Deceived for Commission
When I was new and wanted to buy mutual funds, they sold me ULIP in the name of Mutual Funds, which they were not dealing even, but for getting some commision, they found me a good prey.
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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!
How a Crooked Accountant and Pension Planner Led Me to Take Control of My Financial Future
I had lots of commission fuelled bad advice from so called ‘financial advisors’.However one piece of advice really sticks out as the worst and also the turning point in my investment life.
The first part of the scam was my crooked accountant recommending an Executive Pension Plan at around age 34.
A pension planner was wheeled into my office and I was signed up and within a few days was then paying 250 GBP/Mth into this wizard investment that would give me a pension at age 60 totalling a zillion GBP p.a. OK first two rip offs, crooked accountant got a nice lump sum and commission for the next 10 years and pension planner got a lifetime rake off of everything I paid into the plan. In fact for the first two years all of the contributions I was making went into their pockets.
Fast forward a few years and the pension planner is back and well guess what my plan is underperforming so I need to increase the payments to 1,000 GBP per month. Holy shit ! I sign the papers and away we go. Now being curious, I do some investigation about how much commission I was paying. For the next two years half of my extra payment goes straight to the pension guy.
That was 9,000 GBP so I could see where my pension was going, exactly nowhere except into the advisors trouser pocket. Well that was it payments stopped and I realised I was being ripped off on everything, pension, investment plans, insurance the whole nine yards. Roll on 6 months I had my own pension fund and I was the trustee, I also had an insurance broker business with a very important client, me.
I never looked back and educated myself and will never ever in a million years take any shit from so called financial advisors. Look after your own money because if these guys were any good they would not need money from a loser like you. Remember Bernie Madhoff, there are plenty more out there.
What are some signs that your financial advisor is stealing from you?
He is a new friend
He is a long-lost relative
He approached you in church with a Bible in hand
He offers you a guaranteed high steady return
He is addicted to something that is expensive
The name of his company includes the name of any of the Founding Fathers, any prestigious US or British University or sounds like it is affiliated with Veterans or the US government
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