Beware of financial vendors reaching out to help “manage” your accounts
Many financial vendors realize that retirement plans can be very confusing, and they use retirement planning as a way to make money from your retirement accounts.
Many financial planning companies scour campus directories all over the country for email addresses and then send emails that give an appearance of being affiliated with a school or University. Through these emails, the companies offer to set up a consultation or to help “manage” your retirement accounts—and charge anywhere from 1%-4% of your retirement balance annually to do this.
We want to warn you that many of these emails seem like they come from the system office or another organization affiliated with UNC. However, most of these are NOT affiliated with UNC in any way.
The only financial companies affiliated with and endorsed by UNC-Chapel Hill are:
- TIAA
- Fidelity
- Captrust
- Empower (formally Prudential)
- The State Retirement System (TSERS/ORBIT)
If you receive an email or phone call from anyone other than the companies above, we recommend that you be vigilant and research the company before you work with it or share any account information.
If you have any questions about this topic, please reach out to the UNC Benefits Team at benefits@unc.edu.