Engineer's Finance

Investment Consultant is an awesome job. All that one has to do is describe the financial product make claims of getting great returns and that’s it. The average investor in every one of us is so happy and we make the commitment to throw away the money at the financial product. How many of you have ever thought about these?

I get at least two calls daily from various consultants asking for whether I am interested in investments in other words it is asking, I am going to siphon out your hard earned money, are you willing to give it away?

I am interested in stock market and shares and I believe in myself rather than other money managers because I feel no one else can understand my struggle to make money other than myself. I have scheduled meetings with at least 10 financial consultants and I have turned most of them down without taking any offer( I took couple of products when I was naïve). Why do I have to do this? Why can’t I just ignore the call and tell them that I am not interested in their services? The thing is that I am a naïve investor and wanted to learn and what better way one can learn other than seeking professional help. This is what I am doing and will be doing.

My experiences:

I always tell the person who calls me that I am interested in only stocks and I wish to know more about it and I make it a point not to waste their time since time is precious for both. These callers don’t really care for what I say; they schedule the meeting with some financial consultant. After the meeting is scheduled they turn up punctually and explain me their services. Since I am very specific of what I need, I tell them that I am interested only in stocks. Some consultants won’t be dealing with stocks at all. So I say I am not interested in any of their other products and I apologize for their mistake and try to leave. But still they somehow persuade me to listen to their financial products and I do listen to them and finally say that I will get back to them after a week or so and I don’t. I always try to be polite with them even though I get mad at times. These people are really good at brain washing others. They pull you to their trap if you are not educated. Why I do this, is because they are also humans like us to who want to do something for their bread and butter.

Once I was really irritated with the financial consultant, he was going on and on with his products and thinking that it is easy to make a fool out of me. (I can made fool at times with things I don’t have any clue about). I told him very clearly at the end that I am not interested in his options. He was very sad and left. The thing is that everyone tries to do that only and nothing else. They don’t exactly explain the terms and conditions and always talk about hypothetical gains. A financial consultant explained me in length of making 10 lakhs within next five years with an annual investment of over a lakh. I was just listening and at the end I asked her, are the returns guaranteed. Will you give me a written statement telling that you will give me so much? The answer was, “A BIG NO”. I asked her, you said all the while that the history of the product is good and every year it is giving a return of 20% then why on earth are you not giving me any assurance? She said, “You never know how the markets behave and we can’t really assure you the returns.” I did not say anything; I just left after a while.

This is the truth. No one ever gives you any assurance for your money. Don’t ever think that you will get the returns as per your financial consultant’s words. It is just random and as per rules of mathematics, it is just probable that is it.

Why don’t Consultants charge us?

Have you thought about how these consultants make their money? Generally they don’t collect any money from any of us. Then how do they make money? Do they get a percentage of our investment? Whether the financial product companies pay them? How do they make money? We don’t really bother about others, do we? We are happy that we poured money on something and expect it to grow and we will make huge money, so dumb and most of us including me have done it and will do it. I have made mistakes in life. Let’s be honest.

So if they don’t get paid from us, someone else should be paying. Why should they pay? Just because he got a dumb customer, that is it. Everyone thinks of himself/herself and this is the biggest problem. If someone offers you some service without any financial gains think million times before accepting it. He will have some motive or the other behind it. I learnt it the hard way. They too need money to survive in this world and even they have dreams to be conquered so they play their part to perfection.

It is “You” who is responsible for your money. Just think over it. I would love you to give away the money which has a noble cause just like that without thinking but when you throw your money to some financial product I would urge you to think million times before committing even a single rupee. If you don’t care then you don’t expect others also to care.