"When an advisor says there is no commission involved you should be leery," says Brent Wilsey, who runs the San Diego-based Wilsey Asset Management. Companies build a façade that makes it look like your investment is fee-free. "But in reality, they hide the fees by burying them deep into documents," he adds. In other words: There's no such thing as "free."
2. Trust me, I have a title:
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"That is perhaps the biggest lie," says Warren Ward, a Columbus, Ind.-based financial advisor. "They are apparently free to call themselves pretty much anything: advisor, counselor, wealth manager," he adds.
3. Look at these returns:
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Some advisers overstate compound interest. The equation is something like this: "If you invest $A over the course of B years you will earn $C because the average rate of return of this fund (or market) is D%" But wait. "The problem with this equation is that no one can score that rate of return every year," says Jordan Wolff, the chief savings officer for Shrinkabill Services, a financial services firm. The math treats this as a consistent earning every year. And that's not accurate.
4. Did we forget to mention that?
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Few advisors will tell you an outright lieMany terms and fees are buried in difficult-to-read prospectuses, and you may not be able to decipher the true costs of some investments. Remember, Registered Investment Advisors and Investment Advisor Representatives are required to act in a fiduciary role, while Registered Representatives may earn a commission.
There's no such thing as no risk. If your advisor is telling you otherwise, you might want to look elsewhere.
6. It's do or die:
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Shady investment advisors love fear tactics. It takes patience to succeed. Bad advisors push clients to make a decision because they are afraid of losing a sale, not because the market is going to change. If your advisor is scaring you, maybe you have the wrong advisor