What Questions Should You Ask A Broker You Are Considering Working With?
Investing your money is always a risk, which is why many people turn to stockbrokers and investment advisers for help. They want experienced financial professionals to handle their funds properly and allocate their assets wisely.
While in an ideal world, every broker would only make suitable investment recommendations in line with each customer’s investing profile, risk tolerance level, and financial goals—as well as refrain from making misrepresentations and omissions, overconcentrating a client’s portfolio with too much of the same investment, or engaging in other forms of stockbroker negligence or fraud—every year, there are thousands of investors who end up losing money because of the wrongful, erroneous, or negligent actions of their financial advisors.
Becoming the victim of broker fraud is never your fault. However, here are six key questions that you can ask when interviewing a financial advisor to potentially avoid working with a bad or negligent stockbroker:
- Is the broker registered with state or federal regulators? This is also information you can find out through your own research. You want someone who is a registered financial professional and is affiliated with a registered broker-dealer.
- Has this financial advisor been the subject of previous regulatory charges or investor fraud lawsuits in the past? You also can look up this information on BrokerCheck. If you notice multiple customer complaints involving this stockbroker you may want to think twice about working with them.
- How long has this broker been a financial professional and what is their experience working with investors like you? For example, if you are an accredited investor wanting to get involved in private placements, non-traded REITs, or another kind of risky, illiquid investment, you want someone who is knowledgeable in these types of financial products.
- Is this financial advisor someone who understands your investing goals and your financial needs and do they have the plan to make sure that they can help you fulfill your objectives?
- Is the broker someone who will communicate with you, whether it is explaining a particular financial product/investing strategy or making sure your questions/concerns are answered thoroughly and in a way that you can understand?
- How much will it cost to work with this stockbroker? It is important to find out not just what their fee will be for their services, but also about any additional charges you might incur from investing in a particular financial product or getting involved in a certain investing strategy.
How Can Our Skilled Broker Fraud Attorneys Help You?
Even when you do ask the right questions, investor losses caused by stockbroker misconduct or negligence can still happen. Shepherd Smith Edwards and Kantas (investorlawyers.com) represents inexperienced investors, conservative investors, retirees, older investors, high-net-worth investors, and institutional investors in suing their broker-dealers for damages.
When you hire our savvy financial advisor negligence attorneys, you are retaining the services of a seasoned team of legal professionals that have over a century’s worth of combined experience in the securities industry and the securities law. We have recovered many millions of dollars for our clients through arbitration, mediation, and litigation. Should we agree to work together, you can trust us to provide customized securities law representation and personalized client attention.
More than 90% of the investors that Shepherd Smith Edwards and Kantas have worked with have received full or partial financial recovery. Our clients only pay us for our legal services if they receive compensation through a settlement or award and the funds will never come directly out of their own pockets.
Call the SSEK Broker Fraud Attorneys (800) 259-9010 today to request your free, no-obligation case assessment.