Man Shocked by $15,000 in Edward Jones Commissions Switches to Schwab: 'This Is a Complete Scam'

An Edward Jones client made a shocking revelation, wherein he lost close to $15,000 (about £11,000) in commission charges, all of which came out of his life savings and his children's savings. The client has moved what is left to a rival, Charles Schwab, after nobody told him what each trade was costing at Edward Jones.

The client set out what happened publicly online, and Edward Jones has not commented.

Investing through Edward Jones works in a loop. A customer pays money in, an adviser recommends what to buy, and Edward Jones takes a cut each time something is bought or sold. That cut is a commission.

A friend the client trusted had joined Edward Jones and was looking after the money. Edward Jones never named those charges one by one, the client says. While that friend was away, the client rang to sell something, and the colleague who answered said the commission would be $472 (about £346).

What the Charges Added Up To

The client went back through the records, where every purchase and sale sits listed with its cost. Added up, the total reached nearly 4% of everything invested, or close to $4 for every $100 put in.

The client, who describes himself as heartbroken, says the charges would never have surfaced had that friend not gone away.

'This is a complete scam,' the client wrote of Edward Jones.

What Edward Jones Charges

Much of the money went into funds. A fund is a pot built from thousands of savers, run by a manager who buys company shares with it. Joining one costs money before a penny is invested.

Edward Jones puts the joining charge between 3.75% and 5.75%. For instance, someone putting $5,000 into a fund at 5% does not get all of it invested. The buyer gets $4,750 since $250 is taken first.

Advisers are paid 36% to 40% of the charges Edward Jones collects, so a bigger charge means a bigger pay packet. The Edward Jones document says this may put an adviser's interests at odds with the customer's.

Why the Charges Were Not Obvious

The price list Edward Jones publishes runs to 49 pages, and what it publishes are ranges rather than the cost of any one trade.

That gap is the heart of the Edward Jones complaint. No charge was named as it happened, the client says, and a published range is not the same as being told what a sale will cost.

Two Kinds of Account, and Who Decides

Edward Jones runs two kinds of accounts: Select Accounts and advisory programmes. A Select Account bills the customer on each purchase and each sale, so the bill rises and falls with the amount of trading. The advisory programmes, sold as Guided Solutions and Advisory Solutions, take a yearly percentage of the pot instead.

Edward Jones tells the US markets regulator that a Select Account is non-discretionary, so an adviser can recommend a trade but the customer has to say yes before it happens. Edward Jones also says it does not keep a routine eye on those accounts.

The advisory fee runs up to 1.35%. On $100,000, that is $1,350 a year, buying and selling costs nothing extra, and the account is monitored.

The client says the move into a Select Account was made without warning, and that the trades which followed were never disclosed or agreed to.

What Regulators Found in 2025

Edward Jones has already been fined over the way it charged. In January 2025, the firm agreed to pay $17M (about £12.5M) to investment watchdogs in every US state. The announcement came from the North American Securities Administrators Association.

A charge taken up front is meant to cover years of holding an investment. Regulators found customers who paid one and then moved out early. Those customers had paid a long-term price for a short-term holding. Regulators also found gaps in how Edward Jones checked its own advisers.

That fine covered customers who switched from a pay-per-trade account to a yearly-fee one. This client switched the other way, so the fine proves nothing about the case.

How Anyone Can Check the Same Thing

Every buy and sell brings a receipt called a trade confirmation, and Edward Jones says the commission is printed on it. That receipt arrives after the money has gone, but the charges already paid sit there.