Graystone Consulting Tampa Morgan Stanley – Avoid at all costs! (Updated 2024)
You might have heard of Graystone Consulting Tampa if you’re looking for a wealth management firm in Tampa. It’s among the most reputed firms in the region.
However, it seems that the people running this firm now use its brand for the wrong purposes. This firm has multiple shady provisions in place which put its clients in detrimental positions.
There are a ton of conflicts of interest present in their disclosures and in the following review, you’ll learn about them briefly. Having this information will help you determine if you can trust this firm or not:
About Graystone Consulting Tampa
Graystone Consulting Tampa is a wealth advisory firm based in Tampa, Florida. Their office is located at 100 N Tampa St Ste 3000, Tampa, FL 33602, US, and their contact number is 813-227-2061.
The firm claims to be a specialized team of 13 experts who work together to help you get the desired returns. They claim to offer tailored advice that is designed to meet your fiduciary responsibilities and achieve your long-term and short-term goals.
Graystone Consulting Tampa offers many services to its clients such as:
- Defined contribution plan consulting
- Private wealth management
- Institutional investment consulting
- Defined benefit plan consulting
- Custom investment outsourcing solutions
The firm caters to a large variety of clients including unions, healthcare enterprises, nonprofits, family offices, foundations, government & public entities, and endowments.
This firm has three executive directors: Scott Owens, Adam H Palmer, and David A Wheeler. Other notable people at this firm include Cameron O’Neil, Adam J Hall, Andy Mcilvaine, and Timothy Haugaard.
The name Graystone Consulting is highly reputed in the finance industry. However, Graystone Consulting Tampa is not as reliable as it claims to be. The firm uses many shady tactics to take funds from investors.
Why You Can’t Trust Graystone Consulting Tampa
History of Breaching Fiduciary Duty
The first thing you should check when looking into a financial advisor is their FINRA BrokerCheck profile. There, you can learn about the advisor’s professional experience, state licenses, employment history, and the disputes they have had with authorities and clients.
Did You Know?
Most financial disputes are resolved by ADR methods. The ADR methods include arbitration, negotiation, mediation, conciliation and private judging. However, it needs to be noted that less lawsuits are filed for financial scams than civil crimes, and people try to stick to the ADR methods, due to the dubious agreements by the brokers.
Adam Palmer, the executive director of this firm, had a legal dispute with one of his clients. It occurred in 2009. Here, the client’s attorney alleged a breach of fiduciary duty in 2008.
They requested $22,500 in damages. However, the firm denied the claim without specifying any reasons why.
It’s very rare for such disputes to end in the client’s favor. That’s because advisors like Adam Palmer make their clients sign multiple waivers which free them from any responsibility. This way, they can ignore their clients’ interests without facing any repercussions.
Graystone Consulting Tampa isn’t the only advisory firm that has employed this method to shrug off responsibility. Another example of such a shady firm is the Independence Wealth Management Group.
Beware of such firms.
Earning Commissions
The advisors at Graystone Consulting Tampa earn commissions from the sale of certain investment products. This is a huge red flag because it introduces bias in their recommendations.
These advisors have a monetary incentive for ignoring your requirements and goals. When your advisor earns commission from certain investments, he would ignore other investments regardless of how good they are for your portfolio.
Similarly, the advisors at this firm might focus on promoting certain investments more than others because they offer them higher commissions than the rest. Earning from commissions is among the biggest reasons why financial advisors give unsuitable recommendations to their clients.
Usually, advisors would recommend a subpar investment that wouldn’t generate as good results as you wanted because it offers them commissions. It restricts the variety of investments an advisor can recommend, which is another drawback of working with Graystone Consulting Tampa.
Performance-based Fees
Apart from selling investments, this firm also charges performance-based fees. When your advisor charges you performance-based fees, they earn only when they outperform a specific benchmark.
This encourages the advisor to implement high-risk strategies as they can outperform an index quickly. However, these strategies are quite dangerous and are unsuitable for almost all kinds of portfolios.
High-risk strategies rarely work and generate poor or negative returns for the investor. Such strategies are especially detrimental for portfolios seeking long-term growth and security.
Charging performance-based fees is heavily looked down upon practice in the finance industry. You should be extremely cautious if the advisors at Graystone Consulting Tampa recommend following this fee structure.
Conclusion
Graystone Consulting Tampa makes plenty of bold claims about its services and expertise. However, it has a ton of issues that can cause you to receive suboptimal returns and even suffer losses.
Due to these reasons, it would be better if you avoided this firm and found a different wealth advisor. Luckily, there are plenty of options available in the market.
