To the older members of DU

[laundry_queen]

20. Also

be very wary of your investment advisors. Some investment professionals will screw you. My parents had this issue. They had a verbal conversation with their investment guy about a year before the '08 crash and told him they were less than 8 years away from retirement, so they wanted to be out of high risk investments and out of the market. The guy never did pull their stuff out of high risk. Thankfully they didn't have most of their money with him, but they still lost a huge chunk of their retirement savings.

Recently there was a bit done on the news here in Canada about the lack of regulations surrounding investment people...they can screw you and the only way you can get your money back is a lengthy court case, because the regulatory bodies cannot make binding decisions on the companies involved. So apparently make sure you check your statements to make sure your money is going where you tell them to put it. That program on tv was a total WTF moment for me. I think I'll be doing my investing myself (nearly done my business degree so no excuse here).