Paladin Registry Announces a New Survival Guide for Investors

SACRAMENTO, Calif., Dec. 29, 2010 /PRNewswire/ -- Paladin Registry (http://www.PaladinRegistry.com) announced the launch of a new website that contains an Investor Survival Guide. The free Guide was developed for investors who use the services of financial planners, investment advisors, and money managers.

Jack Waymire, Paladin's Founder and author of Who's Watching Your Money? The 17 Paladin Principles for Selecting a Financial Advisor (ISDN 0471476994), said, "Very few investors understand the scope or sophistication of Wall Street's predatory practices when its representatives sell investment services and products."

The focus of this Guide is to increase investor awareness so they can identify and avoid deceptive sales practices that lower-quality advisors use to compete with higher-quality advisors. These advisors use sophisticated sales tactics to establish relationships and trust so it is easier to sell investment products. Their deceptive strategies work because they know investors do not question the advice of experts, in particular if investors believe they have personal relationships with the experts.

The big question facing investors is how do they determine the quality of advisors who make identical claims in their sales pitches. Waymire observed, "Wall Street makes deception easy for lower-quality advisors by fighting regulations that create mandatory disclosure requirements. It is up to investors to ask the right questions and know good answers from bad ones."

There are six primary types of deceptive sales practices that lower-quality advisors use to confuse investors and gain control of their assets:

• Omission - They withhold key information from investors
• Misrepresentation - They make sales claims that aren't true
• Exaggeration - They inflate their results to sound like experts
• Promises - They promise high returns for low risk
• Track Records - They describe fake, undocumented investment results
• References - They provide coached references

Waymire commented, "Very few investors know these tactics exist because they believe they are protected by industry regulations. However, there is no way regulators can control deceptive tactics in sales pitches. And unfortunately, very few investors require documentation for advisor credentials, ethics, business practices, and professional services."

It pays to remember, you want to select the financial professional with the best qualifications, not the best personality or sales pitch. You must require documentation for the information you will rely on to select the highest-quality advisor. And, you must consider this a critical decision because the quality of the financial advisor will influence when you retire, how you live during retirement, and your level of financial security late in life when you need it the most.

About Paladin Registry

Founded in 2003, Paladin provides information and services to investors who rely on financial planners, investment advisors, and money managers for the achievement of their financial goals. Paladin services include advisor research, quality ratings, online documentation, and a free matching service. You can learn more about Registry services by visiting http://www.PaladinRegistry.com.  

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SOURCE Paladin Registry