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!
Related Horror Stories
Whole life insurance as an investment vehicle
The one stands out and given by multiple of professional or so-called professional is to buy a "Whole Life Insurance" as an investment vehicle plus life insurance coverage vs. a "Term Life Insurance" policy.
Just do some calculations of the future value (Excel formula FV) in 20 years of the estimated monthly premium cost for a $1 million Whole Life Insurance vs. a 20 year Term Life Insurance (for the rate of return, you may assume 8%, in some estimates the long term retun of the stock market if you invest that money in Index Mutual Funds.) – you'll be SHOCKED!
Pushed to the Edge: How Three Financial Advisors Tried to Sell Me High-Risk Investments I Didn't Need
Had three different independent FAs try to sell me into high risk VCTs (despite being wholly inappropriate for my goals / financial position) - all I wanted was some one-off financial modelling that I couldn't figure out in a spreadsheet. I literally gave up trying to find an FA at that point.
Are all financial advisors shady??
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.
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