Call Centers staffed by securities professionals are becoming increasingly common and often are “sales-oriented,” according to the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, which issued an investor alert on them Thursday.
As broker-dealers move to push clients with accounts with less than $100,000-$250,000 in assets from working with live advisors to relying on call centers, the regulator says, some of these transfers may be happening “without prior customer consent.”
This can mean that investors no longer work with a specific advisor. Furthermore, the compensation structure for some call centers “creates incentives for center brokers to sell certain investment products or to bring in new money to existing accounts,” FINRA says.