Customer Reviews

Stop The Investing Rip-Off: How to Avoid Being a Victim and Make More Money (Your Coach in a Box)

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I like books such as this one, which tell it like it really is in the "financial advice" business. Don't meet with a financial advisor to discuss a pension scheme, insurance plan, or any other investment until you have read this book!

I don't necessarily agree with the 'solution' -- which implicitly involves engaging the author's firm, albeit sold softly -- but I certainly agree with the 'problem' that is so expertly outlined in this book.

Tony Loton, author - Don't Lose Money!: (In The Stock Markets)

I read the book Investing in One Lesson by Mark Skousen who said that the business of investing is not the same as investing in a business. Stop the Investing Rip-Off describes to readers what the business of investing is all about. The author educates investors about brokers, advisors, discount brokers, financial planners, wealth managers, and authors. I cannot overemphasize the importance of understanding the business of investing in order to be successful at investing.

I absolutely loved this book. I did not agree with everything, but it really makes you think about everything you think you know. I highly recommend it.

- Mariusz Skonieczny, author of Why Are We So Clueless about the Stock Market? Learn how to invest your money, how to pick stocks, and how to make money in the stock market

This book is an easy read but is packed with valuable information about the motivations and conflicts of many investment advisors sitting across the desk from you in their office or in the coffee shop providing supposedly sage independent advice about your financial future. Many advisory professionals are sincere in their advice practice, but uninformed of the fallacies they spread as gospel, because they were taught a fallacious view on investments by the firm they work for or are one of many advisor addicted to casino style betting financial jargon and fads of the popular financial media. The worse of them are simply trying to maximize the commissions or fees they earn while minimizing the effort to do so in order to live their own financial dreams, and have rationalized themselves into believing they are doing more good than harm, while avoiding any fiduciary duty to you ahead of their own interests.

One of the biggest industry lies Loeper exposes in very straightforward language is that despite regulatory diclosures that the past market performance of any stock, mutual fund, or other investment is not indicative of future performance, a very high percentage of all presentations to investors are essentially trying to tell investors the opposite is true. That the advisor himself, or another money manager they are recommending, supposedly does have a performance track record that foretells of future riches for the investor - a selling point in direct conflict with this required disclosure.

Many examples of this type can be found in this book and it provides the reader with several types of questions they can ask a prospective advisor to help avoid possibly catastrophic pitfalls.

I found this book to be a quick read and very informative.
For those not "in the business" this book does a lot of explaining about the industry and current practices.

I didn't really get much from this book. The target audience likely is experienced investors, people with some knowledge about investing through monitoring their own investments. If you are inexperienced investor, for instance, you will understand about 20% of this book. Not good. If you are experienced, you likely already know about 80-90% of this book. I consider myself experienced, though not an expert. Most of us so-called experienced investors already knew bozos like Cramer were more like PT Barnum than they were like John Bogle. We already knew that our brokers had no legal responsibilities to manage our accounts according to OUR interests, and not theirs, and that they had HUGE conflicts of interest because of how they are paid. So what's new with this book?