Advice from Banks Cannot Be Trusted
I came across a letter in a trade magazine regarding some financial advice a bank had given to an elderly lady.
The letter was from a chap called Bob Grapes from Bob Grapes financial planning and this is a copy of an extract of his letter.
Extract Begins
… I have just returned from a meeting with a lady in her seventies. She has narrowly avoided being mis-sold an investment product by her bank. Previously, I thought incidents like this were just manufactured by disgruntled IFA’s.
The lady recently lost her husband of 47 years and was persuaded to see a bank adviser “to get a better rate of interest”. She was subsequently advised to invest £35,000 into a six-year term structured product after telling the adviser that she did not want to take any risk or tie any money up. The lady specifically told the adviser that she did not want to invest in shares.
In addition, no discussion about attitude to investment nor commission disclosure took place and a suitability letter was not issued. The lady only became concerned when she received the confirmation note and saw that £2200 in commission (6% plus) was payable and read “your capital is at risk”. She then decided to send back the cooling off notice.
… extract ends.
This once again just goes to show that the banks are in it for themselves, they have no real interest in providing good advice to their customers, their advisors, a possibly laughable term, are inadequately trained, and are set by their bank managers to reach targets which they can only meet by selling inappropriate products to people who know no better.
That is why in all cases you should consider taking advice from a professional financial adviser, possibly a chartered financial planner or a certified financial planner.