not happy with financial advisor - do I have a valid complaint?

shaz4473

I have not used this platform before so I am hoping that I detail everything clearly and someone can advise.
I have used a financial company with an advisor that had my stocks and shares isa invested at a risk of 7 for many years and the fund had performed very satisfactorily.  This person retired and I was handed over to someone else.  Also at this time my circumstances changed and I was looking to purchase a property so I decided to reduce the risk of my investment and it was moved around October 2017 to a risk 5 level. At the end of year 1 it has increased by 4.38%.  From Oct 18 to Oct 19 it had a loss of 1.5%.  Other investments I had elsewhere had a positive movement of just under 7% and I brought this to my financial advisors attention in October 19 letting them know that I was disappointed in the negative return.  My mum also has the same financial advisor and around November 2019 had a face to face appointment where they advised that they would be in touch with me at the turn of the year about my investment.  This did not happen.  I then emailed the financial advisor again to advise that in my mind there had been a lack of communication from them as they had not been in touch as they had previously advised and on top of this I did not receive the standard letter that my mum received about covid 19 from them sent out in March.    My investment from Oct 19 to Jun 20 had fallen by a further 3.85% which means from Oct 17 to Jun 20 a negative movement of 0.97%.  
I had a teams meeting where I was advised that my investment would be moved elsewhere but have now received a letter advising me that they are suggesting that they only move 50% of my investment which has done absolutely nothing in just short of 3 years.  The morningstar rating of this particular investment is 2 out of 5.  I cannot understand why they would want me to leave half of my investment where it is when it has not performed well over the 2.5 year period.
Can anyone comment on my opinion that my financial advisor has not been acting on my best interests and has not been ensuring that the money I have invested through them is working in the best way it can for me?  
Also, can I do something about this? 
Thanks in advance if anyone can help me

bigadaj

Easiest and mot practical thing is to stop using this adviser as your relationship appears to have broken down. Look for another advisor or manage yourself on a diy platform.

eskbanker

Putting aside the customer service aspects, it's not necessarily appropriate to measure the quality of an advisor by investment performance - what were your stated objectives and exactly which investments were recommended for you?  Is the advisor an IFA?

csgohan4

whether investing through an IFA or yourself, you will be at the mercy of the markets and as always your investments can go down as well as up regardless, unless your Warren Buffet. 

If you can, research on investments and save the money they are top slicing off your investments IMO and invest in funds you are happy with. 

https://monevator.com/

83705628

shaz4473 said:

I have not used this platform before so I am hoping that I detail everything clearly and someone can advise.
I have used a financial company with an advisor that had my stocks and shares isa invested at a risk of 7 for many years and the fund had performed very satisfactorily.  This person retired and I was handed over to someone else.  Also at this time my circumstances changed and I was looking to purchase a property so I decided to reduce the risk of my investment and it was moved around October 2017 to a risk 5 level. At the end of year 1 it has increased by 4.38%.  From Oct 18 to Oct 19 it had a loss of 1.5%.  Other investments I had elsewhere had a positive movement of just under 7% and I brought this to my financial advisors attention in October 19 letting them know that I was disappointed in the negative return.  My mum also has the same financial advisor and around November 2019 had a face to face appointment where they advised that they would be in touch with me at the turn of the year about my investment.  This did not happen.  I then emailed the financial advisor again to advise that in my mind there had been a lack of communication from them as they had not been in touch as they had previously advised and on top of this I did not receive the standard letter that my mum received about covid 19 from them sent out in March.    My investment from Oct 19 to Jun 20 had fallen by a further 3.85% which means from Oct 17 to Jun 20 a negative movement of 0.97%.  
I had a teams meeting where I was advised that my investment would be moved elsewhere but have now received a letter advising me that they are suggesting that they only move 50% of my investment which has done absolutely nothing in just short of 3 years.  The morningstar rating of this particular investment is 2 out of 5.  I cannot understand why they would want me to leave half of my investment where it is when it has not performed well over the 2.5 year period.
Can anyone comment on my opinion that my financial advisor has not been acting on my best interests and has not been ensuring that the money I have invested through them is working in the best way it can for me?  
Also, can I do something about this? 
Thanks in advance if anyone can help me

/
Over-analysing past performance, and attributing that to the IFA, is the wrong approach. The quality of your IFA has absolutely nothing to do with your returns. People seem to think that if you pay for an IFA you'll do better, i.e. "you get what you pay for", this is factually incorrect and mathematically impossible.
Investing is a business where you get what you don't pay for. Morningstar ratings are meaningless nonsense. A 2.5 year period is not nearly enough to determine the IFA's investing skill or enough time to say "this is a bad investment". If you complained to the IFA, financial ombudsman or FCA that a bit of underperformance means they haven't been acting in your best interests and they aren't investing your money to make it work the best way it can - you will get nowhere.
IFAs make a living by managing your expectations, not by making money for you.

Yes, you can do something, take your money and manage it yourself on a DIY platform. It's never been easier, there's plenty of education and information about it.

AnotherJoe

shaz4473 said:

I have not used this platform before so I am hoping that I detail everything clearly and someone can advise.
I have used a financial company with an advisor that had my stocks and shares isa invested at a risk of 7 for many years and the fund had performed very satisfactorily.  This person retired and I was handed over to someone else.  Also at this time my circumstances changed and I was looking to purchase a property so I decided to reduce the risk of my investment and it was moved around October 2017 to a risk 5 level. At the end of year 1 it has increased by 4.38%.  From Oct 18 to Oct 19 it had a loss of 1.5%.  Other investments I had elsewhere had a positive movement of just under 7% and I brought this to my financial advisors attention in October 19 letting them know that I was disappointed in the negative return.  My mum also has the same financial advisor and around November 2019 had a face to face appointment where they advised that they would be in touch with me at the turn of the year about my investment.  This did not happen.  I then emailed the financial advisor again to advise that in my mind there had been a lack of communication from them as they had not been in touch as they had previously advised and on top of this I did not receive the standard letter that my mum received about covid 19 from them sent out in March.    My investment from Oct 19 to Jun 20 had fallen by a further 3.85% which means from Oct 17 to Jun 20 a negative movement of 0.97%.  
I had a teams meeting where I was advised that my investment would be moved elsewhere but have now received a letter advising me that they are suggesting that they only move 50% of my investment which has done absolutely nothing in just short of 3 years.  The morningstar rating of this particular investment is 2 out of 5.  I cannot understand why they would want me to leave half of my investment where it is when it has not performed well over the 2.5 year period.
Can anyone comment on my opinion that my financial advisor has not been acting on my best interests and has not been ensuring that the money I have invested through them is working in the best way it can for me?  
Also, can I do something about this? 
Thanks in advance if anyone can help me

My comment is that your expectations are too high / unrealistic. IFAs dont know what markets will do any more than me or you, they just can make appropriate risk levels decisions, but that is a fairly vague concept really. Any level above 'cash' can go down and of course inflation effectively makes cash go down.

However, if you were going to buy a house, my thought is you should have moved into cash, not something with a risk level at all (assuming cash is bottom level ). Or did they run it by you and you decided 5 was OK on teh grounds 7 had been going up so 5 would go up a bit less? Because it doesnt work like that.

Do you know why you didn't go into cash but went for 5? Was that at your request? If not I'd say you do have a potential complaint there but maybe its time for you to start managing your own investments, as long as you can take on board that investing in something with a lower risk level comes with no guarantees, that investments can go down in value as well as up, etc.

Take back control of your own destiny, regard  it as a learning experience (I've been there myself when i had an IFA perhaps 20 years ago.)

 

shaz4473

Thanks for all the input - I think for me it is time to move these funds to the diy platform that I have invested with in smaller amounts myself over the past 3-4 years.  I could not help making comparisons with how that money has done compared to how my funds with the financial advisor has done.  Self invested currently between 5.42% and 7.12% positive movement compared to -0.01% negative.  This has persuaded me to do as you suggest and take control of my own destiny!!  

Thrugelmir

shaz4473 said:

  Self invested currently between 5.42% and 7.12% positive movement compared to -0.01% negative.  This has persuaded me to do as you suggest and take control of my own destiny!!  

Overconfidence bias is what makes investment markets highly dangerous. 

dunstonh

Can anyone comment on my opinion that my financial advisor has not been acting on my best interests and has not been ensuring that the money I have invested through them is working in the best way it can for me? 

Insufficient information to go on.   You need to state what the investments were (so the risk profile is known). Plus, how does that compare to your own investments?  Often bigger differences are down to different risk levels in short term periods. 

Clearly, communication has not been working and the relationship is soured.

The morningstar rating of this particular investment is 2 out of 5.  I cannot understand why they would want me to leave half of my investment where it is when it has not performed well over the 2.5 year period.

Ignore ratings.  And just because of fund had a poor short term period, does not mean it always will.