Opinion on Investors Group?

[baco]

google investors group scam to learn true

[baco]

Google investors+group+scam - shocking !!!

[mandolinatou]

I had a bad experience with investors group. I think it was a bad apple though...but with so many consultants they must be out there. So this girl posted a group a while ago on meet up about becoming financially knowledgeable. I had no idea she was a consultant but I showed up to the meeting which was in an investors group office on Decarie in the evening. She went through a presentation then scheduled one on one appointments. She came to me which was nice and brought pizza also nice. She went through some information..made me fill out surveys on my investor style. The thing was she was anglophone...from Ontario originally and she pronounced a lot of words improperly. It put me off a little bit. She also didn't seem to know more about investing than me. Lastly she asked me to write a check out to her at the end. I told her I felt uncomfortable with that and wanted to make it out to a bank or investors group. In the end I said no. She did not harass me. I never heard from her again. Well years later someone in finance told me thats completely illegal. I would have never been asked to make out a check to her name. So probably she was working under them but frauding people unbeknownst to the company. The trouble with that in my opinion is that they didn't know it. I feel like anyone off the street could become an investment consultant with them. Are there good accountants and investors there...most likely a lot of them. I think they don't care about credentials as long as they bring in money. Which is why I wouldn't recommend them. If you use them please do so with your eyes wide open and ask to see the brokers accreditation. Best of Luck!

[baco]

never, ever use

[DianneS]

[QUOTE=dagney;4382383]I would be careful of any business that only sells there own version of mutual funds. Now that it is february, there are magazine articles out with those funds that perform the best historically. I would also be aware of MER's (management expense ratios) if the fund you own is making 5% a year and 2.5% is being eaten up by fees ... YIKES! Vanguard has crossed the U.S. border and is known for low fees which will hopefully wake up these Canadian companies who have been soaking consumers for decades.[/QUO



Regulators require that seg fund returns be reported Net of MER's, so if you are making 5 percent on your seg fund that really is what you are making.

[baco]

stay away!!!

[Too_honest]

Rescuer, can you help me figure out why my advisers from IG keep leaving??? I originally had a IG adviser who was fine, then I received a letter saying she had left the company (approx 1 year from are original meeting) next I have a different person for 6 months, then same letter, he is no longer with the company. So I get transferred to the latest one, she was wonderful, 1 year goes by and guess what! Another letter, this time I am frustrated, this woman was great, I felt really comfortable with her. Plus I have had to resign paper work 3 times now to transfer everything over to the new adviser.

Am I just unlucky? Or is there some kind of quota that my rep's have not been meeting, the undertone of the letter suggests they were let go. This makes me uncomfortable, what company looses 3 good people in a row?

At every Region Office (That's what they call each of the branches), the Region Director has a responsibility and duty to meet certain sales targets. When the Investors Group Consultants do not bring an average of $ 25,000/week in investments, they are considered to be non-productive. Non-productive Consultants will either quit, or be terminated. It is very expensive to be a Consultant at Investors Group. It costs about $ 7500/year to be licensed with them, including proprietary software and leasing an over priced laptop.

I have a tonne of information that I can and will share if requested.

[gillig1]

Hi Carlotta,
I am a new advisor with Investors Group. I am glad you have had a great experience with IG! I just wanted to clarify one thing in your last statement about the client paying twice. This is inaccurate. The client only pays the advisor a about .3-.6% of their portfolio, which is imbedded in the total MER. The mutual fund company pays for the initial upfront commission! This allows advisors to stay afloat until they build a client base.

[gillig1]

Remember all Mutual funds carry MER's. Investors Group is now around the middle of the pack and there are certain conditions where the MER can be reduced significantly (with higher asset account). With a good advisor, at least your getting full financial planning services for this fee. Unlike what you get at the bank.

[gillig1]

I am a new consultant with investors group. They have new incentive structure with pays their consultants 6000$/quarter. This can be achieved by hitting some very realistic targets. The targets are based primarily on activity and a little on sales. The minimum assets needed to hold under management is 20000$ to get paid for the 1st 6 months. This should help with advisor retention. Its one small sale. Previously 3 out of 4 advisors would quit in their 1st year. Hope this is informative!

[gillig1]

I am with investors. That's a horrible experience and im sorry to hear it. All checks should be made directly to investorsgroup!

[dirtdog]

Actually my experience with Investors Group was that you did just grab my money throw it in a fund then disappeared. We also switched my mother in law's money to IG in a deferred fee fund and when she unfortunately died before the fee was waived (about 3 years after the investment vs the 5 years when the fee would have disappeared) we tried to get some of it waived but IG would not budge. Seemed really unfair.

When I tried to get my own money out of the fund it was a real pain and took a long time - weeks. I was worried that markets would decline during this period. Luckily (and it was only luckily) they didn't. And there was way too much paperwork involved

I've worked with a couple of investment managers at the big banks and even though they are supposed to be bureaucratic, I find them much more responsive (I do NOT have any affiliation with any bank). Also they do all that financial planning stuff if you want it.

I started out putting some money with IG and some with the bank to see who would give me the best service - hands down the bank.

[ilovecoupons23]

As with any financial sales job it comes down to volume. IG brokers are paid by how much money they can get people to invest with them. My friend worked for them before and there are certain quotas they must meet each quarter. For example: you must get 20k invested per quarter (not the exact number but just to get an idea) . A lot of these brokers work independently so there is huge pressure to get more clients and money invested. Any financial institution or salesperson does not truly have your best interest at heart. They are there to make a pay check and get commission off your money.

Now every store you go to there is a push to get you to sign up for their master card. On average companies like PC, WM, Canadian Tire get $150 incentive for each Mastercard application they get. Also they save on merchant fees, build brand loyalty- so there is a lot at stake when it comes to getting the applications. Plus at TD and other banks the tellers all have to meet certain targets when it comes to new accounts, cards etc. A lot of your yearly performance review is based on how much you can push their financial products. It doesn't matter how nice of a teller you are, if you can't sell the products then you are of little value to them. They look at your client profile and see that you only have one account with them they may ask you to sign up for a savings account. Because the more money the bank has invested in it the higher return on investment it can get. Also tellers have to suggest signing up for Line of Credits, Visas etc because that is where the banks make their money. They get around $150 for each application, + merchant fees, interest .

I worked at RBC before as a client service representative (teller) and I quit because the pressure to get clients to sign up for additional financial products was too much. They made us set weekly goals and if we didn't meet our targets we got in trouble. If you think the banks or any other financial institution has your best interest at heart you are mistaken. It is an industry focused on greed, profits and never ending pressure. Notice in any recession or economic downturn how the banks still manage to pull out record profits?

I would say to anyone looking to invest take a financial advisors advice with a grain of salt. Because they are told which funds to push, which ones will give the bank the highest return. It all comes down to they want to keep their job- and in order to do that they need to do what is in the best interest of the company and themselves- not the clients. The focus is building trust and lasting relationships with the client for the benefit of the bank. Profits are the main goal, at least in my experiences. So just do your own research first and don't be pressured into signing up for or investing in anything you don't feel comfortable.

[JimmyIG]

I am a new consultant with investors group. They have new incentive structure with pays their consultants 6000$/quarter. This can be achieved by hitting some very realistic targets. The targets are based primarily on activity and a little on sales. The minimum assets needed to hold under management is 20000$ to get paid for the 1st 6 months. This should help with advisor retention. Its one small sale. Previously 3 out of 4 advisors would quit in their 1st year. Hope this is informative!

You must have drank a "big gulp" of the IG koolaide! The new structure is not easy to attain, and according to IG, one out of ten new hires will last three or more years. In fact, most are terminated owing money to IG and they will chase you down for the money. With the change in 2014 to the internal credit system "business credits" IG has now decided to penalize consultants for bring no load funds in. You used to get the same business credits if you sold a DSC or a no load, now you only get 20% credit for a no load. So just as the industry is getting ready to move away from DSC to no load IG basically forces their consultants to sell their proprietary funds. As for "financial planning" many other companies offer the same advice, tax planning, retrirement planning, estate planning and insurance needs with out additional fees, so quit trying to paint your services as unique. Bottom line, According to independent reviews IG has on average one of the highest MER fee structures and on average poor returns.

[dcinvestor]

Has anybody ever used Investors Group and what were your thoughts?
Thanks

I have been an Investors Group for years dealing with the downtown Brampton office. Things you should know are:
1) IG rates are the highest in the industry
2) quarterly statements are confusing
3) They don't care about their customers. I sent some emails asking questions but got no reply. I was left with the feeling that I was too small for IG to care about me as I only had about $350,000 of investments with them. So I divested from IG. Their fees were in excess of $10,000 to divest. They were happy as they got their money from this naive sucker. It's a real shame because I am approaching retirement age and this was a big blow for me.