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ML Edge Attrition
RW_MLEdgeAttrition_July24_1030amET_JS
July 24, 2019 at 9:54 AM Eastern Time

Interviewer: [Pause] Hello, John. How are you?

Respondent: Randy, what a struggle this has been.

Interviewer: [Laughter] You know technology is supposed to make our lives a whole lot easier,
right?

Respondent: Yes.

Interviewer: Well, not always. [Laughter] Thank you for the struggle and I appreciate you taking
time out of your day to help us out here. Let me share a few details about what’s
going to happen and we will get started. First and foremost, John, this
conversation is for research purposes. No one’s going to call you or follow up and
try and sell you anything as a result of our conversation. We are going to take
about 45 minutes, give or take. It really depends on what you have to say and how
the conversation goes. John, I am an independent market research interviewer. I
have no vested interest in this topic so you cannot hurt my feelings. I do this sort of
interview for all kinds of products and services.

Respondent: Okay.

Interviewer: I just invite you to be frank and candid with your comments. Just as Civicom is
helping us with this whole video thing, they’re also helping me out by recording the
interview and, John, that serves two important purposes. I don’t have to slow the
process down by taking a lot of notes and we accurately capture what you have to
say without misinterpretation. It is also possible that this call may be monitored for

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 quality purposes as well so that’s all the hard stuff. I do recognize because of the
distance, we have a bit of a lag.

Respondent: Okay.

Interviewer: We need to keep that in mind as we’re talking. I am talking to you from Toledo,
Ohio. I live here with my wife and adult son. My wife is a comptroller from a small
printing company. My son works at Lowe’s and I have been doing this sort of work
for over 20 years. I do this in person sometimes. I do focus groups and sometimes, I
do it online like this. This is just another way for me to talk to people.

Respondent: Okay, you know this territory better than I do.

Interviewer: That’s part of my job. John, where are you? You look like you’re in a much more
interesting place than I am.

Respondent: Yes, I love it here. This is Tepic, Mexico. It’s near Guadalajara. When I was maybe
24 years old, I first got down here and I fell in love with it then and then, I waited
another 50 years to finally move here but I’ve done it.

Interviewer: Congratulations, are you there solo? Is your wife or family there as well?

Respondent: My wife is with me. We’re building a home right now.

Interviewer: I was just going to ask what you do with your time and it sounds like that’s going to
occupy you pretty solidly.

Respondent: Yes, we’re all that and we’re busy every day. We’re meeting people. We have
groups taking Spanish lessons. I’m doing some physical rehab after some recent
health issues which I’m feeling much better [Unintelligible].

Interviewer: I’m glad for that.

Respondent: Yes, there’s something [Unintelligible].

Interviewer: What did you use to do for a living? I’m curious.

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Respondent: I was a counselor. I’ve worked with individuals. I’m an astrologer. I work with
dreams and I had groups that were called Dream Circles. I’m still doing some of
that here but less.

Interviewer: Thank you for that background. As you probably gather from all the email
communications and so on, we do want to hear about you came to close your
Merrill Edge account. Before we get to that, I’d love to have you take me back in
time. Take me back to the very beginning when you first started investing in any
way, shape or form and I’d like you to bring it forward and tell me the story. How
did you get started? Who did you invest with? What sort of account did you have?
What was your experience? Give me some dates? John, take it away. Tell me from
the beginning.

Respondent: I’m not going to be very good at dates because - [Crosstalk]

Interviewer: That’s okay. Just approximate is fine.

Respondent: Okay, my first investment other than bank accounts and CDs was probably with a
Chase account that I put $10,000.00 maybe 20 years ago. It just sat there forever
and I finally found out I’ve got $25,000.00 instead of $10,000.00 and so, wow,
that’s not bad. I had some money come in from family money, from my mother’s
death and [Unintelligible] what will I do with this? Maybe, I should try putting it
into another account and I had a bank account with Bank of America so I went in
and I asked them what would you do with this money? Well, we’d send it to Merrill
Edge and we can have you talk with one of their people and I like the guy that I
talked to and so I gave my $150,000.00 to do whatever they do things with them.
They asked me how radical an account do I want, how risky do I want and I said not
too risky because I didn’t know much about it at that point. It sat there for a while
and I watched it and I made some money and I lost a little money and then, I made
some more money. That’s how the market works but, overall, I was satisfied. Then,
I decided I’ll get greedy and tried to make a whole more money so I called them to
act up and I told them to put me at a higher risk so I can make more money and
they said “No, we won’t. You’re too old.”

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Interviewer: [Laughter] Age is a bad word. That’s interesting so, John, help me out when did
you got to Bank of America and establish this relationship with Merrill Edge?
Approximately what year?

Respondent: I’m guessing it was about five or six years ago but I have to look up my papers.

Interviewer: That’s okay. It doesn’t have to be precise. No need to do that. You said you were
satisfied so what happened after they said no? This is a fun story.

Respondent: I tried sneaking up on them by calling and randomly selecting a new person to talk
to and they ran it through the files and they came back with “no” again and so I
said I’m just going to have to live with it. It’s not [Unintelligible] anyway. I wasn’t
mad at them. For a little bit, I was indignant. That’s my money! You can’t tell me
what I can do with it but it was their account. They could [Unintelligible] do with it
and to your question about why I withdrew the money, they told me that if I move
to Mexico, I could keep the account so I said “I’m not going to stay in the United
States just to keep an account.” Then, I said “I’ll keep it till the last minute. I’ll
wait until I got all my papers settled for Mexico.” Eventually, I want to be a
permanent resident here but right now, my wife is a permanent resident and she’s
just waiting for her finalization and based on that, I’ll become a temporary
resident and I just want to know why we’re doing that but [Unintelligible] a car to
be able to have our car here. I’d have to be a temporary resident and I could have
waited for that but she consulted her financial adviser and he said “Withdraw your
funds now.” Now, it’s about a year ago and so she withdrew her funds and I said “I
might as well too.” I closed my account and the next day, the market plummeted.
Actually, at this point, a year or so later, it’s about where it was when it
plummeted but we wouldn’t have made anything over this time anyway so it was
probably good timing to say goodbye.

Interviewer: This is very interesting. Because of your move to Mexico, it’s a somewhat unique
story or at least unique among the 30 or so people that I’ve talked with about this
whole situation of closing accounts. Is there some legal thing about not being able
to retain the account if you live in Mexico?

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Respondent: Exactly, I [Audio Gap] technicalities but that’s what they told me, that I had to
spend at least half of my time in the United States in order to preserve an account
with them and I’m not intending to do that. I suppose I could have fudged it and
made it look like I was in the U.S. but it seemed like too much trouble so I just said
I’ll follow the rules and we’ll close the account.

Interviewer: Before we get to the actual mechanics and so on about closing the account, tell me
more about this connection with Bank of America? What sort of accounts did you
have there?

Respondent: I just have a checking account now. They don’t pay much interest. If you want an
interesting story that has actually nothing to do with the account but it’s still –

Interviewer: [Laughter] Sure, go ahead.

Respondent: Well, it’s just [Audio Gap] the account. I was living in Hawaii. This was about 40
years ago. I had my last name legally changed and I quietly went on with my life
and things were fine until close to 10 years ago, I decided to go outside the United
States. I’ve been in the United States for 30 years and I went to get my passport
and they told me “We can’t give you a passport under this name because your birth
certificate says you were born this date. With your driver’s license, under the new
name, it says a different date,” and they’ve not realized that what had happened
is the clerk had made an error when they changed over my name and put it on the
wrong date. They put it on the date that I applied rather than my actual birth date
and so I had to get my passport under the old name and I had a couple of different
banks. I was working with them. One or two of them changed it over and the others
changed it over and then, I had accounts under both names but Bank of America
was the only one that allowed me to use both names on one account so that’s why
they made life easier for me and I’m a Bank of America fan despite whatever
maybe going around about. Whether they’re one of those banks that cheats
everybody or not, they’ve done well by me.

Interviewer: That is an interesting story. Besides your checking account, did you have credit
cards or other kinds of financial –

Respondent: Yes, I have Bank of America debit card and a credit card too.

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Interviewer: Let’s take a little step back. When you think about the brand, Bank of America,
what comes to mind?

Respondent: As I said, you guys did good by me. I’m happy with you. I wish they would pay a
little bit more interest. I’d leave more money with them if they did but their
method of doing is in association with Merrill Lynch and since I can’t do that
anymore but there is one more thing that’s good about Bank of America. They have
an associated bank in Mexico called Scotia Bank which means that I can take money
out of my Bank of America account down here without paying an extra fee.

Interviewer: What comes to mind when you think about the brand Merrill Edge?

Respondent: Also positive, I had that one little to do with them when I’ll change my account and
“No, we’re not going to do it,” so I don’t know if they saved me from losing money
or whether I would have had more money if they took. I don’t know that but I’m
perfectly satisfied with the time that I spent with them. Everybody that I talked to
with their organization seemed knowledgeable and courteous. I never had any
problems with them so I would be quite willing to refer other people if the occasion
came up. I’ve never had a problem with Merrill Edge.

Interviewer: When you say the people that you interacted with, tell me more about the
interactions. Was this in person or by phone? Did you call them? Did they call you?
Tell me about how all that worked.

Respondent: Occasionally, I’d call them but they had a required consultation every six months to
review the account so I never did. I don’t know why. It was always a different
person I was talking to. Somebody may have retired and they’d given me to
somebody else or what not. I don’t know but whoever it was, we always had an
amiable conversation and they went through all the details like you did at the
beginning of this conversation. I would sit for three or four minutes of this. It will
be recorded and will not be used for this and will be used for that.

Interviewer: [Laughter]

Respondent: I’m sure you know that stuff.

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Interviewer: Yes, during that time, did you ever have a relationship with someone that you
would consider to be a Merrill Edge financial solutions adviser?

Respondent: No, as I said, my advisors change partly because I’m not a very good record keeper
and I would jot down a name and the extension of the person who told me that it
was my adviser and the next time I would want to talk to them, I would go look for
it and not find it and so I’d call their general number and get somebody else.

Interviewer: [Laughter] Thank you for owning up to that. While you had this account, how would
you characterize it? Is it something that you went in you moved funds around? Did
you just let it sit there? How did you interact with it?

Respondent: No, I’m not going to do everything. That was another thing. Actually, I forgot to
mention that. I followed it for a while and I said “This fund is not doing well and
that fund is doing well,” so I called them up and I said “Can you move it from the
fund that’s not doing well to the fund that is doing well?” and they would say “No,
it’s a package deal. You have a choice. You can either invest all of the funds
yourself and you control every individual fund or you could let us make the choices
but you can’t do that now.”

Interviewer: How did you feel about that?

Respondent: Again, I was indignant at first and then, I thought about it and I said that makes
sense. That would be way too complicated from their standpoint. They have to
make money on this too.

Interviewer: So they manage the account for you, it sounds like.

Respondent: Right.

Interviewer: Did you have just the one Merrill Edge account?

Respondent: Yes.

Interviewer: What kind of fees was associated with the account, if you recall?

Respondent: No, I don’t. I just looked at the bottom line and my ending up with more money at
the end of the year than I had and more than I would have had if I put it in CD and

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 every year the answer was, yes, I got a little more than I would have had in the CD.
That’s all I knew.

Interviewer: So overall based on the service you received considering what you paid for it
whether you know what you paid for or not, did you consider it to be a good,
average or poor value for the money?

Respondent: Good.

Interviewer: Okay.

Respondent: I don’t know. I could have been doing something that would have netted me 10
times as much but I don’t know about it. I don’t want to spend all my money and
all my time tracking money.

Interviewer: Thinking about your experience, to what extent did you monitor your account
online?

Respondent: For a while, I got a little addicted and I was looking at it every week and then, I
was more like every two weeks and then, every month.

Interviewer: How was that experience?

Respondent: The experience of having to know every few days was just the same kind of
experience that you have when you realize that you’re drinking too much or
something.

Interviewer: [Laughter] I love it. Say a few words about the utility of the website. How easy or
difficult was it to navigate to do what you wanted to do there.

Respondent: It was pretty easy. I thought their website was fairly clear.

Interviewer: To what extent did you access the website using your phone?

Respondent: At that point, I did not have a cellphone.

Interviewer: When you got a cellphone, did you ever access your account?

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Respondent: No, I use my computer to access my account, not my cellphone. I’m an old-
fashioned guy. I [Audio Gap] idea of [Unintelligible] people.

Interviewer: I agree. I’m with you.

Respondent: I love it.

Interviewer: I can barely take a picture. Tell me about the process that you had to go through to
close your account. What happened?

Respondent: It wasn’t too much trouble. I called them up and I said I want to close the account
because you guys told me I have to close it going to Mexico which I am. They said
okay and I think it took two or three days. They double checked to make sure that
that’s what I was really going to do but nobody pressured me to stay. They were all
courteous.

Interviewer: Let’s take it to the next step. What did you do with the money? Did you reinvest it
somewhere?

Respondent: Yes, I put it in another bank that had, for the times anyway, fairly reasonable
savings account and as soon as I get my papers in Mexico, which are still in process,
then I’ll probably move it to a Mexican bank.

Interviewer: How did you go about choosing the bank that you ended up putting the money in?

Respondent: Because I walked by it, I saw a sign in the window, “We pay this amount of money
in interest in a savings account.” I said that’s better than anything else I saw.

Interviewer: To what extent did you consider putting the money into a Bank of America account?

Respondent: No, it’s like Bank of America savings accounts or checking accounts pay 0.1%
interest or something like that. It’s only the small banks that pay any kind of
reasonable interest or accounts. Big banks like Chase or Bank of America, putting
money in the savings account is just throwing the interest away.

Interviewer: So you didn’t reinvest in any funds or other companies like a Fidelity or Charles
Schwab or anything like that. You just put it in a savings account and waiting for
the time when you can move it to Mexico.

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Respondent: Right.

Interviewer: Fair enough. [Pause] John, I’d like you to play a game with me and here is the
game. You are at a cocktail party and at this party, there are a number of guests,
yourself included, but there’s also another guest who is Merrill Edge the company.
There’s also another guest there who is Bank of America, the company. I’d like you
to imagine in your mind what these people are like. What are their demographics?
How are they interacting at this party? What are they wearing? What are they
drinking? Use your imagination and tell me about the Bank of America person at
this party. Have some fun with it.

Respondent: [Crosstalk] First of all, they’re drinking and I’m probably not so I’m more of an
observer. Is there a difference between the Bank of America guy and the Merrill
Edge guy? I don’t discern a lot generically. One of them has a sport coat hung over
his arm and I think it’s really too hot. You can be carrying something or why would
you put one up in the morning anyway? The other one has a buttoned down shirt
with no sport coat. He opened up the collar.

Interviewer: Which is which?

Respondent: [Pause] The sport coat is probably the Bank of American one and the Merrill Edge
doesn’t have a sport coat and I talk to them both a little bit and it’s an amiable
conversation but I’m not expecting anything real deep with either one.

Interviewer: What are they drinking?

Respondent: The Merrill Edge guy has a beer and the Bank of America has a cocktail of some
kind.

Interviewer: Very interesting, thank you. Now, that wasn’t too hard. [Laughter] Thank you for
that.

Respondent: That was totally arbitrary.

Interviewer: That’s okay. It’s just top of mind. John, I don’t have any other questions but I
always like to give my interviewees the opportunity. Thinking about the whole
conversation, your experience with Merrill Edge, your experience with Bank of

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 America, your move to Mexico and how all this came about, what would you like to
add that we maybe haven’t talked about?

Respondent I would say that they probably made a good choice in hiring you. I enjoyed my time
talking to you.

Interviewer: [Laughter] I’m going to be sure to quote that one.

Respondent: Yes, definitely do.

Interviewer: I’m going to put that in my report, John.

Respondent: You’ve got all kinds of complicated twists and turns. I’m always curious about
people. If we had more time, I’d ask you how you came to be doing what you’re
doing and that kind of thing. If Merrill Edge or Bank of America was offended by my
pictures of what they would do at a cocktail party, I’d say “Tell me who you really
are and I’ll read that into my image.” I’m not holding on to anything here. Again,
my experience with both institutions has been positive.

Interviewer: That’s good to hear. I appreciate the summary. John, I’m going to check my email
because I got something from you about where to send the – and I want to be able
to –

Respondent: I know you told me one I couldn’t but I don’t remember which it was. Whether I
get the physical card or the e-card, can I spend either one in Mexico or do I have to
- [Crosstalk]

Interviewer: Yes, okay. That’s what I’m looking at. My boss says that the digital gift card has to
be used in the U.S. but the physical gift card, we can mail it to your house in the
U.S. but it needs to be used within six months.

Respondent: Does it need to be used also in the U.S.?

Interviewer: No.

Respondent: So the physical gift card, I could use either place.

Interviewer: Correct, because it’s going to be just a Visa gift card or something.

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Respondent: Okay, mail that to the address that I gave you.

Interviewer: Perfect, we will –

Respondent: [Unintelligible]

Interviewer: We will take care of that. Thank you, John. To close out, any questions for me?

Respondent: No, are you enjoying your life?

Interviewer: [Laughter] I am indeed. I get to talk to a lots of different people about very
interesting things. Last week, I was interviewing people who manage power plants
so it’s like go figure. I don’t know anything power plants but I do now.

Respondent: You’ve got power plants. You’ve got an astrologer. You’ve got the whole range.

Interviewer: The whole range.

Respondent: You’re enjoying your [Audio Gap] the good guys, right?

Interviewer: I do appreciate that, John. We’ll take care of the gift card. We’ll probably not be
sending it out for the next couple of weeks. We need to wait till all the interviews
are finished and do it as a batch and to end our time together, John, all you need
to do is close out of the website and hang up the phone and we are set. Thank you
so much for spending the time with me today.

Respondent: Okay, Randy, I enjoyed the time talking to you. Take care.

Interviewer: Thank you. Take care, man.

Respondent: You too.

Interviewer: Bye bye. [Pause]

- End of Recording -

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