December 8, 2004  Email this  Print this
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YOUR FINANCES
Make a Financial Match Online
(Page 2 of 3)
by Erin Burt
On-the-spot advice
Myfinancialadvice.com takes its referral service a step further by acting as a mediator between you and the adviser, making sure the fees and objectives are clear before you enter a relationship. This site's focus is on-the-spot advice, though any of its planners would welcome a long-term relationship if that's what you are looking for.
The first thing you see on the site is a list of financial topics ranging from investing to insurance to employee benefits. Select an area that you want some help with, and you instantly get a list of knowledgeable advisers, in a table that's easy to read and compare. This includes a summary of their services, certifications, and preferred methods of contact (phone and/or e-mail). It also tells you how expensive the fees will be, ranging from one dollar sign (under $125 per hour) to four dollar signs ($180-$400 per hour).
Click on an adviser's name to get more detailed information, including the hours he or she is in the office. To get the contact info, you'll have to register with the site, but it's free of charge.
For e-mail inquiries, use the form provided on Myfinancialadvice.com to pose your question and send it to the adviser of your choice. The expert then sends a reply to your message center on the site presenting a proposal, including how much he or she will charge to answer your question, and when it will be ready. If you accept the proposal, the site prompts you for your credit card info and notifies your planner to go ahead with the project.
We asked one planner about borrowing money from our 401(k) to boost a down payment for a house. She got back to us a couple hours later and offered to give us a detailed answer within two days for $75. We asked a second planner a question about the impact of marriage on our credit rating. He got back to us the next day offering his advice for $20. When we asked a third planner about setting up a college savings plan for a young child, he got back to us the next morning with some follow-up questions. At first, he offered his advice for free, and we accepted. But later, he said he had mistyped, so he sent us a new pitch for $25, without charging us for the first.
You can get financial help quickly through this site because it focuses on finding you an expert anywhere in the country who can answer your question. (The search doesn't include a screen to find someone in your neighborhood.) The three planners we consulted were in Missouri, Florida and Maryland, for example. And you don't need to set up an initial meeting if you don't want to. You just ask your question and get an answer.
MyFinancialAdvice requires its planners have at least three years experience, a clean regulatory record and proper certification. And for the sake of full disclosure, MyFinancialAdvice has an advertising relationship with Kiplinger.com
Finding more leads
If you didn't find a good match from the sites above, you might take a look at Wiseradvisor.com and TheRightAdvisor.com. These sites have a few quirks, but could give you a lead or two worth pursuing.
Wiseradvisor lists experts with at least two years experience and who have the proper licensing and certification. The site is easy-to-use, but a bit inconsistent. We searched for a fee-based planner in San Francisco who could help someone with a net worth of less than $50,000 with retirement planning. We asked for someone with at least two years experience and we didn't care if the planner was local or not. The next screen said it had narrowed the field from 1,558 advisers to 46 meeting our criteria. Then the site asked what size firm we wanted our adviser to work for, and what age we preferred the adviser be. We entered "no preference" on both, but our final results yielded only ten advisers. The other 36 mysteriously disappeared. We doubt that many advisers would deny our business because we didn't take an interest in their firm or age.
Then we changed our location to San Diego, but still said we didn't need the adviser to be local. The site returned seven hits, although our San Francisco search yielded eight whose profiles said they'd be happy to meet with clients outside their neighborhood via phone or e-mail.
Also, a few of the matches on Wiseradviser missed the mark. On our original search, four of the advisers required a minimum portfolio size of $100,000 to $1 million. With our stated net worth of less than 50 grand, we could hardly afford those planners.
TheRightAdvisor, which requires its advisers have at least five years experience, also had some quirks regarding location. On a similar search from San Diego, we said we didn't care how far away from the city our adviser was. The site didn't return a single planner in California. Instead, it gave us list of 15 advisers from New York to Kansas. When we limited the results to within 25 miles of the city, however, it somehow came up with one recommendation just five miles down the street from our point of origin.
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