"Complimentary Dinner Presentation"--should I go?

August 8, 2023 6:28 PM

Got an invitation to a complimentary dinner presentation at a fancy steakhouse, put on by E. A. Buck Financial Services. I could certainly use a little education on financial matters, and of course free dinner is very tempting. If you've been to one of these things, I'd love to hear your experience. Was it a pleasant evening of food and wine and erudition? Or was it more like a high-pressure timeshare presentation? Help me decide if I should go!

The restaurant is Bis on Main in Bellevue, WA, if it makes a difference :D

posted by mpark to Work & Money (31 answers total)

I wouldn't, but I don't like hard sells. I'm sure they want you to commit to using them for financial services.
posted by 41swans at 6:41 PM on August 8, 2023 [23 favorites]

Occam’s razor suggests high-pressure sales pitch, else how would they plan to recoup the costs?
posted by Alterscape at 6:41 PM on August 8, 2023 [26 favorites]

TANSTAAFL
posted by enfa at 6:51 PM on August 8, 2023 [18 favorites]

I like free food, but not enough to sit through a hard sales pitch.
posted by Dip Flash at 6:54 PM on August 8, 2023 [8 favorites]

You may be able to say no easily and get the free meal, but this will not be any kind of education. Also, it is likely the menu options will be limited.
posted by soelo at 6:56 PM on August 8, 2023 [10 favorites]

Absolutely not.
posted by Kutsuwamushi at 7:02 PM on August 8, 2023 [10 favorites]

My husband and I went to one (what can I say, free steak dinner at a place we like) for attic fans. I was braced for a terrible evening but actually it went by fast, the sell was not all that hard, and the steak was great.
posted by PussKillian at 7:23 PM on August 8, 2023 [8 favorites]

If you go, order what's offered, enjoy the food while ignoring everyone else at the table -- who will be trained to hard-sell you on services and convince you you're a financial idiot -- while not even engaging in polite conversation, and when you're finished, stand up and say "Thank you, good night, please don't contact me again because I'm not interested."

If you can't do that, then don't go.

No reputable financial firm needs to lure people in with steak and potatoes. You won't be getting a financial education, you'll be getting sold on services that prey on people who don't have a financial education.
posted by erst at 7:25 PM on August 8, 2023 [49 favorites]

I know someone who gets a lot of these invites for dinners to discuss financial services, and they go about once month for a good meal and to get out of the house. But this person is remarkably well-informed already about this area and quite capable of asking a few pointed questions on any inaccurate/incomplete information offered. I think they are so good at this that they've actually been dropped from a few of the mailing lists.
posted by beaning at 7:52 PM on August 8, 2023 [8 favorites]

It's a trap!
posted by Jon_Evil at 7:58 PM on August 8, 2023 [9 favorites]

In addition to all the "don't go" voices above, which I echo, remember this: if you go, you will be asked to surrender your contact information as a condition of entry. After the event, you will be contacted. A lot. No matter how firm you were at the event about "please don't contact me I'm just here for the dinner".

These people are trying to sell you something, and they're not in the business of being turned down. If you go, prepare for an onslaught of post-event emails/calls/texts for many weeks to come.

Oh and also, yes, you will not be allowed to order anything you want off the menu, it will likely be a buffet or a fixed menu with limited options. So if you're interested in going because you're curious about the restaurant itself, just go there on your own.
posted by pdb at 8:12 PM on August 8, 2023 [8 favorites]

First, call the restaurant and ask what the plan is for the dinner. Then, if you still want the free food, go. If they ask for contact info, give them a throwaway email and a Google Voice number.

I personally do not think it will be a hard sell. Just a sell. Want you to become comfortable with them. The hard sell will come in a follow-up. It is very targeted advertising. Beats spending the money on print or TV. This way, the brokers or the staff also get a free dinner.

If it sucks, get up and leave. No one is going to physically prevent that from happening.
posted by JohnnyGunn at 8:35 PM on August 8, 2023 [11 favorites]

Years ago I was invited to a dinner somewhat like this, though it was a bit different - a friend of mine's financial advisor (who was with a firm, but I don't remember which one) asked their clients to invite new potential clients. The dinner was in a very nice and fancy place with hard-to-get reservations, we were allowed to order off the menu, and there was schmoozing but no hard sell. I enjoyed it because I got to hang out with my friend and eat good food, and I wasn't hounded unnecessarily afterwards. It was a generally positive experience (though it made me rather distrustful of financial advisors, that they had the spare funds to casually splash out like that).

The fact that it's a firm inviting you directly might be different, though - in my case, the event probably served not just to try to drum up new clients, but also to make the current clients happy by entertaining them and their friends.
posted by LadyOscar at 9:10 PM on August 8, 2023 [1 favorite]

I attended one of these a few years ago, about end-of-life cremation services. (Somehow they find out when and where clients die, anywhere in the world, whereupon they rush to that spot and take it from there so the survivors don't have to worry about any of those arrangements; they just receive the urn ASAP. For a few $K upfront.) I said no; the pitch wasn't hard.
posted by Rash at 9:40 PM on August 8, 2023 [1 favorite]

I just wanted to underscore the advice for a throw-away email and a Google voice number. There was a period when I went to these kind of things quite often. I learned the hard way after the first one that the follow-up was relentless, and always use unreachable contact info for them now.
posted by hworth at 10:35 PM on August 8, 2023 [2 favorites]

"I could certainly use a little education on financial matters"

I'm quoting this because it raised red flags for me. There is absolutely nothing valuable you can learn about financial matters from this dinner. It exists solely to extract money from folks who have not yet taken the time to invest in their financial literacy.

Don't go. A free meal, no matter how nice, is not worth polluting your brain with their influence.
posted by AaRdVarK at 11:56 PM on August 8, 2023 [20 favorites]

I just to work for a practice of FA and my job was to plan these events. IANAFA, IANYFA and I don’t know THESE particular FA but the company I worked for did not employ the hard sell. That used to be the MO, absolutely, but people are more sophisticated these days. They can easily invest/ manage money themselves and the hard sell has been shown to alienate people ( as seen by the comments above). The tactic these days is to gain trust. They want to be seen as your ‘buddy’ who you will eventually trust and you will know their name if you ever need financial advice. My prediction is that it will be a nice dinner, they will take down your email address to add you to their prospect list (give them a fake if you’d like), probably a short, very soft sell and then the evening will be mixing and mingling, talking about sports, kids, hobbies, any and everything to “make a connection”. Go, have a nice steak and enjoy.
posted by pearlybob at 2:58 AM on August 9, 2023 [2 favorites]

NO!! A friend went to one of these things. They were seated in a dining room and were badgered for 2 1/2 hours before they got so much as a glass of water! Then the food they did get was sub-par/stale.
posted by james33 at 4:22 AM on August 9, 2023 [3 favorites]

For what it's worth EA Buck's yelp reviews all look fake as hell.
posted by phunniemee at 4:33 AM on August 9, 2023 [1 favorite]

Best answer: The writer behind the financial blog ESI Money has gone to a few of these to see what they're like, and he's written up his experience each time: First, Second, Third.
posted by NotMyselfRightNow at 4:34 AM on August 9, 2023 [12 favorites]

Counterpoint. I've gone to two. Both came across as far more educational than hard sell. They positioned themselves as experts. Addressed a topic as a theme. It was about 30 minutes. No one at my table worked for the firm. Someone did sit with us for 5 minutes to answer any questions. I was not asked for additional contact (presumably they had it?).

Dinner was a limited but still choose your own adventure menu. There was a bottle of wine on each table. Any other alcohol drinks were on your own.

Life is full of experiences. Take back some of this firms gains in the form of a meal.
posted by chasles at 5:24 AM on August 9, 2023 [3 favorites]

I had a great time in center ice floor seats this way once. Why not go, but be prepared to leave as soon as it becomes unpleasant?
posted by dbx at 5:57 AM on August 9, 2023 [1 favorite]

My recent experience was a lot like Lady Oscar's above. My friend's financial planner offered her VIP-suite tickets to Beyonce if she'd invite a friend who wasn't his client. My daughters and I had a fabulous time. The financial planner was there, extremely hospitable, and didn't push a thing. Not sure if I'll still get a meeting invite later (which I would take... seems like part of the unsaid deal), but two weeks out, I haven't heard a thing from him or his office. I think that some of these folks are just trying to show "this is what you get when you are a client." I'm grateful for the experience, very glad I did it, but not going to hire him.
posted by hessie at 6:19 AM on August 9, 2023 [1 favorite]

Best answer: If you need some financial advice, I'd look for one using this site: https://www.napfa.org.

A "fiduciary" financial adviser is bound by law to look after your interests. An advisor from a bank or other institution may push their own company's products/investments which may or may not align with your goals.

We found ours through the recommendation of a friend and we really like him -- he's attentive to our family's needs and goals and easy to reach with questions. He's the one who pointed us to that site for recommending to others.
posted by cmerrill at 6:42 AM on August 9, 2023 [5 favorites]

I think this entirely depends on your tolerance for getting a free dinner in exchange for listening to a sales pitch. I don't think I could enjoy a dinner under these circumstances, but some people obviously can. And most of us in some way endure advertising to get things we want - that's the whole internet, really, and it's almost impossible to opt out altogether. So if for you this is just an extension of that, go and enjoy your dinner.

You are, of course, free to walk out at any time. So if it turns out to be a high-pressure sales pitch you don't want to sit through, you can just leave.

But I would caution you not to think of this as educational any more than a presentation by the Coca Cola company would be educational about hydration or the National Cattleman's Beef Association would be educational about nutrition.
posted by FencingGal at 6:50 AM on August 9, 2023 [3 favorites]

You will need to disclose your personal info to get into the dinner, and they will sell your info to every hard-sell list of marks in the world. Think Glengarry Glen Ross.
posted by Mid at 7:17 AM on August 9, 2023 [1 favorite]

My husband and I went to one (what can I say, free steak dinner at a place we like) for attic fans. I was braced for a terrible evening but actually it went by fast, the sell was not all that hard, and the steak was great.

This was my experience, as well. I don't think there's any way to know ahead of time what it will be like, though.
posted by Dolley at 9:32 AM on August 9, 2023

Response by poster: Thanks, all! Interestingly, most of the positive responses were based on direct experience, while most of the negative responses were not (or at least did not explicitly say).
posted by mpark at 9:46 AM on August 9, 2023 [1 favorite]

There are some negative reviews of EA Buck's Hawaii office here. There are also good reviews, but the bad reviews have a common theme that people say they are pushed to buy annuities/whole life insurance products with high commissions. These are high-cost products that perform worse than simple index products sold by Vanguard, Fidelity, etc. In my view, if you are looking for 1-2 hours of financial education, you would do better to read the bogleheads website or call Vanguard or Fidelity and ask to be put in touch with a managed account representative. They won't give you a steak, but you will probably lose more than the value of a steak to high fees in your first year with these other folks!
posted by Mid at 10:27 AM on August 9, 2023 [1 favorite]

This was my experience, as well. I don't think there's any way to know ahead of time what it will be like, though.

Yes - I should have also said that I was braced for not just a hard sell at the dinner, but for a ton of follow-up emails/phone calls/marketing mail (that we planned to ignore) and weirdly it just did not happen. I don't know if we got the lazy company, or if people selling attic fans have less cutthroat methods, or what.
posted by PussKillian at 1:00 PM on August 9, 2023 [1 favorite]

My FIL went to these things all the time. Retirement planning. Social Security "secrets", even timeshares. He never had any intention of buying anything. He was just using them to get a free dinner at a nicer restaurant than the ones he usually patronized. He was a quietly single-minded gentleman, and could shed sales pitches like water off a duck's back.

So, if you can easily resist hard-sell presentations, go and enjoy that "gourmet dinner." Otherwise, steer clear.
posted by Thorzdad at 12:33 PM on August 11, 2023 [1 favorite]