28 thoughts on “Edward Jones Is Going To Be Uncovered As The Next “Ponzi Scheme” Targeting Senior Citizens And Their Retirements”

1. Well here’s another potential ponzi scheme…

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2. One of these guys sold my mother, at age 85, an annuity for $200,000. This make any sense to anybody?

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3. My mother-in-law, age 80, may be another victim. She’s trying to close out her Edward Jones account from an IRA fund. The money was to be wired to her credit union account on 7/9/09, and it’s 7/11/09…no funds. I’m watching carefully! The “investment advisor” is Victor Sobers, Edward Jones, Cedar Hill, Texas.

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4. Thanks for commenting and “outing” the dirty bastard!

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5. Do your homework… transfers do not arrive on time for several reasons. Although they are send via wire, the receiving instituion may not post them immediately, as they do postings in a “batch processing” system… translation, it sits in a cue until someone gets around to posting it to your account. So it may be Edward Jones fault, could be the banks fault. If the transfer arrives on a weekend…more complications. Thirdly, you have a tracing number on the wire so you know it has been sent, as one cannot be generated without it being sent. Fourth, to say that someone losing their life savings in a ponzi scheme is the same as a delay in a wire transfer is the sort of manipulation and unfairness that you claim to abhor. Post a follow up and tell me with a straightface that Edward Jones didn’t send your mother-in-law your money.

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6. You people obviously don’t know what a ponzi scheme is… Also, what is worse: signing a revenue sharing agreement or soliciting a proprietary “in house fund?” Get a life.

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7. Actually, we do know what a Ponzi Scheme is:

   A Ponzi scheme is a fraudulent investment operation that pays returns to separate investors from their own money or money paid by subsequent investors, rather than from any actual profit earned.

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8. Disaster worker,

   Did the money ever show up? Waiting for a response…

   Also, referencing Edward Jones as a company in a bad light is ridiculous when they are one of the only major firms not forced to take any of the TARP bailout money, simply because they were prudent and conservative with the company capital and the clients’ capital.

   Finally saying someone is a “dirty bastard” because the transfer did not take place instantly is unconscionable. I have direct experience with accounts taking a few business days to a couple weeks. You people should really get informed before you throw someone under the bus. If one of his clients googled his name they would see this baseless criticism and that could affect his ability to provide for his family.

   I’ll check back later to see if anyone cares to comment. Enjoy your weekend.

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9. I agree with Chris. Whoever posted Victor Sobers name here was way out of line. I don’t know him personally but I do know that Edward Jones is a very well respected firm of mostly old experienced advisors, and a few young ones who can cut it with the best.

   Ponzi scheme? Ohhh please. Edward Jones has class and is not even close to being powerful enough to pull anything like that off. Only Bernie Madeoff was because he was worth billions and chairman of NYX.

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10. As with all firms you have to be careful with what you do. Yes, Edward Jones Financial Advisors do get commission. No, they do not sell EJ products. No such thing exists. What they do sell are products that are either good for you or ones that make them commission. EJ has been around for more than a hundred years and has JD Power & Ass awards all the time.
    In response to old people being duped…their kids should look after their finances or they should already have an investor they’ve dealt with for their entire life. They very well be being taken advantage of. Not just by the Victor guy mentioned above but by hungry FA’s from any firm.

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11. By the way, Edward Jones FA’s by law have to disclose if they or Corp. are receiving a benefit from selling you a certain product. They are not allowed to hide any kickbacks from potential investors.

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12. Chris, no where in my post did I call anyone names. We did not have a good relationship with our rep simply because he either did not communicate well or ignored our wishes. I’m quite sure many people are happy with Edward Jones, but we weren’t. I wish Victor luck . We’re just happier elsewhere.

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13. Edward Jones just made the St Louis Post Dispatch. Seems like they lie…this is news? They paid $100,000,000 to the gov. to avoid admitting criminal wrongdoing. Nothing but a bunch of thugs, stealing from the elderly and naive. No fiduciary relationship exists…but they call their victims “clients”. Execrable.

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14. edward jones (out of mississagua, near toronto, ontario canada) has scammed me out of $75,000.00 and are showing no accountability whatsoever…they are disgusting pondscum and the lowest of low bottom feeders…they sold me lousy funds at the huge paybacks to themselves, (“putnam”), totally mismanaged my money by “moving around” my funds, of course collecting the high dsc’s before they minimized as the 4 years went by, so they got the big $$ off them at hugh losses to me, charged horrendous fees and commissions for their “advice and service” (and then outrught lied about it when asked) and instead of setting up an acct. to withdraw monthly income from (as i requested and they said they’d do), they bought high risk equities with the money (i asked for low risk) and basically sold the shares back to me for their own commissions …bast$%^$s !!!!…$20,000 in withdrawls cost me somewhere around $47,000. …yes, to get back my own savings…i wish i had just left it in the bank…
    i could scream i’m sooo angry, and i’m also very emotional about it all, as alot of these savings came from my both uncle’s and mother’s will money…i could just cry some days…
    of course their compliance dept. is equally as callous, uninterested, and useless as their salesmen…they’re trying to blame the losses all on me (an uninformed person financially) saying i “agreed” to the changes (even though as my salesmen was telling me he’d “move things around” and he was outright totally scamming me as i sat there trusting him …

    please please please get the word out about this absolutely HORRIBLE, DISGUSTING, PATHETIC edward jones company…why and how can they be out there, constantly scamming innocent honest people, with no remorse or consequence or accountability for their FRAUD…my heart goes out to all their innocent victims, everyone they’ve financially RAPED with no conscience whatsoever…
    they should be tarred and feathered…

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15. I hear there is a class action law suit brewing… you should look into it.

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16. Jones was promoting all that Goldman Sachs crap, making enormous bonus commissions, switching trusting innocents from blue chip to garbage. I wish the government would put their RICO powers to work and lock these rats up.

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17. I don’t have anything personal against any Ed Jones rep, but in my 33 years in this business, I’ve never seen a more uninformed, poor planning, cookie cutter group of mutual fund salesman. Although it’s not their fault. They get their training from a group who knows less than I have forgotten. I’ll give their home office credit… they’re excellent brain washers. The bad thing is that the majority of their clients are brainwashed as well and really believe all that crap that EJ throws around. And the reps believe it too. You can’t fix STUPID. If the clients only knew they were really taking care of the Ed Jones family, rather than their own. The Ed Jones motto: “Honor Amongst Thieves”.

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18. Ted, I find your post interesting. I left this firm in Canada as a result of witnessing what you allude to. Some of the advisors knew what they were doing (when they screwed clients over by churning on front end/dsc fees or selling a long term buy and hold company because it had gone up a little to buy something else similar without any real justification, or by training the advisors to look through their 12 month commission list to see who hasn’t paid in a while and making some timely portfolio changes which of course cost the client money to no benefit), while others likely didn’t even know they were doing anything wrong but were just stupid. Either way, it was too much for me to witness so I made the choice to leave. There are a few good advisors at this firm but far too many bad ones to ever consider using this firm for anyones investments….as a former advisor with this firm i would encourage all to use somebody else.

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19. First of all, look at what kind of people Edward Jones hiring as “investment advisor”, many of them are low educated people that were working in low paid jobs and they have no clue and no knowledge/skills about investment. These people are working for their own pocket commission, and you think they are working hard to ‘grow’ your $$ ? If they are that good in growing customer’s $$, they won’t be in Edward Jones. All they want is customers to park their $$ permanently at Edward Jones for many many years so that they can earn commission from the same customers every year. And unfortunately, senior citizens & retired people becoming the easy target of these crooks.

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20. It is 2013 and nothing yet …when was this “ponzi” scheme to happen? Just curious.

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21. To start when i first opened my account way back approximatly 2006/2007 my account started out a apple tree ripe for the picking and being uneducated in the fanancial industry i decided to get educated and start reading because some how all my accounts became all dsc holdings and after reading found out that you should try and avoid these becuse you cannot move out of them and into anything else until the term is over or you have to pay a penalty. well i had a word with my advisor back then about putting me in these types of accounts and said no more dsc and his response back then was these are what edward jones has for us to sell and he would no longer buy any of these types of holdings for me. an i proceeded to read more so i would not get stung again by not knowing anything about fanancal dealings .shortly after this your fanancial advisor left your company and you sent my account to ben moore the fanancial advisor i am currently dealing with. the account ben got consisted of all dsc holdings with 2 dividend paying stock holdings. my account has not been touched in 2 years. last year i talked to ben only for the first time trying to get my head around account and what i wanted to do. ben came up with a bunch of scenarios of what he was going to do with my accounts and after leaving was more confused so spent another year studing books on fanacial planing for the idiot.

    about a year passed and i decided to give this another go i was up north and made a appointment over the internet with ben and told him to have ready what i would loose if i got out of my dsc holdings as discussed the previous year before the maturity dates. i arrived for our meeting and he procceded to tell me do not use the internet to get ahold of him use his email only? and then he gave me the information i asked for on the dsc holdings. after seeing them was not willing to loose that much money. i told ben my wife had just recently got a job at td bank and i was going to have a girl there to check out this account as well to see what she might do with this account and what would he do to keep me there. he said he would like to change positions inside dsc holdings and fortis and precious metals i said i would like to see what he was proposing and decide for myself if i like what he was picking and what the costs were going to be. his answer was he was the fanacial advisor and i should not micro manage him. i told him i have done some reading and all the books i read say i should like the choices someone else is making for you and if you do not like his/her choices find a new advisor. so he said he would get some stuff together and would call me the next day when it was ready to pick it up because the next day i told him i woud be back up north for my 7 day rotation. he did not call next day so i decided it could wait till i got back because i still had to see tdbank.

    well 2days after i left i think its on my caller id he phoned and talked to my wife. he asked was i there my wife said i was up north working he told her to tell me he has the stuff ready and come see him when back. i was a day late getting back because of a avalanche and the next morning when got up and read the mail my blood pressure shot up because ben sold my 2 dividend paying stocks without my permission. so i phoned him immediatly and asked him why and who gave him the permission to do this. ben said i told him to do this. i argued with him and was pretty pissed at him and he said come down to the office the next day and we could talk about this. i tried to cool down over night and go see him the next day but i could not trust myself in the same room with him so i phoned the next day instead. we argued for a while longer and than he said the first smart thing in 2 days. what would you like me to do i said to him just put everything back the way it was before i came to see you and package it all up and send it to my account at td. he said no that i told him to sell the stocks. i than told him i would be taking this over his head to his head office and i will be leaving to the td bank .he said that i should just go now to the td bank. at that point i slammed down the phone and phoned head office and got amy in compliance. i also forwarded a copy to obsi ombudsman because if ben has done this to me. how many uneducated people have been taken advantage by him. if someone with an fanacial education explains the choices and what choice would they have made and do they know what there cost are .i did thats why we are here.here is a summary of what has happened since being with edward jones 1–started with cash than accounts with lots of stocks and mutuals no dsc that i knew about 2—then my account turned into all dsc holdings with 2 dividend paying stocks 3—than my account turned into all dsc holdings with no dividend paying stocks they were sold for intrest paying cash??

    WOULD NOT A FANANCIALADVISOR: advise on the following?

    1-dsc holdings will lock you in until 2014 not a good idea or at least give you a choice that you want to be there?

    2–selling dividend paying stocks for cash at todays interest would be stupid compared to what you have been getting holding these socks

    3–this looks like i came into edward jones with a bountiful apple tree and all the apples on my tree were picked clean then i was asked to go elsewhere and plant my tree and get it to bear fruit again now that you are learning to micro manage your account.?

    i have a tdwaterhouse account if i wanted to sell my dividend paying stocks would i not move it over there and sell i myself and reap the rewards of a reduced commission and any costs would be negotiated with td if i moved my edwardjones account to them or do i like ben that much that i want him to have my money?

    also i micro manage my sunlife and TD accounts and i am learning more and more every year and they want my input so i think its okay to micro manage

    what do you think is it okay to pick your pickle?

    i have a Edward Jones account that i am not suppose to micro manage is this right? so far i feel anyone who sees this account can see my apples in my apple tree has been picked clean and me and my apple tree are no longer of any use for the apple farmers who would now like to cut me down and use me for firewood but i decided to stand tall and replant and take the apple farmers to task.

    all along this is what i gave both my adviser’s of what i wanted when they were doing risk assessments and have kept all these documents since day one in there hand writing because i am a pack rat

    this was given to Ben at our visit so he could show me what he was going to do with my account if i decided to stay with Edward Jones TD was also going to get the same

    Canadian equity 20%

    u.s. equity 20%

    international equity 20%

    Canadian bonds 40%

    (medium to low risk)

    if i was not locked in by dsc holdings this is what i would have done in my TD account but can not do this until 2014

    20%-TD Canadian index e-(tdb900)

    20%-TD u.s. index e-(tdb902)

    20%-TD international index e-(tdb911)

    40%-TD Canadian bond index e-(tdb909)

    Edward Jones has only ever done one thing for me. it was to get me to get a little financial education and manage my money to the best of my ability and trust only me with my money because if you put full trust in someone this could happen to you. desperate financial adviser’s looking to prey on uneducated people for there pay cheques .sorry Amy still need time to cool down. i am sure all your financial adviser’s are not the same only the 2 i had to deal with with .your company that as you can clearly well see looked after themselves and had no concern for me fanancial advisers should not be able to sell dsc and then sell them off before maturity and sell you another dsc to line there pockets. watch out i feel sorry for the uneducated. go see td waterhouse they will explain whats being done to you. if you are dealing with any edward jones and make sure what has happen to me is not happening to you . the poor little old ladies that have trusting hearts are you gettint what you want its good to check with another fanancial institution. the reason i like td waterhouse the fanancial advisors are not on commisssion and tell the truth about your investments. please all that read check yours out and let others know if you find out what i have about edward jones and there buisness

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22. Ok folks. First of all – I was an Edward Jones advisor for about two years. I left the company as a very successful advisor. I will tell you this: The bulk of the advisors there are very concerned with the client’s well-being. I say that as they sue my ass for “training costs” of $30k + when I put over $365,000 into their kitty. So yeah – they are being dickheads to me, and they haven’t a chance in hell of winning, but the bulk of their advisors are very honest, caring advisors. There are a lot of great people there. I have now moved to a different, very large firm, and I can tell you that Edward Jones is no better or worse, and you will get better service from Jones. If you want to talk about criminals and churners, point your guns at Investors’ Group. Those advisors are thieves for the most part, and couldn’t create or manage a wealth portfolio if their lives depended on it! I see the fallout from their stupidity every day!

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23. George, did they win? Did you quit or wait for them to fire you? what is the better way to go? Didn’t know about this and all I heard was how great Jones was. Too late I learned they don’t care as much about training as they do with telling you how great their training is. Advisors have to open accounts for people before they are sure what they are doing. Other firms have training programs of daily apprenticeship with an older financial advisor for YEARS before letting you handle clients’ life savings. Now facing that $75,000 charge as it’s less than the three years. Another former advisor at 2 1/2 year mark left and they sent a letter, but her lawyer sent a letter back saying she wasn’t selling or recommending in her new position so they dropped it. But if you are selling and recommending, will they pursue it, or are they just trying to intimidate you?

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24. I won’t comment on the legal case because it is still before the courts, except to say that there is a snow ball’s chance in hell they will be successful. In Canada, penalty clauses are illegal. Plain and simple. 100 years ago Dunlop Pneumatic Tire sued New Tire and Garage Company and lost in the Supreme Court of Canada because the courts deemed a penalty clause to not be in the interest of the general public. It has been upheld since. I am currently negotiating terms of a settlement so I won’t comment further as they do not wish for me to give put the secret formula.

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25. Have been finding that it’s simply a scare tactic, and non-enforceable. For those they can scare out of the industry, great, and anyone who writes them a check for what they say they are owed, even better. But they can’t keep you from earning a living, simply because you left their cult.

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26. Well I understand that they have to protect themselves from people that go to them just to get their licensing training and then leave. I know that this happens in the industry. But when they indiscriminately sue people for leaving under any and all circumstances then it becomes ridiculous.
    I will take issue with the “cult” idea only because every corporation has its own culture. They have a right to create any culture they want. I saw Jones’ culture as one that respects the advisor, treats them exceptionally well, coaches and mentors them, and rewards success more so than other firms. They just don’t use their logic when people leave. I put well over a half million dollars in gross commission into their coffers in a short 21 months of selling (from a scratch start!). I was usually tops in Canada with respect to growth. They found me online through their headhunters – I did not approach them as I had a successful business going in the technical arena and had never even considered this industry for a career. I even volunteered as their “Recruiting Captain” in the region and also came up with some cool programs for increasing advisor numbers improving advisor morale – all of my own accord. When I left I didn’t focus at all on bringing clients over to my new firm. But yet they opted to sue me for training costs. What they did not count on was who I am, my integrity and character, nor my strength of conviction. I was self represented and while there is no final outcome at this point, it seems pretty obvious how this will all shake out.

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27. It’s any shame you don’t use a donate buottn! I’d most certainly donate to this unpaid blog! My partner and i suppose right now i’ll settle for bookmarking and also attaching the Rss feed to be able to my own Yahoo consideration. My partner and i seem forward to be able to innovative updates and definately will share this kind of blog page together with my own Fb group: )

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28. They still have the heart and soul of thieves and con artists. It’s in their DNA.

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