HOMETOWN ED
Edward Jones, the brokerage that likes to market itself as your “hometown, folksy, everyone knows your name” firm is joining the ranks of the other big brokerage firms in segregating their smaller “less worthy” clients and sending them off to some sort of call-center hell. Edward D. Jones & Co is acknowledging that some of their clients might not be worth their time and trouble.
They have rolled out a program that allows their brokers to transfer accounts that have $50,000 or less to some office to be managed by some incompetent boob. You might be asking…How do I know they are incompetent?
#1 If they did have the slightest bit of acumen, Edward Jones wouldn’t have them handling accounts that they did not really want.
#2 I have seen this movie before, and what happens on every occasion is the incompetent call center advisor puts the expendable client into a high commission low performing product until they decide to transfer out. Bang them out for the most you can and then they leave. Problem solved. This is a disgusting industry wide practice that is encouraged. Panel discussions at every industry conference that I have ever attended has a “break out session” on practice management where advisors are told to fire all of their smaller clients so you can focus all your attention on kissing the buttocks of the $10 million plus crowd.
The program known as Edward Jones Connection will be available to all brokers by June of 2019. It is being sold to advisors as a time-saver for brokers for prospecting and servicing larger clients. This is not the first time we have caught Captain Hometown Ed sticking it to their customers. We found out that they received $82 million in top-secret payments from seven different mutual-fund companies. Hometown Ed put together a fee-structure that gave their advisors greater compensation for hawking poorly performing funds over stellar performers. This really screwed up practice is called revenue sharing, where fund companies would compensate brokerage firms more in order to induce them to sell their products. Edward Jones brokers were pushing these preferred funds over better performers. Some of the most hideous performing fund families offered the most lucrative of incentives.
One advisor from Edward Jones admitted to AdvisorHub that the firm was much like the Soviet Union in that they are in the business of pushing products and policies that benefit the General Partners first.
“In reference to Jones being like the USSR. There is nothing going on at that firm that is in the best interest of the client. And the poor folks they hire with zero financial experience lap up the Kool-Aid without question, because Jim Bob and Dwayne Jones make you feel so gosh darn good. For example: Their Advisory Solutions (managed account program), where they are double dipping with their own funds. What Edward Jones is doing and is allowed to do is criminal. They are firing a lot of great advisors. Great advisors are let go because they do the right thing by discounting fee for clients or selling a bond the correct way. How about lavish 5-star trips that the firm sends 90% of their advisors on that are paid for by the mutual fund companies who pay to be in the Jones system?”
I looked up Edward Jones “core values” and number one on the list is, “Our clients’ interests come first.”
Really…so sending your unworthy clients to call- center hell and pushing crappy high commission financial products on your clients is in their best interest?
Wake up people. Find another firm.
Braswell Mason Edward Jones Sets Up Unit for Small Accounts Branches Don’t Want AdvisorHub 9/4/2018
Markowski Christopher Return of The Swiper Markowski Quarterly March 2005
Markowski Christopher Fraud Files Markowski Quarterly August 2016
