5% contribution charge... why is nobody complaining?

I Know

Hiya Clubbie, how's the Telephone box! I know that. I said like Quinns who've proved that 1% and buckets of publicity can't sell ordinary non-PRSA investment, like SSIA's, Personal Pensions, and Investment.

No wonder they didn't bother with the PRSA debacle. They are now in discussions with the broker organisations which should tell you more about why your telephone box mass distribution idea is pie in the sky. Even Mith, I think agrees.
 
Professional advice

"Actuaries @ €250 to €350, Accountants probably €200, and others as recommended by the IBA @€150 to €200. Then did you get a written report later, because that's now a mandatory requirement, say taking up 30 mins to an hour? What about follow up telephone discusssions? If you transacted then theres the paperwork process, liasing with the product provider, checking allocations are right etc. All told 2 to 3 man hours wouldn't be uncommon."

Laser a very good point, all financial advisors should have a professional qualification and thus be held responsible for advice given. Otherwise the anology with Superquinn et al should apply €8 to €10 per hour as a sales person.
 
Re: Daltonr

>I've been on my prozac,

Understood.

> but your wrong to accept the skinflint dogma

I think this is the knub of our disagreement. If product A is better than product B, and product A is also cheaper than product B, then people who buy product A are not skinflints, they are simply wise.

I hope you can see why some might take offence and being characterised as skinflints, particularly on a board which strives to spread the word about value for money.

Now, I'll agree that there is a need for people that we can all go to to get advise on financial matters, and help chosing the best products. BUT... I want to pay them for their time and work, and I want to walk away owning them nothing (like I do with my accountant).

>Away you go now Dallers

From insults to buddy names. That prozak really does cause extreme mood swings doesn't it! I trust Laser isn't a shortened version of LazyBoy. :)

>but don't expect your reflective of the market.

I never though I was. But you know it's a funny thing. When you mention to people about execution only PRSA's, they seem to grasp the idea in about 30 seconds. if the industry is relying on people simply not knowing that there are alternatives to the 5% charge, then it's in real trouble, because that kind of info has a habbit of getting out.

As a matter of interest, could you give us an idea of the beginning to end process for a client coming in to you to get advice on Pensions, where the client ends up with a 5% PRSA.
I'm curious about the added value that you'd provide over and above the execution only services.

This is not a Jibe, I'm genuinely interested in finding out what people get for that 5%.

Also, if you advise on a PRSA with a 5% fee knowing that 0% options exist, does that not breech the rules of giving customers all the options, and not giving advice based on your commission.

Could you not explain the difference between the 5% and the 0% help them set up the 0%, and charge them €800 for the advice.

Just curious.

-Rd
 
To all

Clubie asleep in his telephone box. Summer doesn't seem to understand that a lot of advisors are qualified at degree level. Daltonr, assumes that because I've attacked the skinflints assessment of the market I'd sell anything to a client with a 5% take on contributions, because I wouldn't. I try to get this as close to zero as possible, a much easier task when the contributions are higher.

As for PRSA's I have yet sold one, but I have advised people what to do for nothing over the phone, including going to a discount broker like LA Brokers, because I couldn't be bothered dealing with low contribution customers, but that doesn't mean I won't defend good professional colleagues who deliver good service and value within the PRSA market if they are subject to abuse of the type Summer uses, and which trips off the tongue unchallenged too easliy on AAM.
 
Re: To all

Answer the question.

What do people get for 5%?

Stop trying to deflect attention from it by insulting the other posters.

-Rd
 
Re: To all

In my opinion you get, for your 5%, a standard sales pitch that's handed down to the front line from the marketing and financial generals. The sales pitch undoubtedly involves a quick run through of the options available to the PRSA purchaser, with a definite bias towards hawking the version that is most profitable for the institution.

In other words a standard sales pitch, which if you were buying a used car, you would expect.

The fact is that the general public, i.e. the hordes of employees whose employers have nominated a provider and who will now be bombarded with sales guff from the institutions, don't view buying a pension in the same way as they view buying a car. So they are probably less suspicious, especially if they don't understand the complicated jargon emananating from the esteemed advisors, who have been educated, as Laser informed us, to degree level!

(Nice one Laser. One assumes that the buyers of the 5% snake oil only have a Leaving Cert, at best).

And that's their problem of course. They'll sign up for their €50 per month pension, apparently, and will lose interest in the (annual) statements after a few years. The banks will continue to accept the 5%, which from what we're hearing here is not enough to cover their costs.

Boo friggin' hoo!

My personal experience of in-house advisors is that they are, despite that degree, unsophisticated in their understanding of the products they sell. Perhaps I was unlucky. And I assure you I was offering to invest a lot more than a couple of euros, in case you have the wrong idea.

What has come up here is that the 5% contribution fee is the Institutions' bounty for being forced to sell pensions to the poor and the desolate. If you're forced to sell unprofitable products by the government, well you might as well maximise your commision. If this is really the case, I don't have a problem with it.

Somehow I just don't believe that the fee won't be applied to unsuspecting innocents who could otherwise get a better deal.
 
Double Standards

Daltonr complains of insulting posters, but you and your ilk bash away, unchallenged at ALL advisors. You display very narrow thinking, little knowlegde of the marketplace, and base your argument quite clearly on a stereotype salesperson. Not only is that over-simplistic, its weak thinking, and its unfair.

Funny how you can dish it out, but when your exposed, as I've done, you can't take it back - classic bully behaviour. You still can't deal with the idea that advisors and face to face meetings costs a lot more than skinflints are prepared to pay.
 
Scary

Laser,

You scare me... this thread is quite revealing in that regard. You make me want to run to buy shares in the long run, diversifying along the way and pay them with an execution deal with ShareWatch, hold them for 30 years and gradually sell them towards retirement...

Perhaps hold a index managed fund? Seems managed fund managers don't seem to benefit clients with their supposely better value charges in the long run. Now if they did beat index funds over the long run (and 8/10 don't) then the charge would be justified but they are not. I also believe it is my right to disagree with your points of views. I have been actively investing for the last 5 years and what I have learnt has been invaluable since then and this site has been a great help in that regard!

I also try to alert my friends and colleagues to sites like this to avoid pitfalls and traps besides high charges which this site also helps in. I believe AAM is stronger today that it ever has been and the last 3 years are a testament to that. Great lessons have been learnt by all since then and will be used to great effect in the years to come. We are right to ask for fair value and not accept such barriers as 1% annual fields. We are right to ask WHY these charges are there! Go states side and see the rates there! Transparency has some way to go yet but you would agree that more of this would reduce the natural suspicion towards people such as yourself?
 
Scare You?

Its not my intention to scare anybody. I've no difficulty with AAM setting measurements for the online and informed community on it, even its its so so tiny, and unrepresentative of the public in general.

I wqill concede that you and your ilk come to the market already fairly knowledgeable, and require less help than most others, but I object to this casting a halo over the vast bulk, ie millions of people out there who are not in the same position. I have fought on this thread for the recognition that face to face meetings remains the dominant channel, and regulation requires a reasonably lengthy advisory process.

Your side still doesn't get it, and hence in an attempt to shake you up, I've attacked AAM and your core philiosophy. Evidently that works a bit better.
 
Re: Scare You?

So... say you're a painter and your rates are twice as high one of your fellow tradesmen. You're both asked to quote for the same job. The customer asks you why your rates are higher. You tell him about your higher overheads and marketing costs, and the fact that you have to spend a lot of time meeting with him to figure out which colour paint would be best for his lifestyle. You can't convince him that you provide a better service, or that this consultation process will really benefit him in the long run. Naturally, he goes with the better value option, as he has nothing to lose by doing so.

So you tell him you don't like where he lives. And while you're at it, you don't like his neighbours either.

And you continue to sell your services in other areas, where they are less likely to question your rates, because they don't know or don't care that there are other options available.

Fair enough.
 
Re: Scare You?

Your side still doesn't get it, and hence in an attempt to shake you up, I've attacked AAM and your core philiosophy. Evidently that works a bit better.
Click to expand...
Actually, attacking AAM really didn't work that well. A bit of rational debate with clearly argued points would be far more effective.
 
Rainday's Post

C'mon Rainyday, just read Dalatonr's last effort.

He compares a person hiring a painter to getting financial advice. He just completely skips over the knowlewdge gap, ie that people know precisely what they want before hiring a painter, and know what painting is, and that most people haven't a clue about personal finance.

So long as there is an AAM consensus that supports this kind of crass nonesense, and comes to an entrely faulty conclusion based upon it, your fair game. If Daltonr is representative of the "deep" thinking that respresents the AAM philosophy, I'm right to attack it with satire, because nothing else will work to shake you out of this stupidity.
 
Re: Rainday's Post

Hi Laser - Isn't satire supposed to be amusing? None of your venomous attacks so far have raised a titter for me? Your posts remind me of a mangy old mongrel dog that has been backed into a corner, is afraid of everybody. The dog's only course of action is to snarl & bite at all around him, regardless of whether they are friend or foe. He doesn't have to brains to see that that there are many ways out of his quandry that don't involve attacks at all.

I'm just hoping that your online persona does not reflect your real-life persona, i.e. that you are one of those who gets mighty brave when at the end of a keyboard but isn't quite so brave in real life. If I'm wrong, I pray for the good health of your spouse/kids/work colleagues.

I have no problem with any logical, reasoned arguements which challenge any possible consensus.

PS I'd like to apologise to mangy ould mongrel dogs for denigrating their reputations by comparing them to Laser.
 
Reason Lost

In every post where I've got a bit cutting I always made a point of argument. Not all satire is amusing to those satired I agree. Your post made no point at all.

Faced with an argument you can't deal with, ie that face to face advice for personal finance costs money, what have we now got? Daltonr is out with his paint brushes, and you've denigrated me to a life form lower than a dog. I guess that just about sums up the contempt that your ilk approach your view of those who advise for a living. Both these posts expose precisely what I've been driving at for several days now- despite occassional deletion by your editors.

I'd fairly say, you've blown your cover.
 
Re: Reason Lost

I guess that just about sums up the contempt that your ilk approach your view of those who advise for a living.
Click to expand...
Rubbish-some of my best friends are those who advise for a living. You will notice that I have expressed no view, positive or negative on the main topic of this thread.

Only personally offensive posts were deleted. With every other poster in the history of AAM, it was possible to delete the offensive stuff and leave the content. With your posts, once we removed the offensive stuff, there was nothing left. My contempt arises from your inability to make your points without getting into personal attacks.
 
Good Morning All

Summer doesn't seem to understand that a lot of advisors are qualified at degree level.
Click to expand...

What I suggested in my original post was "Advisors" should have a professional qualification and be accountable to a professional body. The standard of the individuals education is not important if they do not belong to a professional body. Lets call a spade a spade if you are selling pensions on behalf of a bank etc., you are a salesman and commission driven and the job title should not reflect the cost of the advice. A rose by any other name is still a .........
 
Let the facts show

Rainyday, read the posts, including your last one as an Editor. You're just making your bigotry worse. The facts are that many AAM addicts are unreflective of the general market and presume that advisors are grossly overpaid for the work they do. But when challenged you have FAILED abysmally to support your position with any knowledge of the real marketplace.

That is not a problem since, once information is introduced, you'd expect people to at least read the other sides view. But you don't, you reduce it to painters and dogs. You just can't accept the fact that the AAM skinflint philosophy fails when it meets market reality. As I've posted ad nauseum, there proof is all around if your prepared to look at it, but you're not.

Quinns didn't work. LA, Myadvisor, etc are so tiny that they hardly count. Solomon.com spent over €1million trying to prove your theory, and also failed. It just doesn't work, except for a tweeney number of people. The problem with you on AAM is that you lack the ability to accept that all the huff and puff you've expended here actually counts for a lot less than you're prepared to admit. People just ignore you.

Depite what you think people continue to get their advice from Irish Life, Bank of Ireland and AIB, despite paying full commissions for it. During your Tenure here Rainyday, these business'es have grown even stronger, with the deal-direct brigade despite massive free PR are still lifestyle business'es. No serious investor is following these models -BECAUSE THEY DON'T WORK.

Woof woof.
 
Re: Rainday's Post

read Dalatonr's last effort.

He compares a person hiring a painter to getting financial advice.
Click to expand...

See that thing up there Laser? That's called a quote. Now would you care to produce one where I compared financial advisers to painters.

You've repeatedly insulted the posters on this board and misrepresented what they've said, but you've NEVER ONCE actually quoted them.

You've repeatedly put forward the notion (on more than one thread) that regular posters on AAM think about €100 is fair payment for a financial adviser, even though you have been repeadedly corrected on this.

You've also repeadedly broken AAM posting guidelines which are fairly simple to follow, namely attack the opinion not the person.

You have been given every opportunity to put forward an advisers opinion, but you have continued on an Anti-AAM tirade. You are clearly incapable of engaging in rational intelligent discussion, or even polite discussion for that matter.

If you can't obey a few simple rules and be polite then your posts will be removed. All posts which contain insults directed at any individual will be deleted. If you have specific concerns about AAM, and you have quotes to back up your concerns then post them in a polite manner and they will be dealt with.

-Rd
 
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