Allworth Financial - Sacramento, California

Dan

Allworth actively engages in discrimination when hiring office employees. The administrative team is subpar because the entire back office is made up of "baristas" and "Non Finance majors" who have no background in economics, accounting, or finance. I am the type of back office employee that facilitated over $200mm in asset transfers during the Scottrade -TD Ameritrade merger of 2017-2018. Fully licensed and CFP exam ready--but I'm not good enough to service accounts at Allworth.... So if you have problems with client service and back office, it's because it's run by a bunch of Baristas and theatre majors who don't hire experienced talent.... How many of the back office employees have FINRA licenses...? Shame on management

Darlene D.

My husband and I switched to Allworth (Hanson & McClain) a few years ago. We were nervous at first because this switch was at the same time we were in the middle of retiring. I have to say that we are so glad we made the move because our Advisor helped us through this transition by spending time with us to understand our then current financial situation as well as what our goals, plans and potential future challenges might be.

We continue to be very pleased not only with the personal service and sound advice we have received but we have come to believe that he truly wants what is best for us.

Tim B.

I had a large part of my retirement saving with Hanson McClain for the last 5 years. I have been mostly retired for the last year. This was a substantial amount of money. My risk tolerance has been reasonably conservative and my advisor had about 40% in ETFs/Mutual funds and the rest in cash, money markets or CDs. Over the 5 years my account grew the meagerly amount of 0.06% per year or a total of about 3% over 5 years (over this same 5 year period the DOW grew by 78%). Not being happy with this performance I wrote an email to one of the two principals of the company telling him I was unhappy with the performance and could he review my situation and convince me that this kind of performance was fair. He did the review and responded very quickly, but his response astounded me. His first sentence was "To be totally frank with you, I'm questioning if we are the right firm for you". I wish he would have told me this 5 years ago! He cited that over the years my account had a very high content of CDs (they don't take any fee on CDs, money markets or cash). In a response, I told him the money that was in CDs had previously been in cash in the account earning nothing. What I did was suggest to my advisor that he put this cash into CDs or money markets until he found suitable other investments, as appropriate, so at least it was earning something which seemed reasonable to my advisor and me. He closed his response with, "If you would like to move your account, please instruct your Advisor to do so".
In reviewing my account performance, I noted that every one of the ETFs/Mutual funds my account was invested in, lost money except for two which made very little. It was a good thing I had the CD income and some dividends to offset the losses.
Shortly thereafter, as I was considering what to do, I got an email from my advisor saying "it would be best if Hanson McClain removed themselves as your advisor on your account." So basically they kicked me out of the firm. Only conclusion I could come to was my account did not have enough money in ETFs, Mutual Funds or stocks for them to make enough fees to be happy and they are not interested in serving retired conservative investors.
My basic investing philosophy and risk tolerance really did not change over the 5 years, so Hanson McClain should have told me "To be totally frank with you, I'm questioning if we are the right firm for you" before I placed my significant retirement savings with them. Given that, Hanson McClain did me a great disservice by taking my money in the first place and keeping it for 5 years with little gain in value. I feel I have lost 5 years of investment opportunities and I am almost starting over. I am happy to have my account back under my control and not with Hanson McClain. I would not recommend this firm.

John R.

Poor Service. Re: Confirming your Appointment with Lauren Williams

My wife and I scheduled our day around the appointment which never materialized. We waited on the video call for 15 min. We never even received a call that Lauren was running late or had to reschedule. We would never do this to a client.
Very disappointed. They seem very disorganized internally.

Laura C.

I attended the Allworth Financial Retirement Symposium on 8/10 at Sonoma State University. I highly recommend it. Definitely time well spent. The symposium provided a wealth of information and food for thought. I have listened to the weekly radio podcast for 2 years and have learned a lot and thoroughly enjoy the banter between Scott and Pat.

Karen H.

I went to an enlightening seminar (pre-covid) and the speaker had lots of knowledge to share. I listen to them on the radio also, and the podcasts are ripe with information. Some of the callers are at a quandary on what to do and others have so much money they need a guiding light.

You can select the podcast interesting to you if you miss the program airing. I always try to listen live, but sometimes life happens and we are fortunate to have podcasts available.

Thank you so much for being so available with your wisdom and availability.

Heath W.

Gave them $1,000,000 to invest with the proviso that they not sell 10 of the stocks that we transferred to them. In 60 days they had sold five of the stocks we asked them not to sell. They made us "whole" soon after we called them on the error and the following month they sold the same five stocks again! We closed our account and found another broker. Our investment adviser apologized for the multiple human errors but we NEVER received any message from Hanson or McClain. I had expected them to notice when we withdrew our million dollars but I guess we were not important to them. I've waited a couple of months to write this hoping that they would write so don't believe their commercials. Now I'm considering an SEC report.

Patricia J.

The advisor I met with was able to show me all the hidden costs in my existing annuity and how much money was coming out of my pocket every year. I'm not a numbers person so I appreciate his patience in explaining it all and i'm happy to be moving the funds into a better option for me with Allworth.