Everyone is talking about cross selling since the scandal at Wells Fargo.

The more you hear about this the more you become aware of the conflicts of interest this underscores.

This week the Massachusetts Attorney General brought a suit against Morgan Stanley for overly aggressive cross selling.

Every publicly traded bank is subject to this for a simple reason. Their first duty is to shareholders of the stock, not to their clients.

Morgan Stanley charged with running unethical sales contests: regulator

Morgan Stanley (MS.N) was charged with "dishonest and unethical conduct" by Massachusetts' top securities regular on Monday for having run high-pressured sales contests in Massachusetts and Rhode Island.

Secretary of the Commonwealth William Galvin charged that Morgan Stanley brokers pushed so-called "securities based loans" to boost business by running contests that were prohibited by Morgan Stanley. He also charged that it took top executives nearly one year to discover the violation and that they still did not shut the contest down immediately.

"This complaint lays bare the culture at Morgan Stanley that bred the high pressure effort to cross sell banking products to its brokerage customers without regard for the fiduciary duty owed to the investor," Galvin said in a statement.

Morgan Stanley spokesman James Wiggins said complaint has no merit and that the company plans to defend itself vigorously. "The securities-based loan accounts were opened only after discussing the product with each client and obtaining their affirmative consent," Wiggins said in a statement.

Thirty financial advisers working in five Morgan Stanley offices from Springfield, Massachusetts to Providence, Rhode Island joined in the contest that began in January, 2014, Galvin said.

The incentives were: $1,000 for 10 loans, $3,000 for 20 loans, and $5,000 for 30 loans, Galvin said, adding that performance was closely tracked by supervisors. The contest yielded results. Nearly three times as many SBL accounts were opened than in the previous year, adding $24 million in new loan balances, Galvin said.

But Morgan Stanley's internal rules prohibited such contests, Galvin said, adding it took the bank's compliance and risk office until December 2014 to detect the contest and that it was not stopped for some time thereafter. A new contest was started in early 2015 and ran until April, 2015, Galvin said.

The charges come just a few weeks after Wells Fargo was fined $185 million for having fraudulently opened client accounts.

These banks are not like George Bailey’s bank in It’s a Wonderful Life. Read Blog

The more you learn about these conflict of interests, the more you realize it doesn’t make sense for serious investors (and your friends and family) to invest with a bank (or insurance company but we will talk about that on a later date). What would it be like if you could work with an advisor who would always put your interests first?

That’s how we operate. Very simple. Global View. Working for you. Not Shareholders. Not investment companies. Just for you. Our goal is to make you worry-free. The first piece of that is to get rid of conflicts of interest.

Your friends and family are STARVING for good financial planning advice and they won’t get it from the banks.

Our services are not for everyone (and some folks just want to “do it yourself”). But we believe EVERYONE DESERVES to know what they own, and to know what conflicts of interest they face.

To make this really easy, we created a truly no-obligation process so your friend can feel comfortable that they will not have any ongoing obligation. Setting the Path is a two session process for which we charge $485 with no ongoing obligation. Period. Should your friend hire us for ongoing advisory services we will waive the fee.

To schedule a Setting the Path session for a friend or family member (or to just tell me what you think of this blog) you can email Adam directly, adam@globalviewinv.com or Erin, erin@globalviewinv.com. Erin schedules our Setting the Path meetings with our team of advisors and is probably better than I am at deciding which advisor is the best fit!