I may get flagged, OK. But I am sure some folks out there have not just have a "Gold IRA" but an LLC in an IRA. Be aware that on Oct. 30 2009, Trust Co. of America (http://www.trustamerica.com/ ) sent letters to their current clients saying there would be fee increases. Most of these increases were nominal while others were not (eg: quarterly fee increased substantially). However one very big one was added: a 1% total-all-assets fee plus $50/asset for termination of account! This was not there before! Prior, it was a flat $500 fee with no mention of assets in trust (just what is an asset, a block of shares? An account managed by the LLC?)
 
Thus if you wish to change custodians and have, say $500k of assets in trust with them, that'll be a $5000 fee! Have $1 mill? That's a $10k fee!
 
Termination fees cannot be paid from your IRA unless it is part of a distribution, which before dist'n age, incurs a huge penalty from the gov't. Folks, the "work" they need to do to transfer assets is PAPERWORK!
 
Previously they charged merely $500 flat for a termination.
 
Like me you may have organized your LLC via the people at Guidant. They have been emailing former clients who bought via them that they will transfer assets if the request is made before 12/31 to a newly-formed Trust company that their mgt. has established using the same fee schedule that TCA was using in 2009, waiving the $55 acct set-up fee. But as of 1/1/10 you will need to sue TCA to get out from under the 1% dist'n fee. And if you contracted with them as custodians of your IRA you signed off on their ability to raise fees with 60 days' notice, you will need to deal with lawyers -- but you will not want to, opting instead to eat the fee in lieu of paying for lawyers or trying to bother to organize a class-action suit. They know this already are counting on it.
 
They know as we do that most people ignore mail from financial institutions. They know busy people often do not bother opening anything they don't immediately see as important or of a personal nature. Important letters with things like this are easily disguised as junk mail and so they hope you will discard it and passively get shafted. If Guidant had not emailed me and had I not read that email I would be blissfully floating into some costly ignorance.
 
I do not work for Guidant or TCA. I have no financial interest, personal interest, or political interest or any other kind in them except in that I am a client of both, soon to be just one.
 
If you are a TCA acct. holder and you have an IRA trust arrangement with them, you are well-advised to make sure you are not in the class of person who is subject to these new fees. Do not wait to act, it can be very hard to get ahold of TCA customer service people. In the last three days I have had very nasty words with them and have been very assertive with Guidant in getting the transfer paperwork. They are sympathetic but they like many other companies are short-staffed toward year's end. You will need to be very aggressive to make sure you get the paperwork and even moreso to make TCA know how you feel about this credit card company-like shenanigans.
 
I have tried to contact the president of TCA but so far he has not called back. The way to get them to slow this train down and indeed do them the favor of keeping the hordes of people who feel like they have been shanghaied/blindsided by them from showing up at their offices with pitchforks, or worse, Federal agents, is to start leaving voicemails and making it clear, if they want to raise fees like this, they better be 100% sure they have exercised extraordinary fiduciary trust to inform their clients. "Oh I sent you a letter," does NOT cut it and then KNOW it!
 
http://www.trustamerica.com/top-nav/contact-us/
http://www.trustamerica.com/about-us/leadership-team/
 
TCA
7103 South Revere Parkway
Centennial, Colorado 80112
303-705-6000
 
TCA mgt., if you are reading this, you may thank me. I may well by getting you to think twice about this blind-side effort and thus help keep you from having to deal with people who are even more bad-tempered, better-heeled, more rabble-rousing, and even more cussedly vindictive than me! You are not digging yourselves as deep a hole as Bernie Madoff but it sure's gonna feel like it when 1Q 2010 rolls around and the hundreds of very nasty phone calls start rolling in after the statements go out.