Escape While You Can: The Hidden Costs and High Fees of Edward Jones
Run, don’t walk, away from Edward Jones. The damage is kind of done already, but they will inflict more unnecessary costs and will keep steering you to high load, big fee funds. It’s ridiculous in this day and age.
About this story
This is not a hypothetical case study. This account was published by a member of the public and is reproduced here with a link to the original. The author is not a client of Global Predictions Inc. and was not compensated. Their experience is not a testimonial or endorsement of PortfolioPilot or Global Predictions, and individual experiences vary.
Related Horror Stories
Identity for Profit
In 2005, I was advised by a group of real estate investors. One who says he owns 50 different properties with many partners. He advised if I do not have money for investing, I should use my identity for prospect investors to use to purchase property and I get a small share. At the time, people made lot of money and different kind of real estate financial schemes.
Definitely it is a bad advice because if the investors default the loans, you are ultimately responsible for the loans and the properties are under the water.
Paying for Underperformance
I was paying an advisor $8k per year. He never beat the market and often underperformed. Lovely guy, but once I had enough time to look into it all (the lack of time is WHY I got an advisor in the first place), I realised I was being utterly reamed given the size of my portfolio.
The “My Products Don’t Have Fees” 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!
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