ThinkAdivisor (October 21, 2016) -- PIABA, a group of lawyers who represents investors, says that FINRA wasted money on TV advertising pushing its ‘flawed’ system

“As things stand now,” Berkson said Thursday, “FINRA claims to offer information ‘You might want to know about,’ but fails to offer information you definitely want to know about. Investors should not be subject to the vagaries of their local public records laws to ensure that they gain the information necessary to fully and fairly assess their potential financial advisor. The answer to the problem is so simple, and the result so meaningful, FINRA cannot be allowed to continue to hype a broken system it knows is of limited utility.”

BrokerCheck should also tell investors to check with state securities regulators about a broker’s history, PIABA said. “There is nothing on the BrokerCheck homepage that tells an investor looking at it for the first time that they should also contact their state securities regulator for more information.”