Are all financial advisors shady??

I’ll preface that this is more of a rant and confession than anything else. I am a 29 year old “financial planner” for a major brokerage firm that I have been with for 7 years now. I am always so impressed as I scroll through this sub the savviness of the average poster - from saving strategies, bogle head inspired investment strategies, and the overall effective simplicity. In my day job as a “planner” (salesman) we are taught to muddy the waters, complicate the process, and create fear to sell simplistic and unnecessary financial services. I wish I could give real advice ( max out, index, save, etc) but that simply won’t pay the bills. Saving aggressively, maxing tax deferred accounts, and indexing is a simple yet the most effective strategy that anyone can do.

It gives me quite the morale dilemma of pursuing a career in something I don’t believe there’s real value in. In my opinion, for 95+% of folks there is no need for a financial planner/advisor. The only real value in paying for any type of financial service I see is a tax advisor for those in complex situations; but there is simply no need for a financial advisor. I love the planning side of my career, but absolutely hate the sales side, which has stalled my career progress because I have turned down promotions to avoid the majority of my income becoming commission based and to stay in the space of helping rather than selling, which is hurting my own income / FIRE goals.

If I could go back in time, I would have become a CPA or perhaps an estate planner - where real value can be provided. Anyways, I know I am preaching to the choir here but, don’t get sucked in by a financial planner/advisor.

This is the kind of guy that I don’t actually want to punch in the face; I’d rather just have a good chuckle with him. One time, I was competing with another advisor who was offering a fixed annuity as their only investment solution. They were a pure insurance agent, and apparently, that was all he could offer.

When the client chose me as their advisor over the insurance agent, they were not happy, to say the least. They were so disappointed in my client’s decision that they felt compelled to tell them (in a condescending tone) that their products had no fees, whereas mine did, and that they (my clients) were making a horrible decision.

No fees, huh? Well, yes, if you buy a fixed annuity that guarantees you 3%, you do get 3%. But for someone to use the argument that their products have no fees is ridiculous. There’s a fee for everything; there is no such thing as a free lunch.

Lesson learned: If your advisor tells you that their products have no fees, I would suggest you first prevent yourself from bursting into laughter. Then, kindly remove yourself and sprint out of their office.

Keep the case!

My partner put 50k into investments via a well known financial services company during Covid and saw a decent profit (unexpectedly quick, but that’s Covid I guess). We have only seen shrinkage since then.

I put about 100k down about 2 years ago, it has only dropped since. My FA has never spoken to me, in fact he moved off my account without telling me, and the new advisor didn’t even intro themselves. When me and my partner tried to get time to speak to the new person it took weeks.

When we eventually got them on a call they were fine but didn’t give us much concrete, there were follow ups to be done, the FA has not followed up in 3 weeks. I emailed a week ago asking for a date for these, no response. Is this normal for FAs? In my industry I would be fired immediately by my clients for this level of service (specifically talking about the service not the profit on the investments as I’m aware that’s a long game).

Are all FAs generally incredibly slow and hard to reach? I ask as this person belongs to a large reputable firm. This far they have taken my money and charged me fees despite my investment never generating profit and never speaking to me either. While my wife has had slightly (she has spoken to the advisor once before I invested) better service, and had profit a while ago, the service is so poor.