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“He was actually a little uncomfortable and embarrassed”.
Last week I was contacted by Ross, a lawyer in Melbourne, who was concerned he was being charged unfairly for financial advice. He told me that his planner seemed “uncomfortable and embarrassed” about the fees he was obliged to charge.
Ross used the words “fee grab” to describe his current financial planning company’s new policy to charge an asset based fee (brokerage) for switching managed funds.
Financial planners need to charge for their advice and service. But in Ross’s eyes, this fee seemed to be excessive and incidental to the service.
But this fee is not what gets me worked up.
Ross‘s financial planner seemed to think this fee was disproportional to the value his company was providing for this transaction.
It’s hard not to conclude that this financial planner is putting the interests of his employer, and in turn his own interests, before his client’s.
