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Designation or is it marketing

Posted: Mon Nov 10, 2014 12:28 pm
by etimer
Recently my friend of 45 years said that a presentation was done for his unit. The person giving the seminar had some very good sounding alphabets. Hm? I never heard of such a designation so I went looking. Apparently the alphabets were born in the years of the mid 2000 time period.

It is a designation that has a 2 hour test, it is a designation that gives information that attendees can probably already access. The charge for the seminar is not known and attendees didn't pay anything to attend. There was no charge for the very nice booklet showing charts, ledgers of government retirement funds.

The end result was a personalized booklet. Over half the pages were life, fixed annuity and variable annuity illustrations, personalized for each attendee.

I thought that the powers that be came down on the use of designations that were mainly marketing tools.

When I was an RIA I charged to produce a plan and the pricing was on my ADV. The organization I talk about is not registered with any State or Federal structure, except the State of incorporation.

(Applicants may qualify through other means, determined by the issuing organization.)
Education Requirements 16 modules (self study or two-day classroom course)
Examination Type Designation exam: two-hour exam (proctored, closed book)

The insurance companies I have seen the people selling are good, I have no reason to believe that the the insurance sales people are not trustworthy, upstanding folks. I've always had a problem with smoke and mirror marketing. It is like the electrical inspector comes out to inspect your home and the next thing he is giving you a price to sell you a new electrical service.

If the money is made on producing a report for the attendees using Federal data, ok I get it. If the income is made from selling products....

There was a name change along the way. I believe at one time it was -

Trade name The College of Chartered Federal Employee Benefits Consultant
Registrant name Peak Performance Printing & Copying, Inc., Delinquent April 1, 2011
Status Expired Formation Date 10/06/2009

http://www.finra.org/Investors/ToolsCal ... /pc_ChFEBC

http://www.sos.state.co.us/biz/Business ... 0091384333

http://www.sos.state.co.us/biz/ViewImag ... 0091384333

http://www.sos.state.co.us/biz/Business ... 0091525669

Are there any people on this forum that hold the designations and what do you think about it?