What a crock! The only standard is what’s in it for me.
4 replies (most recent on top)
Worked at Fidelity for years…now retired. Thought I would check in with the advisory group…told you must “pay to play.” Walked out it total disgust and left scratching my head on how the company has changed. That is a bit of an understatement. What a disservice to Ned Johnson. For a company that I devoted the majority of my working career to I felt like I needed a shower after the visit.
Agree with comments about the process being mechanical and scripted which is smart on Fidelity's part as it makes it easier to have cheaper unskilled labor costs and helps stay on the right side of compliance. It also makes the employees vulnerable to advanced AI with the processes being so robotic. Fidelity has done a great job of creating a smoke and mirrors value proposition for managed money by touting the business cycle in which is just another form of market timing. Fidelity has been saying the economy is in the late stage of the cycle for years but then occasionally will say it have reversed back into mid which is a clear indicator it is unreliable. Granted, only a fee based RIA can tell clients that they could be in an indexed asset allocation fund and have a fractional of the cost and most likely higher returns. I understand the majority of savers/ investors are uneducated in this area and the high fees they are paying are really to be able to speak with an advisor to tell them how to allocate their funds, keep clients on track for their goal & keep them from blowing out when the market is declining. The performance given the fees is subpar and the advisor hopes the client does not have a GO or an asset allocation fund started at the same time in the same allocation as PAS and has to explain the divergence in returns. The true value of a managed account is being able to speak with an advisor and if clients are aware of that then it is worth the cost but there are a lot of clients in PAS that see no value in doing annual reviews or speaking with Fid so they are paying an ongoing high quarterly fee just to initially be told an allocation. Easy money for Fidelity.
The whole standards of care in theory is a worthy goal but unlikely to be 100% achievable as it is a large organization with multiple personalities & leaders that truly do not have leadership skills- they are following a scripted process as well. These monthly employee performance meetings are a joke, having the employee lead the meeting again makes leaders lazy as they are the leader, they should be the ones leading the meeting and making suggestions or coaching. These meetings are a time ki-ler for the employee as they are having to take a lot of production time coming up with b.s. each month for the meeting. True leadership would be coaching employees on the spot if they notice something and if a monthly meeting is truly necessary then the leader going over what they see could be improved or complimented on.
I do feel over all Fidelity is a good company but it is progressing into a Wells Fargo aka 2000's era of high pressure selling and stressed out associates. I've noticed that since the rotation in senior management the culture is evolving into that Wells Fargo culture. My suggestion would be to have senior management not just look at the numbers but also go to the ground level and see what reality is. If they don't then I would expect turnover ratios will increase and potentially more compliance violations causing higher expense. It would also be nice to know the succession plan within Fidelity as Abby is not getting any younger.
Was a Fidelity advisor for 7 years. Got managed out because I wasn’t selling enough even though I had the highest client satisfaction scores in my region and also had the highest implementation of retirement plan use. Went on to start my own RIA and now manage over $100 million in assets. Fidelity taught me very little about detailed planning. Though I did get a lot of practice role playing with the intent of getting people into annuities and managed money.
The idea that our standards of care are so strong that “we’d trust any advisor here with our own family” is honestly the most insane kool aid they serve
Some of the “senior” advisors I’ve worked with lack even basic planning knowledge. No credentials like CFP after being at fid for decades, how lazy can you be?
The only reason they’re able to operate is because of the guardrails like GPQs, model portfolios, heavy scripting, endless leads and implicit trust in the fid brand. The best advisors go to RIA
I’ve had senior advisors who don’t know tax deadlines. Don’t know RMD rules. Don’t know how a treasury bond works. I once mentioned “FAANG” and my boss’s boss, who runs an advisory team of over 100 people, had never heard of it.
It’s a joke and I absolutely would not recommend my family members to just any advisor at fidelity. It has been my biggest disappointment in this firm the level of incompetence that is ubiquitous amongst advisors at fid.
We really are the McDonald’s of advisory services and planning