When I worked for Smith Barney, the company was pushing us hard to make mortgages, home equity credit lines (HELOCs, they called them), etc. I spoke up about this in several rah-rah meetings and got a reputation as a troublemaker. O.K., I'd already had the reputation, but this helped cement it in management's mind. My main commment was, "no broker should allow somebody he doesn't know to blow up his clients." I saw working closely with the bank on lending, where they were in charge and the broker had little input or oversight, was just asking for somebody to blow up your clients.
Now, sometimes, you can't control all the stuff in trading or investments. But you know who to yell at and can make life tough on them. For example, I was never allowed to touch mail, including those that had checks enclosed, from clients, until management had read it and taken the check. Well, mgt. lost a check for over $300,000 from one of my clients. Fortunately, my client sent the letter with a signature required, and we knew who in the firm had lost it. And the company eventually made good on it. That stuff was bad enough. But, in lending, I didn't even have any recourse or protection for my clients. So, my feeling always sided with keeping clients out of debt, if possible, anyway, so I blew off the lending people.
Also, our rates never seemed competitive to me. And the fee we received on a million dollar loan couldn't buy be a Viente Mocha at Starbucks. <G> |
