CFP Says He Was Offered A Listing On Medical Economics List Of Best Advisors For Doctors For $750 And That The Magazine Also Invited His Dog To Join The List Hot

Moreover, Roth reports, after he told a Medical Economics Magazine sales representative over the phone that he wanted to purchase a slot on the “best-advisor” list for a friend, Maxwell Tailwagger, Roth reports that his five-year-old dachshund, Max, was invited also to join the Medical Economics list of the best advisors for doctors. Roth says he did not send the $750 to get the dog listed. 

 

I’ve railed against these top advisor lists for a long time.  In May 2009, NAPFA members got angry at me for faulting them for playing up these best-advisor lists and or “five-star” advisor ratings in marketing their services on the Web. It’s common for advisors to prominently post being named to a best-advisor list years after they are named by the organization.

 

Media outlets have figured out that they can make money by making lists of top advisors because advisors are clamoring for any sort of third-party endorsement they can get. Posting the logo for Medical Economics, Worth magazine, or Barron’s on your website shows that these respected magazines think you’re a swell guy. This has become a respected seal of approval when, in reality, it’s little more than a cheap trick being played on consumers.

 

I predicted in May 2009 that “a reporter in the consumer press will write about the idiocy of these ‘top financial advisor’ lists, which sell magazines but stink at figuring out which advisors are really the best.”

 

It just never occurred to me that the “reporter” would be a CFP.

 

While Roth is not trained as a reporter, his stories in the Wall Street Journal occasionally blow the whistle on advisors and their most sacred institutions. In fact, this is not Max the dog's first brush with fame. Roth registered Max for an award from the Consumers' Research Council of America, and Max made that group's  2009 edition of the "Guide to America's Top Financial Planners." 

 

Roth is a gadfly and may actually be the real deal. He seems not so interested in the marketing value of his work in the media, which has to be good for his practice, but more about telling consumers and advisors terrible truths about the financial advice business. 

 

Apart from his canine capers, Roth in the past has targeted the CFP Board on more serious issues. In one scathing column blasting the CFP Board, Roth accused CFP Board of giving little more than lip service in requiring CFPs to act in their clients’ best interests.

 

While the trade press lately has focused attention on the CFP Board’s stance on who can call himself fee-only, this is the issue that will threaten the CFP brand. Currentlty, CFP Board’s stance on whether a practitioner owes a fiduciary duty to a client is a consumer nightmare.