Financial referral schemes

This is in direct response to Larry Macdonald’s post with respect to referral schemes and financial services. In his post, he how ING Direct has a referral scheme where people can receive $25 if they refer people that open up an account with ING Direct.

Another example is most Canadian finance websites proclaiming their love for a certain discount brokerage firm, an excellent review, and all the meantime displaying the referral code readers can use to sign up for the same firm.

Another example – pick your average TD mutual fund and tell me how much a financial advisor or salesman would receive by putting his client into the balanced fund of the day. Or the kickback an advisor gets by signing up his/her client in a whole life insurance scheme.

These sorts of marketing schemes absolutely bias the people that try to refer financial services onto others, whether funds, brokerage accounts or ING. This is primarily one reason why you won’t see me posting links to referral schemes. They undermine the credibility of the poster.

The only products and services I will be selling are mine.