Jane Bryant Quinn Warns Against Bogus Financial Titles

Filed in archive Financial Advisors on February 18, 2006

Jane Bryant Quinn made some comments in a Newsweek article that is worth mentioning a few things about concerning Financial Planners.

Consider one thing before we get into that particular article. One of the strategies of certain professions is to develop "priesthood" status to their particular group of special interests.

What this means when you cut through all the clutter is that they will do things to make them look a certain way in the eyes of those that they want to develop trust with.

So in light of that let's look at a couple of comments that Jane made. This is a quote from the article when she warns us against "alphabet soup of new designations. Many are trumped-up titles from self-proclaimed institutes," she comments, "mainly to give cover to high-pressure salespeople."

Ouch! Did somebody get kicked in the shins there? Have you had somebody try to impress you with letters after their names to convince you that they belong to some type of financial priesthood? That is what she is talking about.

It's a pretty stinging denunciation of those who are propagating this sham. Somebody basically calls themselves an institute, gives some people a few letters to put after their name and voila! - now your one of the priesthood.

As she says, the letters are put after their names "mainly to give cover to high-pressure salespeople. Is there something wrong with that? Yes! Somebody that is living off of those percentages they get for selling to you is going to watch out for what is best for them; not for what's best for you.

What can you do to protect yourself?

First of all, there are legitimate ones and they will have the simple letters of CFA (certified financial planner) as their designation. Interestingly enough, even they, for some reason will ad all those other designations to their title, I guess to try to impress us with them. As long as they have the CFA, you know that they should at least know their stuff.