C. Thomas Thames Review
INTRODUCTION:
I am a former client of investment adviser ("certified financial planner") C. Thomas Thames (also known as "C T Thames", “Tom Thames”, "Carroll Thames" and "Carroll Thomas Thames"). Thomas pitched and sold me various investments, in particular many annuity products which he constantly and repeatedly advised me to surrender and switch after just a matter of months. Years later I have learned that annuities are not even "trading vehicles" in the first place! In other words annuities with inherent long surrender periods of many years are intended to be held for many years -- NOT MONTHS!!! This is not conjecture. This is a fact. ASK ANY INVESTMENT PROFESSIONAL. You don't "trade" annuities like stocks because annuities have huge transaction costs when surrendered early. Clearly no financial professional should have ever recommended that these illiquid products be constantly and repeatedly surrendered 6 times, one right after the other, while each time incurring massive surrender penalties. Yet THAT'S EXACTLY WHAT TOM THAMES DID! Thomas kept "changing his mind" over and over and over and over and over again, each time instructing me to surrender 100% the annuity that he had just recommended months earlier, and then he would orchestrate switching that same money to yet another annuity. Four of these six transactions had surrender penalties of over 7%!!! The others had 4 1/2% and 3 1/2% surrender penalties. In short order this cost me over $59,000 in multiple early surrender penalties! This is a fact. I have the documentation as do the insurance companies. Thomas processed the paperwork for all of these costly transactions so he cannot deny what he did.
Years later I have also learned that, lo and behold, investment professionals are usually paid gigantic sales commissions (by insurance companies) if and when they manage to convince clients to purchase annuities or make annuity exchanges. Adding insult to injury I also paid Tom thousands of dollars as good and valuable consideration for his financial services. Accordingly I put my trust in Tom and I assumed, like anyone would, that Tom was making sound recommendations, but what I got was clearly something utterly and completely different. The numbers alone that I present with irrefutable supporting documentation are sufficient and speak for themselves by themselves (because annuities are not trading vehicles). Again, ask any broker, any financial adviser, any securities attorney, or even any product pushing insurance agent to validate what I have presented on this web site! That's something that Tom will never ever ask of you the reader because Tom knows full well what they will say about his annuity flipping advice. Specifically ask them if there is anything remotely normal about an investment professional recommending that a client constantly and repeatedly surrender variable annuities (6 times) after holding periods of mere months and their answer will be UNEQUIVOCALLY NO!!! Ask them about every adviser's duty to be sure that their clients do not absorb excessive transaction costs (regardless of whether or not the client received a prospectus or closing statement).
Recently Thomas has actually defended this annuity flipping advice, and he even has the unmitigated gall to openly blame the client for going along with his constant and repeated variable annuity surrendering "recommendations"! THAT'S SCARY! And this should tell you everything you need to know about C Thomas Thames the so-called "investment professional". Tom has desperately tried everything under the sun to spin the story and to distract and deflect attention away from his constant annuity flipping advice. Tom is a master table-turner who tries to charm people and play the "I didn't do it - His review has no merit" game.
Unfortunately I didn't learn that annuities are not trading vehicles until after the 10 year statue of limitations had expired. Back when I was Tom's client in the 90's I was obviously young and naive, and put my trust in Tom, but I have grown older and wiser and I am now speaking out to educate and protect the public. If you actually think that the act of an adviser constantly and repeatedly treating variable annuities (with excessive transaction costs) as trading vehicles is somehow forgettable just because this happened in the 90's then you are free to exit this web site now. Otherwise, if you're like any sensible reader you will definitely want to read on! Tom thinks that it's relevant to tell people that he's been providing financial advice since 1975 so my review is certainly relevant.
Just the thought that Tom could still be giving people money advice is what compelled me to seek to post a 1 star review on Yelp. People need to know what this man did! Sure enough I found C. Thomas Thames' name as being listed under the categories of "Investing" and "Financial Advising". Mr. Thames was listed on Yelp as having offices in Folsom (near Sacramento) and Woodbridge, California. When Thomas was my financial adviser, he was apparently based out of the Woodbridge / Lodi area, and possibly San Andreas and Salinas, although I can't be certain, as he always traveled to me to provide his financial services, so I really don't know how many offices he had / has. I certainly don't want anyone to mix this particular C Thomas Thames up with anyone else by the same or similar name.
When Tom first responded to my truthful Yelp review, he essentially called it a lie and may continue to desperately suggest to know-nothing readers that it's somehow not true even though I posted the documentation proof here 7 years ago. Click here to read some of Tom's absolute flailing "Baghdad Bob" responses to this review. He actually suggested to readers that my review might be a "fake" review posted by a competitor of his! Finally, to top it off, one day I received a message from Yelp saying that my review had been mysteriously flagged by "the Yelp community" simply because it "lacked a recent experience". Absolutely nowhere in Yelp's content guidelines can I find any mention about time line requirements, so I would love to know the true details of what lead to the removal of my review. I can only guess. Based on Tom's defiant responses to my review I believe that he was that member of "the Yelp community". It makes no sense that a casual reader with no knowledge of my story would go to the effort of removing a truthful review. After my one star review appeared, Tom even went to the great effort of creating a web site with links only to filtered 'reviews' so that nobody would see my Yelp review from his site. Each and every one of those filtered Yelp 'reviews' and other supposed 'rave reviews' began mysteriously popping up in short order but only after Tom began responding in late 2011 to my Yelp review. No other review that I can find on any site existed before Tom began posting responses to my Yelp review. More recently, I posted a review on Google until the entire listing was mysteriously removed. My reviews on Yahoo (twice!) and SuperPages were also all mysteriously removed. I would love to know who keeps squashing my right of free speech. I think we all know who. By the way what good are these so-called "business review sites" if negative reviews are so easily removed?
So I have been burdened by having to create this website just to restore a little bit of the voice that was taken away from me on the prominent site Yelp. All I ever wanted was to exercise my first Amendment right and I know from talking to attorneys that California law is very protective of free speech whether it be on Yelp, a blog post and/or on a website like this one. Tom says that he believes in free speech, but clearly that's only as long as it doesn't involve talk about him. I believe that I have a duty to alert the public about my story, and I am hopeful that newspapers and TV networks will pick up on it. Knowledge is power. Not only is my review a truthful story about my client experience with C Thomas Thames, but it involves many current issues of public significance. There is much from this review that the public needs to learn.
CLICK HERE TO READ THE BODY OF MY REVIEW