Human Financial Advisor Horror Stories about AI Financial Advisor

Does anybody else find cold calls from financial advisors extremely annoying? I have 3 accounts.

Schwab holds retirement accounts and it does what I need it to do. I use TD as a brokerage and it does what I need it to do. They fulfill their purpose and never bother me and are great. But I also have bank account w Bank of America / Merrill lynch and I get a call from them every week from a different dillhole offering me his financial services and I find it so annoying and violating bc I know what’s happening is that these back office bungoles are looking at my accounts and holdings, which is targeting me as a good call for their prospecting.

It’s like I’m paying them to upsell me on their services, which they have never actually are able to explain why I need

I was approached by a "financial advisor" who offered free financial advice. This planner was a friend of a friend, so I agreed but told them straight off the bat that I was not looking to hire a financial planner. They said that was fine, and that the advice would certainly be free because I’m a friend of a friend.

This is where I made my first mistake. After a few meetings, this advisor gave me a "financial plan" that included paying for term life insurance AND whole life insurance AND disability insurance (all policies under the company they work for). These would come out to $4,700/year when my salary is only in the $80-90k range. Not to even mention that I am 22 years old with no dependents and have no need for life insurance. This "financial plan" also didn’t include rent, mortgage payments, car payments, or anything else I might need to pay in the future.

I can understand being advised to get disability insurance, but this financial advisor knew that I had not even signed up for my company’s disability insurance and so would not be able to make an informed decision on it. I told this person "no," but they tried to convince me I was making a bad choice. They told me that whole life insurance was a good investment, even better than investing in some index fund, and generally made it sound like this would be the worst financial decision of my life.

I asked my friend about this, and it turns out his mother also sells life insurance. The difference is that she’s ethical and only sells whole life insurance to people who actually need it (i.e., not people in their early 20s who have no health issues and no dependents). I found out that whole life insurance is not an investment, and if it is, then it’s a pretty lousy one. I found out that I probably don’t need two different life insurance policies at the age of 22 with no dependents.

My point is, there are certain people passing themselves off as "financial planners," "financial advisors," or "financial whatever" who tell you that they want to make sure you’re financially secure and would only want to advise you to do things that are in your best interests. These people are snakes, but somehow, they are able to legitimize themselves behind a big company. I’ve heard that a lot of them target younger people and use fear to convince them to buy a bunch of insurance they don’t need.

Just be careful, fellas, and do your own research.

I've had a real issue with the "financial advising" industry for quite sometime.

It's all 20 somethings trying to sell you some insurance product. They do this because they are commission based so the incentives aren't oriented to the clients best interests, especially if the client is just starting out in their financial journey.

I'm not sure if it gets any better as you get more wealth either, as they lump you into an AUM based product and the service is some annual/quarterly review even though the advisor hasn't been focused on your portfolio because of the commission based incentives.

I’ve had initial chats with two, and met two at parties. No horror stories, but all four left me certain that I wouldn’t trust them with a penny of my money. The two I met socially gave me the strong impression they had no idea what they were doing and just parroted dubious soundbites like “you’ll never lose money in property” or “you can’t go wrong with bonds”.

One had been in agriculture before getting a job at his father-in-law’s advisory firm.

I tried to chat to them about more complex post-recession low-interest rate stuff and they kinda changed the subject and just went back to soundbites. The two I actually spoke to about getting advice, one didn’t know how to deal with crypto and promptly ghosted me, the other also appeared to lose interest once it was clear I wasn’t just gonna buy life insurance and commission products. All four did the 1980s sales-y bullshit like using my first name constantly (one of them calling me by the wrong name over and over).

So (while I know every industry has its bad apples), my own personal experience has been that 4 out of 4 had strong scammy used car salesman / estate agent vibes. So basically, they’re the last people I’d hand over money to.I manage my ~£0.5m portfolio myself.