Vet a wealth advisor in six minutes.
Fiduciary-grade due diligence on any US wealth advisor. SEC IAPD lookup, FINRA BrokerCheck disclosures, ADV Part 1 and 2, state RIA filings, customer-complaint clustering, expungement history. Twelve sections, every claim cited to a regulator URL of record.
What gets verified
Every Wealth Advisor Vetting Report draws from the regulator-of-record sources. Where a section's source is silent on the subject, the section degrades gracefully with an explicit "no public regulatory concerns" or insufficient-evidence tag rather than padding with guesses.
| Source | What it tells us |
|---|---|
| SEC IAPD | Canonical CRD identity. Firm registration history, ADV Part 1, ADV Part 2 brochure delivery, disciplinary actions of record. |
| FINRA BrokerCheck | Customer complaints, regulatory disclosures, employment history, exam history (Series 7 / 63 / 65 / 66), expungement requests and outcomes. |
| ADV Part 1 | Firm-level disclosures: AUM, employee count, custodian relationships, fee model, conflicts-of-interest disclosures, disciplinary disclosures. |
| ADV Part 2 (Brochure) | Plain-English fee disclosure, compensation conflicts, disciplinary history, supervised persons disclosure, methods of analysis. |
| State RIA registration filings | For sub-100M AUM advisors registered at the state level. Each state's secretary-of-state or division-of-securities provides a public registration record. |
| News archives + financial press | Press coverage of disciplinary events, settlements, civil litigation, public-statement controversies. |
| CFP Board verification | Certified Financial Planner status, disciplinary history at the CFP-Board level, board-level public-record sanctions. |
| FINRA arbitration awards | Customer-arbitration outcomes, awarded amounts, settlement-versus-award patterns. |
What the report contains
The full Wealth Advisor Vetting Report is twelve sections, paginated, between 2,500 and 5,500 words depending on the advisor's regulatory and disclosure footprint. Each section ends with its source citations.
- Executive Summary. 200-400 word synthesis. The fast-read for a family-office partner who has 90 seconds before the call.
- Fiduciary Suitability Score. Composite 0-100 across four sub-scores: regulatory cleanliness, disclosure transparency, customer-complaint history, professional credential strength.
- Career and Firm History. Chronological broker-dealer associations, RIA registrations, role changes, gap analysis between firms.
- Disciplinary and Regulatory History. Every BrokerCheck disclosure quoted from the federal record. Customer-complaint clustering. Expungement requests and outcomes.
- ADV Part 1 Analysis. Firm-level AUM trajectory, employee count, custodian relationships, fee-model classification.
- ADV Part 2 Brochure Review. Fee structure, conflicts-of-interest disclosures, compensation patterns. Cross-checked against firm marketing materials when public.
- Customer-Complaint Pattern Analysis. Time-series clustering of complaints across firms. Monetary settlements versus arbitration awards. Severity-ranked.
- Professional Credentials. CFP, CFA, ChFC, CIMA, AIF status verification. Series 7 / 65 / 66 exam record. CFP Board disciplinary history.
- Comparable Advisors. Five archetype-matched peers from a curated reference. Firm size, fee model, AUM band, specialization (HNW, retirement, institutional).
- Public Reputation and Press. News coverage of the advisor or firm. Severity-ranked findings or an honest "no public reputation concerns" when the public record is clean.
- Headline Recommendation. Engage / engage with caveats / additional vetting needed / pass. Tied to evidence in the prior nine sections.
- References and Source Citations. Full audit trail. Every URL cited across the prior eleven sections, deduplicated and grouped by source class.
How we identify the right advisor
Mixing up two financial advisors with the same name is a high-stakes failure mode in this domain. Defamation risk is significant. We solve this with three independent gates.
Gate 1 — SEC IAPD candidate match (hard gate)
The SEC IAPD search must return at least one CRD-identified candidate before the report can run. Zero candidates means zero report and zero credits charged. CRD numbers are the canonical identity surface for US-registered advisors.
Gate 2 — Disambiguation card
Multiple CRD candidates surface as a disambiguation card with current firm, location, registration states, and primary specialty. The buyer picks the right person before any synthesis runs.
Gate 3 — Confirm before charge
Even when only one candidate scores high enough, we still surface the candidate card for explicit confirmation. Wrong-person reports are credited back automatically.
Wrong-person affordance
Every subject card surfaces a "this is the wrong person" affordance. Clicking redirects to a stricter disambiguation pass with explicit firm, location, and CRD pinning before re-running.
Sample reports on file
Public sample reports curated for the wealth advisor vertical. Both built from public-record sources only, no inside data.
Both samples cover regulatory history, customer-complaint surface, disciplinary disclosures, and headline recommendation. Buffett's report illustrates the firm-level subject mode; Fisher's illustrates the individual-advisor mode.
When to use a Wealth Advisor Vetting Report
- HNW personal due diligence. Choosing a wealth advisor for a multi-million-dollar engagement. The report surfaces complaint clustering and expungement patterns the average referral process misses.
- Family-office RIA partner vetting. A family office is evaluating an RIA partnership. Firm-level ADV Part 1 + Part 2 review, custodian relationships, AUM trajectory analysis, fee-model alignment with stated investment thesis.
- Broker-dealer M&A diligence. A broker-dealer is acquiring a financial-advisor practice. The report surfaces practice-level disciplinary history, customer-complaint backlog, ADV-disclosed conflicts, and credential strength of supervised persons.
- Investigative journalism. A journalist is researching a wealth advisor for a story. The report compresses regulator-of-record research into a single citation-rich document, with every claim grounded in a public regulator URL.
- Trustee or fiduciary review. A trustee or fiduciary committee is evaluating a wealth advisor for a trust account, foundation, or pension. The report supports the documented prudence requirement with cited evidence.
Pricing
Wealth Advisor Snapshot
One-page fiduciary brief. Fast screening tier.
50 credits
- Headline (name, firm, primary credentials, AUM range if public)
- Fiduciary Suitability Score with four sub-scores
- Top regulatory flags (severity-ranked)
- Headline recommendation (engage / engage with caveats / additional vetting / pass)
- Source URL audit trail
- Returns in roughly 60 seconds
Wealth Advisor Vetting Report Recommended
Full fiduciary-grade due diligence. Twelve sections, paginated PDF.
250 credits
- All twelve sections, 2,500-5,500 words
- ADV Part 1 + Part 2 review
- Customer-complaint pattern analysis
- Expungement history with case-by-case outcomes
- Comparable-advisor cohort with outcome reasoning
- References section: every cited regulator URL
- Returns in 4-6 minutes
Credits are platform-wide. A Pro plan includes credits monthly; pay-as-you-go credit packs are available. See pricing for current plans.
Methodology
The full methodology behind the Wealth Advisor Vetting Report is published. It covers the SEC IAPD hard gate, the four-class source taxonomy, the UK PHIA Probability Yardstick used for confidence statements, the fiduciary-duty framework, and what the report explicitly does not do.
Frequently asked questions
What sources does the Wealth Advisor Vetting Report draw from?
SEC IAPD, FINRA BrokerCheck, ADV Part 1 and Part 2 brochures, state RIA registration filings, OIG and state-AG enforcement archives, news archives. Every section cites the source URL of record.
Is this report a substitute for direct BrokerCheck verification?
No. The report cites BrokerCheck and IAPD URLs directly so the reader can verify any claim at the source of record. The synthesis adds context: cross-firm career patterns, expungement history, customer-complaint clustering, ADV Part 2 disclosure analysis.
Can I run a report on an RIA firm rather than an individual advisor?
Yes. Both the Snapshot and the full Vetting Report support firm-level subjects (CRD-identified RIA) as well as individual advisors. Firm-level reports surface ADV Part 1 firm history, Form ADV brochure delivery, AUM growth trajectory, custodian relationships, and disciplinary history at the firm level.
How does the report handle expungement requests?
Expungement is treated as a signal, not a verdict. The report surfaces every expungement request the advisor has filed with case numbers and outcomes. Expungement clustering across firms is flagged. The report does not characterize expungement requests as misconduct, only as data points the reader should weigh.
What is the SEC IAPD hard gate?
We require a positive SEC IAPD candidate match before any report runs. Wealth advisors are uniquely identified by CRD number; the IAPD lookup is the canonical identity surface. If the IAPD search returns zero candidates, the report cannot run and no credits are charged.
Does the report cover state-only registered advisors?
Yes. Advisors with under 100M AUM register at the state level rather than with the SEC. The report surfaces state RIA filings from the relevant secretary-of-state or division-of-securities database, with the state-specific lookup URL surfaced for direct verification.
Can I use this for compliance review or audit purposes?
The report is research synthesis for due diligence purposes. Compliance committees and audit functions use it as a supplemental research layer; the citations support direct re-verification at FINRA / SEC for any decision-relevant claim. It does not replace the regulatory disclosure obligations of the firm under review.
Related
Investor Vetting Reports → Founder Vetting Reports → Use case: Finding a Financial Advisor → Methodology: Wealth Advisor →