPA to calculate back pay. Then no word for a week. I received an email stating that “new information had come to light” about my eligibility. Now, they are denying my claim stating that a doctor I was seeing when I first became disabled said I could work. They had this information the entire time, this is not new information. And, they are now going to offer me a cash settlement.
Do NOT trust this company. They are underhanded and have no ethics.
Is there any one else out there experiencing this type of treatment from Principal?
Bob I sent you the attachment earlier this evening
Bob I need your email address
I see you are probably referring to what I wrote a few weeks ago, but I don't know what happened my my paragraph. I see all the others but mine is gone. Oh well, what I did was to e mail Galligan, Doyle, Reid & Galligan to see if they will file a class action suit, since they apparently filed a class action suit on behalf of people who had 401K retirement account in the Principal J Shares accout. Have you heard anything from any attorneys if a class action suit will be filed on our behalf of the U.S. Property account.
Pat,
I quite agree!.
I have spoken to Principal times and gotten nothing more than "there is nothing that can be done about this restriction". It appears as per the comment of others, that Principal is not working in favor of their stockholders but in their own interests. Today, April 2009, I called again and got the same response. At the rate of loss, I can pretty much write off what is left in this account.
Pat,
Do you have any updated information?