Want to know my secret behind my financial success? Many of you had been reading my blog lately. To thank you, I am willing to share my best tips and advices. A couple of things had contributed to my financial success: I do not deal with any Quebec financial planners or any Quebec banks; I follow Derek Foster tips and rules as well as the stock market constantly.
Just before I continue with my best investment advices chapter, I just want to say that I received EnCana Corporation (ECA) dividend for both registered and non registered stocks that I hold.
Not dealing with Quebeckers is one of the best rules you can follow while living in Quebec and it’s the best advice I can ever provide to you, my readers if, of course, you unfortunately live like me in Quebec province. When I apply for loans or whenever I need banking services, I always deal over the phone. That way, I don’t need to deal with Quebeckers. When calling customer service, most of the time, I pick the English line, in order to avoid lack of common sense.
This may sound extreme to you at first, but it’s not when you got to know on what I got through by bad Quebec bankers and financial bankers. Here are some examples of bad Quebec financial planners, of the tramp of
Carole Morinville:
My horror story with Manuvie Financial
Back I think, in 2007, I decided to invest in several Manuvie segregated funds for my RSP. So I call Manuvie Financial and set up an appointment with one of their representative in located downtown Montreal. I got an evening appointment and show up on time. I wanted to invest 5 000$ for my RSP. I decided to split the money into 5 of their segregated funds, which I still hold today: Maritime Life International Equity Fund (Templeton), Manulife Simplicity Growth Portfolio, Maritime Life CI Harbour Seg Fund, Maritime Life Fidelity True North Seg Fund and the Maritime Life Trimark Europlus Seg Fund. During the meeting, the Manulife representative, who had a degree in law – she was qualified to be a lawyer – told me that investing 5 000$ into my RSP was too much, that I could need the money and if it would be invested into RSP, I wouldn’t be able to touch the money. But I told her no, that I wanted the whole 5 000$ invested into RSP.
I sign up the papers and everything goes well. The representative even gave me a lift to go back home, which I appreciate since we were in January and the weather was very cold. Everything went well, until the next day.
The next day, I took time to read all the crap I had received. Than, I notice to my surprise that only 2 000$ was invested into RSP and that 3 000$ had been invested into non registered. Ok, you must tell yourself: didn’t she read the paper she signed? Well you know, they make you sign all kind of papers, yes I read them all, but maybe not carefully enough. And it was in the evening, I had spent my time working all day…
When I discover that 3 000$ had been put into non registered, I wanted to cry. Because on the cheque I sign, I had added the mention: For RSP investment.
I am certainly not an investment genius but when I say I want to invest 5 000$ into RSP, its mean 5 000$ into RSP, nothing less, nothing more. But the stupid Manuvie representative – despite being a lawyer (but hey, a Quebec lawyer) – didn’t obey my order.
This is how I had to spend some of my precious time over the phone getting this fix. I finally got what I wanted, 5 000$ invested into RSP Manulife segregated funds.
I was so disappointed with my experience with Manuvie that I never gain invested with them and you can trust me when I say I will never again invest with Manuvie. Especially while being here in Quebec province. A girl has to do what she needs to do in order to achieve financial success and you can’t simply not achieve that with Quebeckers because they don’t have the intelligence they need to understand that I rule baby. I rule. Seem to be simple and easy at first, but to Quebeckers, obeying to someone is just impossible. They are that dumb and stupid. Ok, you think that I am being mean? Well, you just didn’t hear about anything yet.
My horror story with RBC Royal BankThis one was for my 2008 RSP. Prior to 2008, I had invested in many RBC mutual funds that I still hold today in my investment portfolio. I had deal with the RBC Royal branch Place Portobello located in Brossard (QC), and I had the best service ever. I always had been able to get the mutual funds I wanted with them. It’s also at the RBC Royal Bank branch Place Portobello that I got my 10 000$ Visa card (but now that Visa card had been decreased to 5 000$ because of a bad decision that was made but this is not the fault of the Place Portobello branch at all).
The Place Portobello branch of RBC Royal Bank is one of the rare places that I found in the big Montreal metropolitan area that I find great to deal with. Their people are friendly and nice. And they won’t look down at you if you go there and tell them exactly what you want as investment. Those people know how to obey, which I find is very rare in Quebec society. So to the RBC Royal Bank Place Portobello branch: I miss you! lol… But it’s just to say that the disease is not everywhere. There are some good people in Quebec society – they are just hard to find. But hey, know you have a good address you can go without getting scare of anything. I wish all RBC Royal Bank branches could be the same, but it’s simply not the case.
Back in 2008, I visited the RBC Royal Bank branch located at the Complex Desjardins downtown Montreal. This was for my RSP. The RBC representative was a new comer I guess and that day was his evaluation day. Ever of my life I had to go through this but the Director was there in the office with me and there was the guy, willing to impress her, I guess again.
I told the poor guy exactly what I wanted for my RSP, but I guess he didn’t understand me because he decided to create a complete profile. This wasn’t my first time at RBC. I was holing several mutual funds with them, a banking account, a credit card. I taught that this time was going to me as smoothly as all of my let’s call them “appointments” of the Place Portobello branch.
What happen is that the new RBC Royal Bank representative asks me to all of the investment I hold and so on and wrote the stuff down in my profile. I was so disturbed and distusgh! He continue asking questions about my money, my investment, and he said that I did well so far, but in the future, I could not do so well. And that’s when he suggested me an appointment with one of their financial planner.
What the f***! I am an investment queen and you want the queen to see a financial planner? When are you going to stop annoying me! I have the same skill set as any financial adviser out there (or close too lol…), I am just missing the title. So when you look in my eyes, do you really see a girl who wants to loose her time with a financial planner? The answer is NOOOOOO. No no no! Quebeckers are so stupid.
The meeting finally stops; I finally got what I wanted. I left the RBC Royal Bank of Complex Desjardins. And than sooner go back, asking the guy to completely erase all information he add entered regarding my outside placements. And he did so. The female director look very surprised but what the heck, who cared about Quebeckers and what they think about me. I seriously don’t care because they are ruining my life.
I stop seeking services from the RBC Royal Bank Complex Desjardins branch as their female director really s* and the rep as well.
Ok……. So ready for another financial horror story?
My horror story with BMO Bank of Montreal
In October 2009, I begin a job search. My investments were doing well and I taught about getting another job in other to increase the cash available to make new investment. I went to a job seeking event in Montreal. I left my resume at different employers. I received 2 calls. But from the 2 calls, I had chose BMO Bank of Montreal and it had been the biggest mistake of my entire life.
This was a teller job in their Montreal call center. I was willing to learn and give it a try. But the training was absolutely awful. The trainer, a blond girl with red glasses had her little favorites in the class, including a gay guy. The gay guy was a tennis fan and was talking all the time, making jokes, snobbing me. I did the best I could to participate and show up some interest, but the blond Quebecker was a Quebecker and dumb so it didn’t help anything in the process. An Arabic guy that she had rude in my class had finally quite because he couldn’t take her anymore. I should have done the same thing, but I decided to stay and I got fired. The same guy is now working at a TD branch downtown Montreal. A saw him once. I was happy to see him there. The BMO Bank of Montreal trainer was so bad with him, very unprofessional – Quebeckers at their bests.
I complete the training (extremely poor training by the way – don’t even be surprise at the crazy mistakes) and the integration session. The guy who was doing the integration session once told a colleague who was in a buddy session with me: don’t take time with her to show her that… He was orally violent and the whole integration team was unpolite, extremely arrogant like if they were running the world. Try to find one of those little BMO Bank of Montreal tellers who hold 100k in investment, I guess you won’t be able to find too many, if not one.
I finally integrate the team of 6pm to 2am of BMO Bank of Montreal Montreal call center. The supervisor there wasn’t a good person. She was very arrogant. I was asking sometimes questions and I sometimes wrote down notes, she told me I wasn’t aloud. Herself several times, she wasn’t able to answer my questions, she needed to ask some colleagues the same question that I was asking her and I guess that at a point she got enough because she decided to fire me.
But before getting fired, she hold a meeting with me, almost asking me to quite the job. She had those papers in front of me reading my sales and overall performance and told me I wasn’t good, that I wouldn’t ever have success as a teller. “Tu n’auras jamais beaucoup de succès.” Those are the exact words she used. I still remember those worlds not because they especially hurt me, but because I know what I worth. I am not the best, but I am not the worst either. So after hearing those ugly words from her mouth, I told myself: what the heck the little Quebecker thing she is? That’s why I remember her words.
I was distusgh by her manners and the following day, I wrote an email to the same Human Resources representative who had completed the paper when I got hired. I didn’t have no one to talk about it and I didn’t want to leave this under silence. He didn’t reply to the email but gave me a call, saying that he had transferred my request to the Director of the BMO Bank of Montreal call center. I got a meeting with a her. A petite obese woman very hypocrite. She told me that there was pressured, that she was surprise that the supervisor had used such words on me… I wasn’t going no where with her. She asked me it was ok to show the email to the supervisor, I told her yes. It wasn’t supposed to be share, I just wanted to talk to someone and there she went, making my email read by my supervisor. Those Quebeckers don’t have any class.
The next day at work, the supervisor come to me, saying that she never had used those words, etc... The poor woman was upset and was in complete denial. She told me that I was under trial and that my sales needed to improve. I was new to the job and the sale aspect never had been mention in class. I taught my role was to focus on customer requests. I was answering around 55 calls per night, which I found good. But it wasn’t good enough to them. BMO Bank of Montreal customers where upset because at night, they had trouble to reach someone. The reason why the waiting delay is long is that they keep fired people, they keep hiring. It’s a real free for all. BMO Bank of Montreal – Montreal call center holds training classes at least 2 classes of new comers every month and I found it quite strange back than. But now I understand.
During my time there, we had a meeting with the Vice President of BMO Bank of Montreal – Montreal call center. He explained that his father had worked for BMO Bank of Montreal and that when he came at his job as a Vice President of the BMO Bank of Montreal, Montreal call center, he had never worked at the call center of BMO Bank of Montreal. So all the people I had deal with in this sad situation had worked for his success as a Vice President of the call center. He had been in need of people to show him the job and those people where the female director and had talked too, as well as my late supervisor.
No one help me, it didn’t work out and than one night, my supervisor gave me my laid off later. No real laid off had been giving. It’s basically say: you had been laid off because you didn’t answer what had been discussed in our meeting… Roughly that. I had been laid off after my credit had been checked with them, after getting a 4 500$ BMO Mastercard and a 5 000$ credit line. At the time she laid off me, my supervisor was able to check my credit file and could have seen all the investment I hold.
3 months of my life giving away to some f of Quebeckers of BMO Bank of Montreal. Please avoid Quebec province if you want to deal with people of common sense. You really do not want to get a taste her of Quebec stupidity in all its glory.
My horror story with the Bank of Nova ScotiaThis one happens in March 2010, after my laid off of BMO Bank of Montreal. Back in March 2010, as always, my investments were doing extremely well. But I mean, really EXTREMELY well. I was close to the 100k. So I told myself that I should apply to a 10 000$ RSP loan and this way, I would had a possibility to reach the 100k before the end of 2010. The rest is history: I got the loan, and exceed the 100k in assets in September 2010 yahoooouuu. I know, I really rock. You really have to believe in this stuff.
I got the RSP loan yes, but not with the Bank of Nova Scotia. The headache begins. Be ready.
I took an appointment with the Scotiabank branch located on McGill College in Montreal. It’s right downtown. It’s a very nice branch, but the opening hours are ugly, from 9am to 5pm from Monday to Friday (yes, I know, TD Canada Trust is so much better with their extend business hours!!). Anyway, I manage to present myself to the appointment with all the papers and stuff.
The Scotiabank rep entered all the data and told me I wasn’t approved. ME? Not being approve for a RSP loan? Are you killing me? But no, the Scotiabank rep wasn’t joking. I wasn’t approved. I discuss with him about my investment, my dividend income ect.. But according to him, my level of debt was too large and my income too low. Yes, my income is low (because I got fired from BMO Bank of Montreal) but I had at that time more than 60k in assets. Like wow, that girl rock right. But it wasn’t a that girl rock for him. Anyway, he told me he was going to try to see with their office, etc.. and that I had to wait. I wait one day lol (I am always so impatience!!!), and call Scotiabank customer service. For the RSP loan, before a certain date, I could only deal with a rep in the bank, so what the guy over the phone did was too call the director of the branch who was responsible for my file.
The branch guy than gave me a call and was upset, telling me that I have to wait. He left me that horrible message on my pager. Than, I call the Scotiabank customer service again as I wasn’t please about the little Quebecker who was f* me around. So than what happen, I had a meeting at the Scotiabank McGill College branch with a bunch of people – something like 4 persons who apologize etc. And than, someone else continue the work of the guy. That director refused my loan because of a low income. There was nothing I could do, I was refused.
On date of today, I am still a stockholder of Bank of Nova Scotia but the only reason behind this hold is that Bank of Nova Scotia is a Derek Foster stock and it’s really just because of that.
Trust me on that one, I will never again apply at any loan at the Bank of Nova Scotia. I won’t ever do business with Scotiabank.
I finally got the 10 000$ RSP loan at TD Canada Trust. They love me there I guess.
I have 2-3 more horror stories to write about but it will have to wait until tomorrow as I am getting ready to go to bed. Ciao and…… sweet dream despite the horror stories.
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