A Simple Mistake That Cost Me Thousands in Home Buying Benefits
When I was preparing to buy my home, my financial advisor who arranged the mortgage told me that the lender ‘didn’t accept’ help to buy ISA’s, so told me to transfer the money to my savings account and withdraw the full sum in bulk.
I later found out that’s not how it works…! I missed out on the government grant. I would have reported but I have no evidence as the advice was via email while I was using my work email address of a workplace many workplaces past!
Still bugs me when I pass his office 🙃
Related Horror Stories
Pressure Tactics and Poor Advice
I had one guy INSIST that I buy a costly Variable Life insurance policy. “Don’t read the prospectus! TRUST ME!” Sorry. “We’re not leaving until you sign!” Okay well you may want to order a pizza, because it’s gonna be a looooooooooong wait!
Another time I met with reps from a major financial firm who asked how my investments had been doing. “For the past ten years my compound returns have been 27%.” (That is, my portfolio was up 10x over ten years.)
This upset then tremendously, like I had just told them I kidnapped babies to use as firewood. “Well, THAT’s totally unsuitable!”Well, what do YOU recommend? “We have a program that will deliver 7% a year. But no promises!” (Perhaps double over ten years.) Okay! We’re done here!
"Safe investments"
Just filed my taxes and I’m looking more closely at my finances. I’m pretty good with the basics but feel completely out of my depth with investments.
In 2021 I started a Morgan Stanley investment account with the financial advisor who has been managing my parents’ money for many years.
I invested $67,000 in 2021 and let the advisor choose the stocks/bonds/funds/etc, telling them that I’m extremely risk adverse and I needed safe investments. On Jan 1, 2022, the value was $71,950. On Dec 31, 2022, the value was $58,587. In 2022, I paid $1,025 in trade commissions and $984 in service/advising fees. So basically I paid my advisor $2,000 for her to lose me $13,363 over the course of 2022.
Is this normal? Every time I ask my parents or advisor they tell me “the market is down for everyone.” But my parent love their advisor and thinks the sun shines out her butt and my advisor has a financial incentive to keep me.
Churned and burned
Some time in the past, a “financial advisor” convinced me that I could make a lot of money trading commodities. Wrong! I figured out he was just “churning” me (putting me into and out of too many positions, just to earn the commission), and I closed the account, buy not until he lost 80% of my money in less than a year!
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