I just ran across another blatantly bulls&t fee that Fidelity is charging, so I figured I’d share.
Side note: I don’t usually like to talk trash about individual investment firms, but I feel that I need to point out that fees like this are happening in almost EVERY large investment firm. Fidelity is just the example I ran across recently.
A new client of mine came to me because they had just sold their business for around 15 million so I helped them get on the right track with investments and taxes, etc.
I also helped them with their 401k that they had through Fidelity.
After combing through the 401k numbers we found that Fidelity was charging them 3/4th of a percent to rebalance their portfolio.
Now, 3/4th of a percent is pretty close to what I would charge for a FULL OVERHAUL AND ENGAGEMENT at his account balance level.
So I figured there must be some list of things that they are promising to have the GUTS to charge that much.
Especially given the fact that this is obviously just an over-the-phone service.
But no, when I looked into it they were basically saying they were only giving very basic advice and rebalancing. WOW!
Now, if you don’t know, rebalancing a portfolio is a necessary thing and it’s something that I do also, but charging for basically just rebalancing a portfolio is like buying tires and getting charged to put air in them.
So I figured it must be a blanket term or something but no, they are charging him a full advisory fee for things that others provide as a free ancillary service and calling it advice.
And I guarantee that if the client were to call this investment firm and ask them about taxes, or tax planning, or dealing with debt or anything outside of that portfolio, the person answering the phone would have no idea.
They would probably refer them to a CPA, what a waste of money.
Just another in a long list of ways large investment firms squeeze money out of their client base through fees.
This drives me crazy because it gives investors the idea that this is what everyone does for that fee.
If you want to read more about hidden fees, I found this decent article on Investopedia: https://www.investopedia.com/investing/costs-investing/
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