6 lies your financial advisor is telling you. Here’s how you can spot them

"That is perhaps the biggest lie," says Warren Ward, a Columbus, Ind.-based financial advisor. "They are apparently free to call themselves pretty much anything: advisor, counselor, wealth manager," he adds.

Some advisers overstate compound interest. The equation is something like this: "If you invest $A over the course of B years you will earn $C because the average rate of return of this fund (or market) is D%" But wait. "The problem with this equation is that no one can score that rate of return every year," says Jordan Wolff, the chief savings officer for Shrinkabill Services, a financial services firm. The math treats this as a consistent earning every year. And that's not accurate.

Few advisors will tell you an outright lieMany terms and fees are buried in difficult-to-read prospectuses, and you may not be able to decipher the true costs of some investments. Remember, Registered Investment Advisors and Investment Advisor Representatives are required to act in a fiduciary role, while Registered Representatives may earn a commission.

Shady investment advisors love fear tactics. It takes patience to succeed. Bad advisors push clients to make a decision because they are afraid of losing a sale, not because the market is going to change. If your advisor is scaring you, maybe you have the wrong advisor