CFP Board Sanctions 2 More CFPs Over ‘Fee-Only’ Comp Status

The Certified Financial Planner Board of Standards has issued public disciplinary actions against two CFPs for misrepresenting their compensation method as “fee-only” on the CFP Board’s website.

The CFP Board releases its list of disciplinary actions — which include letters of admonition, suspensions and permanent revocations — three times per year on its website. Besides fee-only discrepancies, the latest batch of actions included ordering one CFP to take a remedial course on fiduciary responsibility, as well as disciplinary action against a CFP who offered and sold unregistered and nonexempt interests in a private equity fund in two states.

The two CFPs, Kelly Guncheon of Minnetonka, Minnesota, and Garret Lee Headley of Lexington, Kentucky, consented to CFP Board’s findings that they publicly misrepresented their compensation method as “fee-only” to clients and prospective clients on CFP Board’s “Find a CFP Professional” search tool when they both received commissions as a registered representative with a broker-dealer and/or as a licensed insurance agent.

The CFP Board has been embroiled in a legal battle with CFPs Jeffrey and Kimberly Camarda of Fleming Island, Florida, over the Board’s claim that the Camardas also mispresented their fee-only status.