Greg Baker Exposed | $500,000 Damaged, Vanished or Buried?
If you’re looking for a financial advisor in Bethesda, Maryland, you might see the name Greg Baker Merrill Lynch pop up frequently. He is a dangerous advisor who takes advantage of his clients by trapping them in unfavorable agreements.
His terms and conditions contain multiple shady provisions. These provisions make it easy for his firm to abuse the portfolios of their clients while avoiding any repercussions.
The following review will shed light on these problematic provisions. Also, you would learn about a few things Greg doesn’t want you to know about:
Greg Baker Merrill Lynch: Firm and Services
Greg Baker Merrill Lynch is a wealth advisor based in Bethesda, Maryland. His office is located at 7501 Wisconsin Ave Suite 600 W, Bethesda, MD 20814, US and the contact number is 301-215-4424.
Greg runs the Baker Ellis Group which claims to help people achieve their financial goals through the highest level of personalized service and care. Also, they claim to place their clients at the center of the wealth management process to design goals-based financial strategies.
Greg is the Managing Director and Wealth Management Advisor at the firm. Other notable people at his company include Michael Charles Ellis (Senior Vice President) and Mellisa M St. Louis (Vice President).
The firm says it is committed to understanding the unique challenges, priorities, and financial resources of a client. Their areas of focus include managing healthcare expenses, taking care of the family, home-related investments, working in retirement, and many others.
Some of their various services are:
- Alternative investments
- Securities-based lending
- Charitable trusts
- Succession planning
- Concentrated stock management
- Exchange funds
- Structured lending
- Fixed income products
- Investment advisory accounts
- Exchange-traded funds
- Impact portfolios
And plenty of others.
Did You Know?
Henri Fayol (1841-1925), a French researcher and analyst, became the light to enlighten the world with the need and significance of ‘Succession Planning’.
While Greg Baker Merrill Lynch makes plenty of attractive claims about his services, most of them are lies. His disclosures have multiple problematic provisions which disagree with his claim of putting his client’s interests as a priority.
Hence, trusting them isn’t easy. In the following section of this review, you’ll learn about these problematic provisions and understand why you should avoid Greg:
Red Flags in Greg Baker Merrill Lynch
$500,000 Dispute with a Client
When you’re looking for a new wealth advisor, one of the most important things you should check is their FINRA BrokerCheck listing. There, you can learn about their experience, state licenses, the exams they have passed, and their past disputes.
The FINRA BrokerCheck listing of Greg Baker Merrill Lynch shows one major dispute. It occurred in 2001. Here, the client alleged that Greg failed to follow his instructions. He requested $500,000 in damages.
However, Morgan Stanley denied the complaint. They claimed that the complaint was without merit.
Note that it’s extremely rare for such disputes to end in the client’s favor. That’s because crooked advisors like Greg Baker make their clients sign multiple waivers at the beginning of their professional relationship.
The waivers enable the advisors to avoid accountability. Another advisor who used this tactic to avoid responsibility is Doug Kisker Ameriprise.
Putting Clients at Excessive Risk
Greg and his firm charge performance-based fees. When an advisor charges performance-based fees, their earning depends on how well your portfolio performs against a specific benchmark.
It may seem like an attractive fee structure. However, it is horrible for any investor.
The performance-based fee structure encourages the wealth advisor to implement high-risk strategies. These strategies make it easier for the portfolio to outperform the benchmark in a short period. However, their high-risk strategies make them unsuitable for almost all types of investors.
High-risk strategies rarely offer positive returns. In most cases, the investor only receives poor or negative returns on his investments. Furthermore, these strategies can wipe out significant chunks of your investment in volatile markets.
Broker-Dealer Conflict
Ideally, an investment advisor must place his client’s interests ahead of his own. However, those who are dual-registered as brokers and advisors have no reason to put their client’s interests ahead of their own.
Greg Baker Merrill Lynch is a dual-registered broker-advisor. This exposes his clients to many conflicts of interest such as revenue sharing from investment products, earning transaction-based commissions and asset-based fees from the same investment, and giving preference to affiliated mutual funds.
Regulatory authorities are always trying to keep such advisors in check. However, they can’t review every small deal.
Also, dual-registered advisors charge their RIA clients higher fees than their brokerage clients. Additionally, they prefer institutional share classes of the same underperforming mutual funds they offer brokerage clients.
Conclusion
Greg Baker Merrill Lynch makes many bold claims about his services. However, his firm has too many flaws.
The firm has a monetary incentive for ignoring the risk tolerance of its clients. Also, it falls short of the fiduciary standard because of its broker-dealer conflict.
Due to these reasons, it would be best to avoid Greg and his firm. Find someone else.
Greg’s staff is probably some of the most dishonest bunch of people in the FA industry. Not recommended.