13 Things Your Financial Adviser Won’t Tell You

I found this great article on the Reader’s Digest Web Site 

Interviews by Michelle Crouch From Reader’s Digest

1. Certified financial planners and NAPFA-registered financial advisers take a pledge to put their clients’ interests ahead of their own, but traditional stockbrokers aren’t held to the same standard, even if they’ve given themselves the title “financial adviser.”

Sources: Jim Joseph, certified financial planner, Rockville, Maryland; John Gugle, CFP, Charlotte, North Carolina; Geoffrey Hakim, founder, Marin Capital Management, San Rafael, California; Mark Stein, CFP, president, AeGIS Financial Advisors, Phoenix, Arizona; Terri Hickman, financial consultant, Grand Junction, Colorado; and Dana Anspach, principal, Wealth Management Solutions, Scottsdale, Arizona. 2. Do some digging before you hand me the keys to your future. Use BrokerCheck at finra.org to see if I’ve been in trouble. 3. If I work on commission, I typically make money whenever you buy a new product, and I’ve probably got monthly quotas to meet. That’s why I always seem to call with something to purchase at the end of the month. 4. I may have other incentives to get you to buy. If I sell to enough people, I could win a trip to the Caribbean, a new laptop, or a big bonus. (The guys behind the product may also have bought my dinner at Morton’s last week and sponsored our corporate golf tournament.)

You can read the complete article here.