Among Friends

[adamlambert]

I use Fidelity and love them. They actually pay me!  Of course, they make tons off my money they have. It's free for me and I love it. 

In in your situation, you need someone solely focused on you and your needs. I think a lawyer would be better or some legal person focused on aging issues. Do you have a financial whiz in the family???

[sissel]

OMG never go to independent please!!!! you go to fidelity or Edward Jones never ever go independent. They are not trustworthy. These guys give us advice they don't care if we do it but we do some or it. So sad they take your money don't do it.Stay away. go to these guys. So sad we work so hard & these independent scum take it, never do this

[ID2]

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@CalminHeart wrote:

I have a financial advisor who doesn't charge a fee and love her!  I've purchased products from her but also spent a lot of time with her over the years needing advice and she never charged me.  

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I'm confused. What "products" are you purchasing from a financial advisor?? 

[KathyPet]

So as I stated in my OP I am not looking for someone to manage my investment portfolio.  Edward R. Jones does that for me and I am very happy with my Jones financial advisor and the results she has achieved for me.  I am looking for a certified financial planner who I will pay directly to perform a in depth financial analysis between two different continuing care communities with different fee structures to determine which would be best for me taking my current assets and income into account over the long term since this will be my final move.  I was able to locate someone in my city and I had a nice initial phone conversation with him explaining what I wanted.  He can provide that analysis and I am meeting with him next week to start the process.  I have quite a bit of homework to do before our meeting as he needs a lot of income and expense information from me that I have to put.together,along with copies of tax return, investment statements, asserts and liabilities etc. but I am confident all this can be done.

I notice a couple of posters use Fidelity for their investments.  My late husband and I were Fidelity customers for over 15 years.   When my husband died he had three separate SEP accounts with them in his name and I had a Rollover IRA from my former employer in my name.  I was named as beneficiary on his three accounts.  When he died I sent them a death certificate and a letter asking them to transfer ownership of his three SEP accounts to my name.  I included my E mail address,  home and cell phone numbers for them to reach me with questions.  Never heard from anyone via phone or letter.  After a couple of weeks I logged onto the Fidelity account and was shocked to see that they had decided on their own without asking me that it was OK for them to transfer all the funds in my husband’s three SEP account into my rollover IRA account.  That is not what I asked them to do. For tax and personal reasons I needed each SEP account to remain separate but I needed ownership changed to my name for each SEPaccount. I was beyond furious. I contacted them and forced them to reestablish the SEP accounts with the investments in each one exactly as they were at the time they closed those accounts and decided on their own to transfer  everything into my IRA.  It took them two weeks to put everything back as it was and then I promptly closed all my accounts with them.  I wouldn’t trust them to manage my grandson’s piggy bank.  I actually received a apology letter from one of their Executive VP’s apologizing for their mis-handling of my request.  FOr those of you who use Fidelity good luck if you need them to handle anything in the event of a death of a account holder.

[FrostyBabe1]

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@KathyPet wrote:
 FOr those of you who use Fidelity good luck if you need them to handle anything in the event of a death of a account holder.

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I echo your sentiments regarding Fidelity. They're the administrator for the pension fund for my former employer. When I reached eligibilty for retirement, I called, told them I wanted to retire, I wanted a lump sum, and they needed to make the check out to Charles Schwab. They tried every trick in the not-so-legal-and-certainly-not-ethical book to hang on to that money. They were agast that I didn't want to leave that money there for another 5 years and get a 2% higher payout (seriously? wow, let me jump right on that!). Then they tried to tell me it wasn't "safe" to roll it over to Schwab, but it would be "safe" if I left it with them. Fortunately, finance and institutional investing were my career and I let them have it with both barrels. When I got my check, the amount was wrong. That was another 9 months of back and forth before they sent me another check. I still think they were a bit short, but it was a defined benefit rather than defined contribution plan and my time is worth more than another year of hassling with them. 

My parents also had a brokerage account with them. When my Dad passed away, I was his successor trustee, as well as having POA for my Mom. I decided to liquidate the assets, close the account and transfer the funds to another account. They flat out lied to me about everything involved with doing that and I finally had to get counsel involved. Mom has been gone now for 10 years and that #(*$ account still has $4 in it because they didn't clip the income stream payments off properly!