The Retirement Fiduciary Podcast: Wolves of Wall Street, Part 2: How to Spot a Fake Fiduciary

Wolves of Wall Street, Part 2: How to Spot a Fake Fiduciary

Aug 4, 2026

In part two of the Wolves of Wall Street series on The Retirement Fiduciary, Adam Koós keeps pulling back the curtain on the parts of the financial world most people never get to see. This time he walks through the tactics that can make someone look like a trustworthy advisor on the surface while something very different is going on underneath.

From insurance agents who set up nearly empty advisory firms just to call themselves fiduciaries, to attorneys quietly selling annuities on the side, to the long list of designations that sound impressive but carry almost no education behind them, Adam breaks it all down in plain English. He closes with a simple, free way to find a true fee-only fiduciary near you, so you can tell the difference before you ever hand someone your life savings.

Episode Timestamps

Approximate, please verify against the final audio.

00:00 – Part 2 intro and the “tomorrow’s front page” standard

01:30 – Insurance agents posing as wealth managers

06:30 – Attorneys running advisory firms on the side

10:00 – Paid advertorials dressed up as real news

12:00 – Questionable designations to watch for

17:00 – The designations that actually mean something

24:00 – Why the right firm for the job matters (the Jiffy Lube rule)

27:00 – How to find a true fiduciary (NAPFA)

29:00 – Fee-only vs fee-based, explained

31:00 – Final takeaways

Key Takeaways

💡 A registered investment advisory firm on paper doesn’t always mean real advice. Some are set up with barely a client inside, just so someone can use the word fiduciary.

💡 Letters after a name can be earned the hard way or basically bought. Learn which designations have real education behind them and which are mostly marketing.

💡 The right advice depends on the right firm. A discount brokerage or an insurance company simply isn’t built to deliver comprehensive, unbiased planning.

💡 A true fiduciary can’t earn commissions. Take away the brokerage and insurance licenses and you take away the conflict, so the advisor gets paid the same no matter where your money goes.

💡 Fee-only and fee-based sound almost identical, and the gap between them can quietly cost you.

💡 You can find a real fee-only fiduciary near you by searching your zip code at napfa.org.