Subject: File No. S7-14-08
From: Brad Davis
Affiliation: Financial Advisor, Edward Jones

July 9, 2008

I would love to see these products registered with the SEC so they will stop just any person with little training and an insurance license from selling them to seniors. I recently attended an "informational" seminar for one of the indexed annuity companies, and no person was allowed to ask any questions of the lecturer, and that they would be able to set appointments in order to ask questions. At these appointments, they were given a very hard sell and they "agent" basically wouldn't take no for an answer. They were told they would participate in the upside of the market, but none or the downside, were told that if they had money in a brokerage firm, a mutual fund, a bond, a bank cd, etc. that they had bad investments in which they could be losing thousands of dollars. They were told that investment firms were out for a commission only, but they made no mention of the close to 10% commission many agents receive for the indexed annuities.
I know I speak for many financial advisors with my firm when I say, we would like to see the playing field leveled in regards to these types of "products". Many take advantage of seniors by tricky language that many registered reps couldn't even understand. I hope the SEC takes this matter seriously and enacts proposed rule 151a.