Foreign.
Speaker BWelcome to Ditch the Suits podcast, where we share insights nobody in the financial services industry wants you to know about.
Speaker CWe're here to help you get the.
Speaker BMost from your money in life.
Speaker BSo buckle up and welcome to Ditch the Suits.
Speaker AAll right, well, we just got done with an episode all about trust.
Speaker ASo last week, we were talking about trust, and we were talking about establishing trust and advisor your financial company.
Speaker AAnd that trust needs to be more than skin deep.
Speaker ARight?
Speaker AWe've got to kind of like, dig in there and figure out, you know, there's got to be performance standards, and there's got to be things that the financial advisor has said, look, this.
Speaker AYou can account on this.
Speaker AThis is what I'm going to do for you.
Speaker AAnd you then have to manage that and say, did you do what you said you were gonna do?
Speaker ADid you carry through the things that you said you were gonna do?
Speaker AAnd that's really how you build trust.
Speaker ASo we're either being kind of lazy and a little bit superficial by just, like, I made a decision, I trust and I'm gonna blindly follow or listen.
Speaker AI'm gonna make sure that I check periodically to make sure that you're paying attention.
Speaker ARight.
Speaker AIt's like.
Speaker ASo anyway, I was gonna do a bad analogy.
Speaker AYou want to hear the bad analogy?
Speaker CYeah, I guess people can just tune out if they don't want to hear it, but stay with us.
Speaker CGo ahead.
Speaker ASo you get.
Speaker AI'm picking on babysitters again.
Speaker AYou get a babysitter and you trust the babysitter's watching your kids, and then you get home one night and the babysitter's making out with some dude on your couch.
Speaker AYou don't know.
Speaker ARight.
Speaker AAll right, well, not a good situation.
Speaker ANo.
Speaker AYou just walked in on something, and now you got to deal with it.
Speaker ASame thing happens with investing.
Speaker CThat's a pretty good analogy, I guess.
Speaker CNot bad.
Speaker CYou brought it home.
Speaker COkay.
Speaker ANot bad.
Speaker ANot horrible.
Speaker AAll right.
Speaker AAll right.
Speaker AI get a little bit off on those sometimes.
Speaker CI know.
Speaker AOkay.
Speaker CRope you back in.
Speaker ASo anyway, we have some articles that we're going to go through today that talk about investor trust and the industry and all the things that the industry is kind of doing to try to undermine trust.
Speaker ABecause I think it's important.
Speaker AIt's important that we talk about these things.
Speaker ABut also we've done one of these.
Speaker AWe're going to talk about.
Speaker AWe've actually done some other episodes on and.
Speaker AAnd talked about some of these issues already.
Speaker AAnd this just happens to be a allegation against an investment firm for, let's say, misleading about their investment strategy.
Speaker ASo we've talked about ESG investing, environmental, social governance, which is part of socially responsible investing.
Speaker AAnd we talked about the issues with it, really from a.
Speaker AMoving the goalpost, right?
Speaker AIt's always kind of like, what was ESG yesterday is different today, and it shouldn't be moving around so much.
Speaker ARight.
Speaker AIt should be, like, more consistent.
Speaker ASo can we trust that this is a story about that it's also a story or an episode?
Speaker AWe're going to talk about.
Speaker AShould you trust what major financial firms are telling you in order to try to get to do sell stuff?
Speaker AWhen you hear Vanguard Fidelity, Charles Schwab, T.
Speaker ARowe Price, any of these things you see on super bowl halftime shows, cryptos, those type of things, they're trying to get you to buy their product, their investment program, right?
Speaker ASo they're always going to come out and whatever the focus groups or whatever the marketing says, this is what people are into.
Speaker AThey're going to try to craft a message that maybe isn't necessarily a lie, but it's not necessarily the clean truth, or it's a little bit misleading at best.
Speaker AAnd sometimes they do cross that kind of line and they turn in.
Speaker AThey kind of embellish to the point where they are lying, where it'd be too much of a stretch to really say that they're telling the truth.
Speaker ADo investment firms really have your best interest at heart?
Speaker AAre they just trying to sell your product?
Speaker AWhat happens when things are too good to be true?
Speaker AWe're going to talk about an investment firm, but then we're also going to talk about an investment advisor who's running a Ponzi scheme.
Speaker AJuicy.
Speaker AYeah, yeah.
Speaker AInteresting story on that one.
Speaker AAre there financials out there that really do have some kind of special insight on investments that guarantee high returns, little, no risk.
Speaker AI love this one.
Speaker AListen to Sirius XM radio, watch YouTube or anything.
Speaker AEvery other commercial is an investment guru trying to tell you that you can buy this investment, have no risk and make 10% annual returns.
Speaker AAnd why wouldn't you do it?
Speaker ASeriously?
Speaker AYou think that there's some special dude out there that you're listening to it if, if it was that good because there's supply and demand on this stuff, he would just have all his money in it and he wouldn't be on YouTube trying to sell it to you, you know what I mean?
Speaker AOr on Sirius XM trying to sell it to you.
Speaker AThat's where Ponzi schemes start a lot of times.
Speaker ASo we're gonna talk A little bit about that and then yeah, just we're gonna.
Speaker AEverything we talk about today is a real life case and it's where the kind of the industry runs amok on people.
Speaker CYeah.
Speaker CSo four years in, this is the closest we're going to get to a murder mystery podcast where we're going to read you headlines and talk about through stories which they do on these popular podcasts and what they really mean to bring context to you.
Speaker CAnd so if you're brand new, welcome to Ditch with Suits.
Speaker AWho's these popular podcasts?
Speaker CYeah, Murder mystery podcast.
Speaker AOh, Murder mystery podcast.
Speaker CYeah, where they like talk about cases and they say in 1985 this guy.
Speaker AWe have to use like different voices.
Speaker COkay, we'll do that.
Speaker CI'll try to use my Batman voice, but this is Ditch the Suits.
Speaker CI'm Steve Campbell, your senior marketing director at Seed Planning Group.
Speaker CTravis, the guy who's been talking, he is our CEO.
Speaker CSeed is a fee only financial planning firm.
Speaker CSo this show is all about things like bringing financial topics that can help empower you with your life.
Speaker CBut some of the most popular episodes we've ever had is just talking about what's circulating out in the media, what's happening in the news.
Speaker CSo again, you can get the most money in life by understanding what do these things mean and how does it affect you if you're working a 9 to 5 or you own a business, when you hear stuff like this and when you're talking about trust, it's really important.
Speaker CSo we're going to bring from our standpoint what we've seen over the years working with individuals to try to help them that are calling us.
Speaker CTravis, should I be concerned about this?
Speaker CIs this something I need to pay attention to to reframe what's really important?
Speaker CAnd at the end of the day, we've been talking about trust.
Speaker CSo with Ditch the Suits, we're going to talk about esg, some of these topics.
Speaker CSo Travis, where do you want to start for today with some of these articles?
Speaker CMofo.com let's take a quick break to.
Speaker BHear a word from your sponsor.
Speaker BThis episode is brought to you by Seed Planning Group.
Speaker BIf you're looking for a life giving experience working with a financial planner, then Seed is here for you.
Speaker BSeed is a fee only financial planning firm with a fiduciary obligation to put your best interests first.
Speaker BIf your goal is financial freedom and independence without sales products or really glorified salespeople, then check out Seed Planning Group today you can visit www.seedpg.com that's www.seedpg.com.
Speaker Band the best part, you can schedule a free consultation to find out if their fee only planners and their process are right for you.
Speaker AIt's a real place.
Speaker AIt's a real article.
Speaker AMofo.com ran an article on Invesco Advisors Pay 17.5 Million Civil Penalty to resolve claims of allegedly misleading statements involving ESG investment funds.
Speaker ASo the first thing is this is a settlement.
Speaker ASo we're not saying that they did anything wrong or didn't do anything wrong, but they got accused of doing something wrong and then they paid money to make it go away, basically to stop it.
Speaker ASo you can infer whatever you want out of it.
Speaker ABut as we talk about this, it's somebody probably did something wrong.
Speaker AOn November 8, 2024, the SEC charged Invesco Advisors, Inc.
Speaker AWe'll call them Invesco, going forward with making allegedly misleading statements about the percentage of assets under management.
Speaker ASo in our industry, that's called aum.
Speaker AThat included environmental, social and governance, which is ESG factors in investment decisions.
Speaker AAnd according to the order between April 20 through July 22, Invesco included materially misleading statements that ESG factors were integrated into 70.
Speaker ABetween 70 and 94% of their AUM.
Speaker ASo what they are saying is that let's just pretend they were managing $100 billion in AUM assets under management.
Speaker AWhat they are saying is between 70 and 94%, which is a really wide range.
Speaker ASo I'm not even sure how you get away with that.
Speaker ABetween 70 and 94% had some type of ESG factor being used in the funds.
Speaker AThat's extraordinary.
Speaker AThat is.
Speaker AThat is a lot for kind of just Invesco is a giant mutual fund company.
Speaker ASo they have lots of mutual fund companies.
Speaker AMutual funds think like Vanguard or Fidelity or T.
Speaker ARowe Price or American Funds.
Speaker AThat's.
Speaker AThat's Invesco for you.
Speaker CYeah.
Speaker CAnd I think that's fascinating, right, because we've talked about ESG and why people have typically invested in ESG because they want to potentially align their money with their values and make sure that they're very noble of the investments.
Speaker CIt is very noble.
Speaker CBut as we've kind of talked about our industry, it's been soured in so many ways because companies kind of misleading.
Speaker CAnd then you pay all of this money.
Speaker CI mean, if you say that something's ESG when it's really not as an investor, like, how do you also make sense of something when you can't pinpoint it?
Speaker CAnd it goes back to the idea of Trust.
Speaker CIf you tell me, Travis, that this is esg, I.
Speaker CI'm trying to believe you.
Speaker CBut then when they actually audited and looked at it, they discovered they must have, that they were off and what they were.
Speaker AThe SEC has made a big push over the last couple of years to look at people who are saying they were doing ESG investing and saying, but what does that mean, right?
Speaker ASo if you do ESG investing, what is the thesis and what are you buying?
Speaker AWhat are you not buying?
Speaker AAnd is that actually what's showing up in the portfolio?
Speaker AOr are you just telling people that?
Speaker AAnd because they don't know how to decompose a mutual fund or something, they can't, you know, they can.
Speaker AThey don't know exactly if you're following these mandates or not.
Speaker AAnd what they found is that a lot of firms out there are saying that they're ESG or socially responsible, but you can't tell the difference between that and any other investment.
Speaker AAnd part of the reason is it is investment.
Speaker AIt's a thing called style drift.
Speaker AAnd it's something that you look at when you look at a money manager is you told me this is your investment thesis, but because the performance was bad, you started to doing this other stuff over here to try to make up the difference.
Speaker ASo you said you were going to be esg, but you couldn't.
Speaker AIn the last year, a lot of the tech stocks aren't esg, so the ESG portfolio wasn't performing.
Speaker ASo you started buying me the tech stocks, which actually wouldn't match the definition of ESG you had sold me on in the first place.
Speaker ASo now I have a portfolio.
Speaker AI'm paying you for a portfolio, and I'm trusting you for this portfolio that I believe matches up with the values that you had advertised.
Speaker ABut I'm getting something very, very different.
Speaker ASo that's where the issue is.
Speaker AThe order found that the percentages Invesco shared included Invesco's passive exchange traded funds or their ETFs.
Speaker ASo ETFs are like mutual funds that sell in the middle of the day.
Speaker AMutual funds always sell at night.
Speaker AETFs you can buy and sell just like a stock, but it looks like a mutual fund.
Speaker AAnd when they say passive, they're talking like indexes.
Speaker ASo it's AN S&P 500 ETF.
Speaker ASo it's like an S&P 500 index mutual fund, only it sells in the middle of the day or whenever you want to sell it.
Speaker AThey were misleading because the ETFs did not consider ESG factors in the investment decisions.
Speaker ABy their passive nature, they could not take those factors into consideration.
Speaker AAn example, the order noted that Invesco's percentages include Invesco QQQ.
Speaker AI don't know what that is.
Speaker AA passive ETF that tracks the NASDAQ 100.
Speaker ASo the NASDAQ 100 is an index.
Speaker AIt's a subset of stocks already.
Speaker ASo they have a fund that tracks that.
Speaker ASo it's buying the exact same stuff that's in it.
Speaker AAnd they're saying that it's esg.
Speaker AWell, if it was esg, you would have to exclude some of the funds from that.
Speaker ASo you could say we try to track that, but we've subtracted, you know, 10 of the holdings or something because they don't meet our guidelines or something like that.
Speaker ABut they didn't do it.
Speaker AThey just said, this is our NASDAQ 100 fund and it's ESG.
Speaker CYeah, because when you, when you.
Speaker AOr that's what's alleged.
Speaker CCompanies are supposed to be able to meet a number of different standards to prove that they are environmentally, socially governance fitting.
Speaker CAnd within these.
Speaker CAnd these could be things, child labor laws.
Speaker CThis could be the way that they produce certain goods.
Speaker CThey have to be able to check and show that they're able to do this.
Speaker CSo if you basically are now moonlighting and say, hey, we're labeling this as esg, even though it's following an index where the companies aren't aligning, I think again, when it goes back to trust, I think when you're talking about investing, sometimes it's hard for people.
Speaker CLike, what are we talking about?
Speaker CThis would be the equivalent of you buying a certain type of groceries, believing that something is organic or grass fed for a period of time.
Speaker CAnd then, you know, months into it, you're learning.
Speaker CWell, the farmers actually kind of lied and they've been using this source of.
Speaker AMeat or it's not grass finished, it's grass.
Speaker CIt's not exactly what we're.
Speaker ATill the last month of its life and then we pump it full of hormones and.
Speaker COr I'm thinking about, I think it was years ago, Volkswagen got into hot water because they said that their certain car emission system was leading in terms of safety and pollution.
Speaker CAnd then it came out where Volkswagen basically just said, we actually kind of lied.
Speaker AYeah.
Speaker AOh, I remember people that.
Speaker CPeople that bought the cars were, were demanding lawsuits because they bought the car with the intention that they were being told you're helping the environment.
Speaker CTo only come to find out Volkswagen Said our bad, we've actually been using different emission statements.
Speaker CSo when it comes to investing, we're just trying to frame it that there was a company that was holding itself out as being environmentally centric with esg, while at the end of the day, especially in large amounts of money, not quite meeting what someone was buying into under the premise of this is aligning my values with my money.
Speaker AYeah.
Speaker AAnd so the SEC also know that, and this is a little ticky tack, the SEC noted that Invesco had no comprehensive.
Speaker ASo the comprehensive is a little bit from a regulatory body, a little bit of an unfair term set of written policies and procedures concerning how Invesco measured ESG integration.
Speaker ASo Invesco may have had a definition of what they consider esg, and maybe it just doesn't match up with what everybody else considers esg.
Speaker ARight.
Speaker AHowever, the SEC did not think that it was a comprehensive set of written policies and procedures.
Speaker ASo that's a little bit hard when you read any of these things.
Speaker AYou gotta kinda like read between the lines.
Speaker ASo really, Invesco could have had some standards, some firm standards, but they weren't comprehensive enough, or maybe they weren't, you know, formalized enough.
Speaker ABut certainly it does look like they maybe dropped the ball here.
Speaker ASo, you know, the second part of it, they definitely have to develop that stuff.
Speaker ABut more importantly, I mean, I would assume that they definitely have what they consider esg because they're saying they're esg.
Speaker ARight.
Speaker ASo if somebody goes to their website and says, what's esg?
Speaker AThey're going to explain what ESG is in lieu of anything else.
Speaker AThat's the definition.
Speaker ASo kind of looks like it was easy picking, but a lot of firms got in trouble for that.
Speaker ANow, if you're what we're talking about, worried about trust and can you trust your advisor?
Speaker AWell, here's an entire company that is kind of corrupted in the sense that ESG is a hot button topic.
Speaker ASo we'll just say everything's esg.
Speaker AWe have more ESG than everybody else.
Speaker ASo you'll come and buy our funds.
Speaker ABecause when you look at the fund, you have no way to tell if it's actually esg.
Speaker AUnless you have some analytic tools.
Speaker CYeah.
Speaker CAnd you go back to that idea of trust if you're an advisor that manages managers in the story that you were told by a wholesaler is, we at this company primarily use ESG centric mutual funds.
Speaker CAnd here's why that's important.
Speaker CAnd the advisor turns around and tells Mr.
Speaker CAnd Mrs.
Speaker CJones, hey, you know how you said ESG is really important?
Speaker CI found a company that's gonna match what you're trying to do to only find out years later.
Speaker CAnd then 70 to 94% they were off.
Speaker CRight.
Speaker CIt does create mistrust in the sense that if you say you're gonna do something in anything in life and you don't do it, what are the ramifications?
Speaker CAnd trust is gonna be broken.
Speaker CAnd so ESG is one of those areas where companies can tout their flag and say, we're leading in this area, and you would want it to be accurate, but when it's not, it really does raise a red flag.
Speaker CThat that was the one thing you said you were going to really do well in, and you didn't.
Speaker AAnd that's part of the reason why we addressed our program.
Speaker AWe looked at the way that the ratings companies were looking at companies, individual companies, and we were saying, there's no consistency.
Speaker AIt's a black box.
Speaker AWe can't figure out what they're talking about and why companies are positive and environmental one month and negative the next month.
Speaker AAnd it looked way political.
Speaker AAnd so we said, look, esg, if you go back to that episode, I think what people are really saying is, I have values that I want to invest by.
Speaker AHelp me invest by my values.
Speaker AYou don't need a company to package your values for you.
Speaker AYou need a company to listen to you and say, what's important to you?
Speaker AHow do we help you achieve what's important to you?
Speaker AAnd if you want something special, what's it going to cost a lot of people?
Speaker AI want something special.
Speaker AThis is what it's gonna cost.
Speaker AOkay?
Speaker AI don't want it that bad.
Speaker AOr, yes, I'd be willing to pay for that.
Speaker ABut that's an honest conversation versus, you know, just trust me, just trust me.
Speaker AI don't trust anybody like that, Right.
Speaker AI just don't.
Speaker AI wanna know what's behind it, right?
Speaker ALike, show me what's behind it.
Speaker AYou don't go into a jewelry store and say, I'd like that ring.
Speaker AAnd, you know, look at it and there's no price on it.
Speaker AAnd then you go, okay.
Speaker AAnd they're sizing you up and you go, what's the price?
Speaker AThey're like, for you it's $4,000.
Speaker AAnd then the next person comes in and they go, oh, for you, it's 1000.
Speaker AThat would infuriate you.
Speaker AYet that's kind of what happens with some of the stuff in the financial world.
Speaker ASo to Invesco's defense, the SEC charged Invesco with willful violation of the Investment Advisors act of 1940.
Speaker ABut without admitting or denying the SEC's finding, Invesco agreed to a cease and desist and to pay $17.5 million civil penalty.
Speaker ASo basically, Invesco said, we won't advertise that anymore.
Speaker AWe're not gonna do that.
Speaker AWe'll kind of clean up our act.
Speaker ASo optically it looks better.
Speaker AAnd we're not misleading people, or we're not accidentally misleading people if that's not what they meant to do.
Speaker ASo I think that that's important because it's not like this was a court case that got proven.
Speaker AYou know, it kind of looks like they did something wrong, but it, you know, with all those things, you always have to make a decision, do we just want to settle or.
Speaker AAnd, you know, you could say, would they settle for $17.5 million?
Speaker AWhen you're talking about firms that manage billions of dollars, you know, that's, that's actually a drop in a bucket.
Speaker AAnd the hardest thing is, though, that doesn't fix the investors who got violated.
Speaker AThat's the worst part.
Speaker AIf an investor actually got violated, that money's not fixing their situation.
Speaker CYeah, because we've talked about, too, with esg.
Speaker CI think if you have a planner that's advocating in your behalf and they say, this is important to me, it's also aligning back to, well, what do you need to live?
Speaker CAnd how does this money factor into it?
Speaker CAnd so if you had somebody that's brave enough to raise their hand and say, I want to do this, to only have a company not uphold their side of the bargain, I think is a challenge.
Speaker CBut let's get into the.
Speaker CTo the juicy one here.
Speaker CWhy don't you talk to us maybe about this next one.
Speaker AJustice.gov Eastern District in North Carolina.
Speaker AThis is my.
Speaker CThis is your voice.
Speaker AThis is my voice.
Speaker COkay.
Speaker AEastern District of North Carolina Rally Investment.
Speaker CAwesome.
Speaker A40 changed.
Speaker A40.
Speaker AOkay, stop it.
Speaker A40.
Speaker AOkay.
Speaker AEastern District of North Carolina, Raleigh Investment Advisors.
Speaker A40 year sentence or Ponzi scheme and obstruction affirmed on appeal.
Speaker AUnited States Department of Justice.
Speaker ASo I happen to know about this one.
Speaker AI'll read the story first and then I'll tell you what he was actually doing, okay?
Speaker ABecause it's disgusting.
Speaker AAnd this is back to the beginning.
Speaker ARemember when we said if it's too good to be true, somebody promises you they have a special kind of investment, they're going to take care.
Speaker AGuaranteed return.
Speaker ASuper safe.
Speaker ANo worries.
Speaker AMake a lot of money as soon as you hear that like, you know, if you want you can slap them, but at best you should turn around and walk out the door, right?
Speaker AOr at the least, here's the basically synopsis of the story.
Speaker ARaleigh investment advisor's 40 year sentence for Ponzi scheme and obstruction affirmed on appeal that was September.
Speaker AThe Original case was September 9, 2021.
Speaker AStephen Condon Peters, a former investment advisor and owner of Vision Quest Wealth Management, lost his appeal today in a some legal word opinion issued by the United States Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit.
Speaker AThe judge against Peters, which included the judgment against Peters, which included a 40 year prison sentence, 15 million and change in restitution and forfeiture of assets, was fully affirmed.
Speaker ASo basically he got convicted back in 2021 and then he tried to appeal it and they said nah, you were bad, you're gonna pay people back.
Speaker ANow the problem is that most of that $15 million is not recoverable.
Speaker AThey seized a bunch of us.
Speaker AHe had a horse farm, he had a house in South America, Costa Rica that he had built with some of this money.
Speaker AHe had some artwork and stuff, but most of the money they never got back.
Speaker APeters was convicted on all charges against him in a week long trial in 2019.
Speaker AThe evidence showed that Peters, in his role as a registered investment advisor, defrauded his numerous clients by steering them into investments in which Peters had a direct financial interest.
Speaker AHe then compounded his crimes by attempting to defraud the SEC with false documents and statements.
Speaker AAt sentencing, the judge commented on Peters crimes were breathtaking but were proven with a tsunami of evidence in issuing his 40 year sentence.
Speaker AThe court also noted that Peters quadrupled down on the crime by among other things, perjuring himself at trial.
Speaker AWhat he was doing was he had a whole bunch of different companies, kind of like shell companies, like LLCs and Stuff, including his firm.
Speaker AAnd he was going to retirement age investors and he was getting them to give him loans and promising like really high interest rates, like I'm going to give you 8% interest, you give me a loan and I'm going to use that to, to go out and expand the business and that's how you're gonna make your money.
Speaker ABut what he was doing is Steve, he was taking a loan from you and then he was taking a loan from your mom and then when you wanted money back, he'd already spent the money he took from you.
Speaker ASo he gave you his mom's money or your mom's money.
Speaker ARight?
Speaker AIt was just a Ponzi scheme.
Speaker AHe was basically doing and how he was selling it is he was telling people, well, it's backed by my company.
Speaker AMy company is really secure.
Speaker ASo you go to this financial advisor.
Speaker AYou trust him.
Speaker AHe looks the part.
Speaker AHe had some good pedigree within the industry, had worked for some big mutual fund companies or investment managers, whatever.
Speaker AI think he was an ex.
Speaker AHe was a retired military of some degree, or he had spent some time in the military.
Speaker ASo he had all the parts.
Speaker AHe looked good, he looked trustworthy.
Speaker AAnd he was like, you could trust me.
Speaker AI'm gonna.
Speaker AYou know, you can get this.
Speaker AYou're gonna make 8% on this.
Speaker AYou're giving the money to me.
Speaker AYou can trust me.
Speaker AYou're gonna be backed by my company.
Speaker AWell, when you look at the company, there's nothing in the company.
Speaker ASo what he was doing is taking a loan.
Speaker AHe was paying it out from the company to himself and spending the money on whatever.
Speaker AAnd eventually, I don't know how it got turned in, but eventually it made its way to the sec.
Speaker AProbably what happened is people went to him and said, hey, I need my money back.
Speaker AAnd he wouldn't give it back, or he was locking it up.
Speaker ABut could you imagine, you have $500,000 and somebody comes in and sells you a couple hundred thousand dollars worth of these loans, and it goes belly up, and you never get that money back.
Speaker AAnd that was your retirement money.
Speaker AAnd I Googled Ponzi scheme, I googled financial fraud to kind of like, look at some of the cases and stuff.
Speaker AAnd you can literally Google 2024 Ponzi schemes, 2023 Ponzi schemes, 2022 Ponzi schemes.
Speaker AThey're all shapes and sizes, but a lot of times, oh, they told me that I was getting 7% on my CD or I could buy this fund and I would get a guaranteed 10%, you know, and there was no risk to it.
Speaker AOr, you know, I give them a loan and they were going to invest in these properties for me.
Speaker AYou don't need any of that stuff, first and foremost.
Speaker ASecondly, do you really think.
Speaker AAnd people do think this, but there's guys out there that are registered, that have the same licenses as everybody else, but they somehow have some kind of magic investment that nobody else has.
Speaker AAnd they happen to be an independent firm with no big brother kind of looking over them, and you're writing a check to them.
Speaker ABernie Madoff, like, you go to work with him and you write a check to Bernie Madoff.
Speaker AThen you get like a handwritten statement, right?
Speaker AAnd this is like the airplanes in September 11, we don't think to put a door in the cockpit until the plane crashes.
Speaker AIt's Bernie Madoff.
Speaker AIt's like, maybe you shouldn't write a check to Bernie Madoff, you know, or maybe when you get statements that shows exactly 16% return for like five years in a row, you should be going, no, no, this isn't good.
Speaker ABut it happens.
Speaker AAnd that's why you don't have trust in the industry.
Speaker ABut how do you protect yourself?
Speaker AYou're not hiring.
Speaker AWhen you take your money and invest your money with somebody, you can't be lazy.
Speaker AYou got to do due diligence.
Speaker ABut think about it from a standpoint of who are you writing the check to and how do you know that that money's going to be there for you?
Speaker AThere's so many firms to work with.
Speaker AIf a firm says, you write your check to us, you know, I.
Speaker ATo me, that's a concerning issue.
Speaker ANow, there could be situations where they're a trustee or something and there's some due diligence you can do on that.
Speaker ABut you know, when it comes with some kind of underlying like guarantee or you can trust me, or these interest rates are higher than any place else you can get them, man, that's.
Speaker CWell, it's upsetting, right, because individuals are going out and they're trying to find a trusted professional.
Speaker CAnd when you have a situation like this, not only is it painful for the individuals that experience the loss because an individual took advantage of them, but then how it sours the entire experience of an industry where people no longer want to hire somebody because they've read horror stories like this.
Speaker CNow they're few and far between.
Speaker CBut that's the whole idea of trust.
Speaker CAnd people are trying to get rich quick or get a heads up on somebody without paying attention.
Speaker CI think you've done a really nice job over the last few years of really helping people understand the small decisions that you make make and make a huge outcome over your lifetime.
Speaker CAnd I think that's kind of the genesis of why we called this ditch the suits, because you're going to get into it here in just a second.
Speaker CBut we were raised in an industry that said you got to look the part, you got to dress the part, and that's what sells people on trust.
Speaker CWhen at the end of the day, we figured out that if you just do a lot of good by a lot of people and tell the truth and help them, then you're going to help people solve their problem.
Speaker AAnd people need to stop looking for sexy Right.
Speaker ALike, sexy seems to sell in the investment world.
Speaker AAlternatives, you got to have alternatives.
Speaker AYou got to have hedge funds, you got to have this, that, and the other thing.
Speaker AThe truth about investing.
Speaker AYou're trying to buy a cut of a company for a good price so that the future earnings, you get a good share of those.
Speaker AIt's all you're trying to do.
Speaker AYou're trying to get a cut of the future earnings of a company and you want to get a good price on it.
Speaker AYou don't need really sexy things that you don't understand that are guaranteed by who knows what.
Speaker AIf it's too good to be true, don't trust it.
Speaker AIt's the marketing machine.
Speaker AWatch out for the marketing machine.
Speaker AIf an advisor offers you something special and the returns are really special and they're somehow involved in creating the investment, you know, that's one of those slap them in the face or walk away moments.
Speaker AYou know, it's just they're thinking that you're dumb.
Speaker AHonestly, that's what they're doing.
Speaker AAnd almost all these Ponzi schemes, when you read about them, they're all cooked up at somebody's got.
Speaker AAnd they're convincing people.
Speaker AYou would think, how would good people fall for it?
Speaker APeople fall for it all the time because they trust.
Speaker AI trust him.
Speaker ASo and so introduced me to that person and I just trusted them.
Speaker AI didn't know better.
Speaker ASomebody like us, we're going to look at that situation and go, that's just blatantly illegal.
Speaker ABecause we know, we know you can't do that.
Speaker ABut the typical person's like, I didn't know they couldn't do it.
Speaker AYou know, they said they could.
Speaker AThey're registered.
Speaker CWell, and you've done a really nice job these last two episodes.
Speaker CAgain, there was an.
Speaker CIf you just jumped into this one today, right?
Speaker CWe talked about the unfortunate misdoings of professionals and companies that can take advantage of individuals.
Speaker CBut it was really around this idea of what we talked about in our last episode.
Speaker CWhich is what's more important, trust or performance?
Speaker CIf you missed that episode, go back and listen to it.
Speaker CI think it was a pretty interesting look at our industry and what people that voted in the survey, what they thought was important.
Speaker CBut we also told you that in the show notes, we'll include it for this one, too.
Speaker CWe have our own little mini survey for ditch the suits as Travis and I would love to hear from you again.
Speaker CYou don't have to put your name next to it.
Speaker CBut what is important to you when you hear Stories like this, when you do go out to find a financial adviser, what are the qualities or what are you looking for in an individual?
Speaker CAnd then also, what would cause you to ever leave somebody?
Speaker CYou know, it's your money and it's your life.
Speaker CAnd we started this show to help empower you with the financial planning, education, and the things you can do to avoid situations like this where you're waiting on the next big thing to help you survive.
Speaker CIf you just do some really small things one after the other, and you're proactive and you run the money business that Travis always talks about and you do the right things year in and year out, you're going to get ahead in life.
Speaker CSo if you have questions or you have situations where you're like, guys, I don't know if I'm being taken advantage of.
Speaker CGet in touch with Travis and I, you know, reach out to us.
Speaker CHead over to ditchesuits.com, fill out the contact form.
Speaker CIt doesn't mean you necessarily have to hire seed or work with us, but if you just got questions, get in touch with us.
Speaker CWe're real people, just like you.
Speaker CThis is a fun one.
Speaker CAnd again, part of 2025, we got some amazing guests lined up for you guys, so you're not going to want to miss subscribe to this show.
Speaker CSo you never miss an episode of Ditch the Suits.
Speaker CAnd as always, thanks for being our guest.
Speaker BThanks for checking out Ditch the Suits.
Speaker CBe sure to write a review or drop a comment about this episode.
Speaker BAnd if you want more like this.
Speaker CHead over to ditchesuits.com youm can send us a message and get in touch.
Speaker CLet us know how we can help and be sure to share any topics you'd be interested in having us cover on the show.
Speaker CWe're here to help you get the most from your money in life.
Speaker CThanks for being our guest and checking out Ditch the Suits.