Empower Retirement - Legally compliant, but effectively a scam?
I want to get others' opinions of Empower Retirement. In my experience, while they are generally legally compliant in how they conduct their business (although they seem to get sued a lot), they are kind of scam of deception. They don't add any value to my employer's 401k. They simply put money into other brokerages accounts, which results in another layer of fees coming out of my assets, and that additional layer of fees are really high. In my experience, they also make it VERY difficult to roll over to an IRA if you have left an employer, between the high pressure sales tactics to roll into an Empower IRA, the slow response times, not providing the required forms online ... all of it is just designed to drag their feet, delay, and hope you get frustrated and just leave the funds in the 401k. I have had to deal with them twice now, and I basically think the company is a scam (morally speaking) run by scumbags. What they are really selling is cheap 401k administration fees to employers, which they make up for by digging value out of my assets through exhorbitant fees which reflect zero value being added by Empower. I'd like to hear others' experiences and opinions of Empower. FWIW, in my latest job search, I actually turned down an offer because Empower administers their 401k. That told me something negative about the prospective employer and I kept looking.