Now, anything related to investing and RRSP season drives me up the wall.
The requisite "showing the advisor showing the computer screen (or laptop, if they make house calls...yeah right) to the clients" ensuring there are pretty pie charts on there so that it appears that advisor knows what they are talking about.
Or the advisor meeting with the clients over lunch, of course the advisor taking the bill.
And then the reactions of people, completely shocked that they can retire or send Sohpie to Med School.
Contrast this with the real word, guys in bad suits, at a bank doing there best to move up in the company so they don't have to deal with the majority of the clients who come in who have very little to invest and are heavily in debt, or, the independant brokers, defined by even worse suits hoping to climb over the compeition and you at the same time, wowing you with free pens and using the words hedging and diversity as much as possible, themselves only one bad month away of straight comission from going back to selling used office furniture.
All of them trying to portray them as solid, confident, trustworthy people that become your friends over the years and understand you and your family, and your needs inside out with some innane gift. Garbage. Those who have money and a solid investor, don't need ads to convince them that CIBC of Investors Group is better or more worth it. At the 25-40 age grou that these appear to be targetted at, that $7K a year you MAY be able to squeeze and budget for as you're starting out in a career for RRSP's, requires none of (and will get you none of) these personalized touches these companies are supposedly offering.
My parents have an advisor at CIBC for the past decade since retirement and having a fairly considerable nest egg to manage properly....but they've had 11 different advisors in that time...hardly the bastion of "knowing your client".
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