HBOS shares

Aegis

esbo wrote: »

Their role, as I understand it, is to make as much money as possible, for themselves.
Did you have something else in mind?

Way to miss the point...

Your attitude is pretty irrational. Have you got some sort of personal grudge against IFAs, or have you just latched on to a scapegoat that you feel should be ostracised?

So that you're more aware, an IFA is an adviser who can source their financial recommendations from the whole-of-market rather than from any specific company. This essentially means that they can offer the products best suited to the client rather than just the products that the attached company happens to sell. In short, this makes them the best possible source for financial advice as defined by the industry guidelines.

esbo wrote: »

How stupid of you to suggest I said that.
You would certaintly be the last person I would take financial advice from.
And you are a bad advert for your 'industry'
You are precisely the type of person I would expect to find working in the industry and that is why the UK is in the financial crisis it is in today.

That's pretty insulting behaviour towards someone who has offered a lot of advice on innumerable occasions to complete strangers for no money whatsoever by posting on this forum.

torbrex

setmefree wrote: »

Have asked for thread to be closed

I was watching this thread with interest as I was considering buying HBOS shares once they had bottomed out but I had become disgusted with some of the posts.

Aegis

esbo wrote: »

Unless you are paying the IFA a fee yourself the IFA earns his money from the commision he gets from the product he sells, so what do your think he is going to recommend, the one which is the best for his client or the one which earns him
the most commision?

The one that is best for his client.

How do I know? Because IFAs are the single biggest referrers to National Savings & Investments index-linked savings certificates, which pay zero commission.

Of course, there will always be the odd bad example, but the majority of IFAs work for their client rather than just for the largest amount of money they can pocket.

Believe it or not, not everyone is so money-focused that they are willing to screw everyone else just to increase their margins slightly.

setmefree

Oh dear oh dear i asked for the whole thread to be closed, instead they removed my post
:rotfl::rotfl::rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:

esbo

Aegis wrote: »

The one that is best for his client.

How do I know? Because IFAs are the single biggest referrers to National Savings & Investments index-linked savings certificates, which pay zero commission.

Of course, there will always be the odd bad example, but the majority of IFAs work for their client rather than just for the largest amount of money they can pocket.

Believe it or not, not everyone is so money-focused that they are willing to screw everyone else just to increase their margins slightly.

Oh really?

Ombudsman reports hike in IFA complaints

http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/mortgages/endowments/article.html?in_article_id=403177&in_page_id=55

Aegis

esbo wrote: »

Oh really?

Ombudsman reports hike in IFA complaints

http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/mortgages/endowments/article.html?in_article_id=403177&in_page_id=55

First of all, that article is nearly 3 years out of date. Most people know about endowment policies and the problems that occurred with them, and it's largely due to under-performance of the policies compared to what they were predicted to do. Essentially the mis-selling complaints seem to boil down to some sort of situation whereby people were unaware of the full risks of the situation. Whether this is the fault of the client for not reading enough into the product details, the adviser for not making the risks clear to the clients, or the endowment policy providers for not making the advisers sufficiently aware of the risks is somewhat tricky to ascertain.

However, note that IFAs were responsible for just 13% of complaints about this product, while 87% would be connected with the companies themselves and the non-independent advisers that sold these products. Clearly there were a lot fewer complaints about IFAs than about the rest of the endowment policy advisers out there at the time.

Yes, the endowment mis-selling issue seems to have been one of the more major cockups of the financial services sector in recent years, but it would be arbitrarily simplistic to lay the blame at the feet of IFAs, which means that this doesn't support your prejudice against IFAs in favour of "good" advisers (which you still haven't actually supplied a definition for, by the way).

In any case, I fail to see how this actually refutes or even addresses the points I made in the post you were responding to.

dunstonh

Oh really?

Ombudsman reports hike in IFA complaints

http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/mortgag...&in_page_id=55

2005 to the massive highs of 13% on a widespread issue. Thats really a hike! Try looking at more up-to-date figures. The FOS do publish them.

Not sure what that has to do with non-commission referrals though.

esbo

Aegis wrote: »

First of all, that article is nearly 3 years out of date. Most people know about endowment policies and the problems that occurred with them, and it's largely due to under-performance of the policies compared to what they were predicted to do. Essentially the mis-selling complaints seem to boil down to some sort of situation whereby people were unaware of the full risks of the situation. Whether this is the fault of the client for not reading enough into the product details, the adviser for not making the risks clear to the clients, or the endowment policy providers for not making the advisers sufficiently aware of the risks is somewhat tricky to ascertain.

However, note that IFAs were responsible for just 13% of complaints about this product, while 87% would be connected with the companies themselves and the non-independent advisers that sold these products. Clearly there were a lot fewer complaints about IFAs than about the rest of the endowment policy advisers out there at the time.

Yes, the endowment mis-selling issue seems to have been one of the more major cockups of the financial services sector in recent years, but it would be arbitrarily simplistic to lay the blame at the feet of IFAs, which means that this doesn't support your prejudice against IFAs in favour of "good" advisers (which you still haven't actually supplied a definition for, by the way).

In any case, I fail to see how this actually refutes or even addresses the points I made in the post you were responding to.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/main.jhtml?xml=/money/2005/03/02/cmnend02.xml

"If you promise to leave small IFAs alone, I will give you the secret that will enable you to get a 100 per cent success rate with the product providers."

"Endowment Justice said dozens of people had sought its help after being *harassed* and *threatened* by IFAs as a result of making a complaint."

Seems like IFA's can turn pretty nasty if you make a complaint against them.

Aegis

esbo wrote: »

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/main.jhtml?xml=/money/2005/03/02/cmnend02.xml

"If you promise to leave small IFAs alone, I will give you the secret that will enable you to get a 100 per cent success rate with the product providers."

"Endowment Justice said dozens of people had sought its help after being *harassed* and *threatened* by IFAs as a result of making a complaint."

Seems like IFA's can turn pretty nasty if you make a complaint against them.

Couple more interesting quotes from that article:

Paolo Standerwick, one of the 200 members of IFADU, said he had received "threatening letters" from endowment complaint handlers, but had won all five cases brought against him by the FOS.
The FOS said complaints against IFAs were more fiercely contested and took longer than those against larger firms. However, only 40 per cent of complaints against IFAs were successful.

So, we have what boils down to a "he said, she said" situation regarding threats, and a note that of the 13% of endowment complaints brought against IFAs, only 40% of those were actually successful.

Naturally the no-win, no-fee compensation companies are going to claim that those they're targeting are terrible people, etc, but that doesn't make those allegations true.

The way to look into it is via the FOS complaints list, and I'm sure that some of the other regulars would be happy to point you in the direction of that unbiased source of raw data.

esbo

dunstonh wrote: »

2005 to the massive highs of 13% on a widespread issue. Thats really a hike! Try looking at more up-to-date figures. The FOS do publish them.

Not sure what that has to do with non-commission referrals though.

I don't expect many people use a IFA for a mortage in the first place, most will just
go with their bank so 13% seems a relative high figure.
Futhermore it does seem it is much more difficult to get a complaint against an IFA
resolved due to their obstructive attitude and perhaps if they are still in business.