FINRA / Ameriprise

[DayDreaming]

I used to have my $$$ invested with Ameriprise - many thanks to this forum for educating me and my money is much more wisely invested at Vanguard now.

Anyway, the other day I got a phone call from Ameriprise saying that my FA there has been fired for unethical behavior, and that this person was my new FA. I guess he didn't realize I have a balance of $0 there. He said that my old FA was taking her annual fee for fine-tuning clients financial plans, then just giving them their old plan back.

I told this guy that I'm not working with Ameriprise anymore and one useful thing he did tell me about was a site called FINRA - Financial Industry Regulatory Agency - I didn't know about this, but burried in the information there, you can use their BrokerCheck to lookup a broker or a firm and see if there were any 'events disclosed about this broker'. He suggested I use this to check out any other FA I deal with.

I just wanted to pass that along in case anyone else finds it useful. I doubt if I'll be working with any FA again, but if I did, a bad mark at FINRA would be very useful to know. However, I wouldn't take a clean record at FINRA as gospel truth, because the FA that Ameriprise just fired still shows up with a clean record.

 

[Sarah in SC]

It takes a lot to get written up by FINRA--you can sell a lot of crappy funds and annuities before they get you, but it does help weed out the truly terrible.
Another good check is the CFP website Certified Financial Planner Board of Standards Inc. to check on the status of CFP certificants.

 

[Bestwifeever]

Joe, was your old Ameriprise broker who was fired for unethical behavior listed on the Finra site as a bad apple? I would hope so!

 

[DayDreaming]

Nope, my unethical FA still looks good on FINRA. I'll keep an eye on that to see if it changes though, just out of curiosity.

 

[FinanceDude]

Nope, my unethical FA still looks good on FINRA. I'll keep an eye on that to see if it changes though, just out of curiosity.

If the broker was fired for unethical behavior it may never be reported on FINRA. FINRA will only have info like that if a CLIENT files a WRITTEN complaint with FINRA. Then, it has to be put on his/her profile on FINRA, along with what actions FINRA took against the advisor (cease and desist, barred from the industry, etc.)

Wonder how Madoff looked on FINRA? OH, that's right, he didn't even REGISTER as an ADVISOR until 2006!!