DICKMEYER BOYCE FINANCIAL MANAGEMENT...

Subsequent to the passing of her husband, a client needed a new car. We helped her identify the vehicle and even went to the dealer with her and helped her negotiate a deal for trade-in.

One married couple has a large age difference and needed to work through some challenging work/life balance decisions. We saw this as an opportunity to help them see each other’s position and come to a consensus. To this day, they are both quite effusive in their gratitude in helping them arrive in their retirement/second career arrangement and financial security.

A client came to us having experienced other advisors who “blew smoke”. They both felt that we always tell them exactly what has happened, why it happened, and what we are going to do about it. The most salient example was the explanation we gave them regarding a poor decision an outside investment manager made with a certain mutual fund. We did not “sugar coat it”.

When creating a projection for one couple, we learned that they were on track for a major liquidity issue. We had a serious meeting and recommended that they would have to sell a few of their larger physical assets. It was difficult for them, but they did complete the sales and achieved financial stability as a result.

One of our clients was looking to invest a large amount of money in what we strongly suspected to be a Ponzi Scheme. Despite our recommendation, the client invested a small sum of money. A few months later, it came out that the whole thing was a scam. The client lost some money, but would have lost a great deal more if he had not heeded our advice.

One client came to us having just invested in approximately $1,000,000 in annuities in the year 2000. The “advisor” had recommended subaccounts that were not only 100% stocks but also aggressive growth subaccounts. The positions were bleeding money fast. We convinced the insurance company that there was a great deal of negligence involved in selling the client these annuities. The insurance company waived the surrender charges which were substantial. Properly evaluating a financial advisor is ...