What Should I Do If I’ve Received Bad Financial Advice?

We’ve all heard the horror stories of cut-throat Financial Advisers pushing products, purely to line their own pockets. The industry as a whole left a very bad taste in people’s mouths for a long time, with many people electing to manage their own finances, rather than losing money to a handful of unscrupulous individuals.

Thankfully, at the end of 2012 The FCA (or FSA as they were then called) threw a cat amongst the pigeons of the financial advisory world. This metaphorical moggy came in the form of The Retail Distribution Review (RDR); a piece of legislation that banned commission on the sale of investment products and insisted that advisers must be better qualified to give investment advice. For some less scrupulous financial advisory firms this was the end. They could see the Horsemen of the Apocalypse approaching and there was no other way out than to pack up shop and ship out. RDR signalled the beginning of a new era in financial advice; a future where you, the client, receive the very best, unbiased service from the most highly qualified advisers. Great news, as long as you do not already have an ‘old style Financial Adviser’…..

A great deal of people who sought advice prior to December 2012, will have been well informed and would have received honest, trustworthy and dependable planning. However, there are some who may have experienced substandard, biased and commission driven financial ‘advice’. Our client, Paul, was one of those unfortunate few.

When you seek financial guidance, you are placing a huge amount of trust in the professional you chose. When that trust was broken for Paul, it took him a long time to feel confident in allowing someone else to help him plan his finances.

We met Paul 4 years before he actually became a client. He was understandably wary of our industry and was looking for a professional who he could genuinely trust. Over those 4 years, we demonstrated how, as Chartered Financial Planners, we differed from a large number of advisers in our industry.

First and foremost, we have the highest level of qualification in our industry and we’re truly independent, meaning that we’re not tied to one provider or incentivised to sell. We also work on a fee basis, meaning that commission doesn’t motivate us, and we can recommend the best solution for our clients’ needs, rather than the product that will pay us the largest chunk.

But for Paul, it wasn’t just our style of financial planning, it was our company ethos. We value education and ongoing support and believe that our Progressive Review Programme is what really makes us stand apart from our competitors. This is where our clients find the most value, and what helped Paul go from being appalled at our industry to being one of our longest standing, happiest clients.

Paul now has full control over his planning, and is delighted that everything we do is transparent, honest and in tune with his needs.