By: DFreecloseAuthor: DFree Name: Debbie Freeman
Email: debbie@paladinregistry.com
Site: http://www.paladinregistry.com
About: See Authors Posts (14) | June 21, 2010 | Financial Advisors, Financial Planners

If you’re considering hiring a financial advisor or financial planner, here are five things you should avoid during your selection process.
1. Never limit your hiring criteria solely on where the advisor is located in relation to where you live. You should always look for the most competent financial professional vs. the most convenient.
2. Don’t [...]

By: DFreecloseAuthor: DFree Name: Debbie Freeman
Email: debbie@paladinregistry.com
Site: http://www.paladinregistry.com
About: See Authors Posts (14) | June 19, 2010 | Ponzi Schemes

Here’s another sad but true story of investors who were taken to the cleaners by a ponzi operator. Giuseppe Viola is accused of running a ponzi in North Beach, a well known San Francisco neighborhood.
Like so many other ponzi operators, he promised investors returns of 20-25% on their investments, was a very good name [...]

By: Jack WaymirecloseAuthor: Jack Waymire Name: Jack Waymire
Email: jack@paladinregistry.com
Site: http://paladinregistry.com
About: Jack writes for the InvestorWatchdog website and Worth magazine. He worked in the financial services industry from 1976 to 2004. For twenty of those years he was the president of a Registered Investment Advisory firm and a Broker/Dealer. Jack is the author of Who's Watching Your Money? The 17 Paladin Principles for Selecting a Financial Advisor and is a co-founder of PaladinRegistry.com.See Authors Posts (87) | October 8, 2009 | Investor Information

We know FINRA (Financial Industry Regulatory Authority) is supposed to protect investors from bad financial advisors, bad financial service companies, and bad investment products. We know they have not been very effective based on their inability to detect the Madoff Securities scam and the alleged Stanford Financial Group fraud before thousands of investors lost billions of dollars.
We also know [...]

By: Jack WaymirecloseAuthor: Jack Waymire Name: Jack Waymire
Email: jack@paladinregistry.com
Site: http://paladinregistry.com
About: Jack writes for the InvestorWatchdog website and Worth magazine. He worked in the financial services industry from 1976 to 2004. For twenty of those years he was the president of a Registered Investment Advisory firm and a Broker/Dealer. Jack is the author of Who's Watching Your Money? The 17 Paladin Principles for Selecting a Financial Advisor and is a co-founder of PaladinRegistry.com.See Authors Posts (87) | October 2, 2009 | Investor Information

You may not be familiar with FINRA (Financial Industry Regulatory Authority) and its role in protecting investors from bad securities companies, bad financial advisors, and bad investment products.
Like the SEC, FINRA has acknowledged inadequate audit practices that failed to detect the fraudulent business practices of Bernie Madoff and other Ponzi schemes. Like the SEC, FINRA

By: Jack WaymirecloseAuthor: Jack Waymire Name: Jack Waymire
Email: jack@paladinregistry.com
Site: http://paladinregistry.com
About: Jack writes for the InvestorWatchdog website and Worth magazine. He worked in the financial services industry from 1976 to 2004. For twenty of those years he was the president of a Registered Investment Advisory firm and a Broker/Dealer. Jack is the author of Who's Watching Your Money? The 17 Paladin Principles for Selecting a Financial Advisor and is a co-founder of PaladinRegistry.com.See Authors Posts (87) | September 22, 2009 | Investor Information

Watch-out the next time your friendly financial advisor recommends you invest in a registered mutual fund that re-invests your assets in unregistered hedge funds. There are all kinds of problems with this recommendation, but we will focus on three.
First, you are going to pay an incredible amount of fees and commissions. The advisor wants to be [...]

By: Jack WaymirecloseAuthor: Jack Waymire Name: Jack Waymire
Email: jack@paladinregistry.com
Site: http://paladinregistry.com
About: Jack writes for the InvestorWatchdog website and Worth magazine. He worked in the financial services industry from 1976 to 2004. For twenty of those years he was the president of a Registered Investment Advisory firm and a Broker/Dealer. Jack is the author of Who's Watching Your Money? The 17 Paladin Principles for Selecting a Financial Advisor and is a co-founder of PaladinRegistry.com.See Authors Posts (87) | September 14, 2009 | The Politicians, The Regulators

Let’s face it, people who work for financial services companies are a lot smarter than people who work for the two primary industry regulators (SEC and FINRA).
But it doesn’t stop there. The SEC is controlled by politicians and the politicians cater to Wall Street special interests. The financial services industry spends $300 million per year [...]