Big Cajun Man

Amen to that, I can’t even go on their web sites, and have cancelled their e-mail newsletter, all they are is “shilling” for their “pay” stuff.

–C8j

John

If you want to find out why TMF sucks, simply subscribe to my newsletter…

penty

fool.com used to pitch, “Don’t pay for financial advice, when most of it is common sense”. They always complain about “hidden fees” but then don’t figure in the “hidden fee” for invests to pay for thier site.

Then they made fools of themselves and started charging.

I was a member at the change and argued against them starting to charge. Apparently the word hypocrite isn’t a label they care about having.

reid

my (least) favorite headline: I “Can’t Wait to Buy This Stock — and You Shouldn’t Either!” A runner up: “This Unmistakable Signal Is Flashing “Buy!”" Ok one more that I hate: “Own the next Genentech — make up to 3,250%”

That’s complete crap. I just unsubscribed.

Deepak

The “Fools” are turning “fools”!!

I had signed-up for a trial period (free) subscription to a couple of their newsletters – no doubt, they offer good advice – but when it was time to cancel the subscription, I found that there is no easy way to unsubscribe the newsletters. There is no unsubscribe link in the subscription email, no unsubscribe link on their website, and no prompt responses to subscriber emails. Such a sneaky way to “fool” people.

They should monetize their absolutely wonderful services using the abundant subscribers. If the users desert them, so will the subscribers.

Here’s my message to the Gardner brothers:
Fools, be Foolish!

Tim

Nigga please. Give them a break. They’re trying to earn a living.

Jason

I bought one of their newsletters, Hidden Gems, touted by Tom Gardner as the second coming of Peter Lynch’s success story. They had the typical historical prices where they bought the stock and how much profit you missed out on by not joining their newsletter sooner. I bought one or two of their picks (FARO was one of them) and proceeded to lose money. Look at the recent history of FARO and you’ll see what I mean. They are not adding any value in my opinion, it is just another tout service. You might as well read all the junk mail stock picks you receive in your inbox and get similarly bad advice.

YK

I almost took a job with them in the late 90s. They offered a $10K paycut, a mandatory 50-hour work week, foozball, and stock options.

If memory serves, the HR rep said, “If we go public and are valued at $1,000,000,000 you’ll get $10K!” Not so Foolish…

Mike

Can anyone help me to unsubscribe to Motley Fool. I have tried and tried and they ignore me. I just don’t find their stuff that useful. And their customer service sucks big time!

ioan cosma

Unfortunately ,i’m not a MF member yet.But I red almost all their free stuff for years. My capital is still too small to be a member.I also agree that to become an investor on your own is very good.You can never trust someone else the way you trust yourself.But I think that’s not the point here.I wonder if there is someone that being in need,would choose a surgeon just because he is working for free.That appears to me quite risky.Maybe he wants to get some practice or experience on your body.Though I consider that I learned a lot about investing ,I am aware that my level of investing knowledge is well below the one of the MF. I don’t think that if you use the MF paid services you are free of risk.But you can reduce this risk drastically.And a minimal degree of diversification I found necessary even if your advisor would be Buffett. I think that is worth to pay someone skilled,for screening thousands of companies instead of you doing that.Though,I may accept sometimes, something for free,as an advertisement or as a gift ,I never expect something serious to come for free unless is a scam or is for charity.This is a strong principle of mine.So,as a general rule, if someone is offering regularly something for free i start to wonder “what’s the catch”?.

Michael

Graduated college in 1999 and since then have followed too much advice from the Fool. Invested in the Foolish Four only to have them renounce it within a year. Invested in Hidden Gems begining this year and have seen more losses than gains. I think I can lose money on my own. Aren’t these guys English majors?

Ramit Sethi

Joe2by2: Um, I think you missed the point of this entire site.

Joe Budion

Why not just save some more cash and buy the real thing (BRK/B)?

joe

Dan

Oops, that’s Brk.A

Still $3k per share is CRAZY expensive…. but probably a deal. I guess it just proves the old addage, “It takes money to make money”.

Tucker

I just signed onto the MF hidden gems… I don’t understand how people could be thinking this is so horrible. He makes picks, and then tracks them. It seems to me that the picks are making money… Of course you can’t pick the best ones all the time, but it seems they are right more often than not.

Bret

“The next Berkshire” they talk about is Markel (MKL). If you read their teasers closely, they usually give enough hints to figure out who they’re talking about. They also pimp CTrip alot (Chinese Expedia)

Mike

I’ve been a HiddenGem subscriber for a few years now and overall I’ve done quit well. Sure some stocks are duds and if you are expecting 30% increase / month you probably don’t have realistic expectations but overall, they’re suggestions have done better than most of my portfolio.

Anne

If the MF is not worth the money, does anyone have any suggestion for a good alternative? It seems to me that we should balance what we do not like with something we do love in the spirit of maintaining a progressive approach on investing. Does anyone like peterleeds.com?

BillOGoods

I don’t know about others, but I’m willing to pay $200 for some reasonably good recommendations of what would, at least to me, be otherwise obscure investment opportunities. Like Eric, above, you always have to do your due diligence.

Also, as noted above, how can you blame these guys for wanting to make money and continue their service? I can’t and no matter what you may “think,” everything from the advice of your own broker to investment sites on the Internet are “caveat emptor.”

I’ll tell you what I don’t like, however, and that is when you sign on to Hidden Gems or some other paid services, you are next sold an even more “targeted” service that “isn’t for everyone” that is even more costly. The current one is “Pay Dirt.” To me, that’s turning legitimate sales into an abuse. But, again, I don’t have to sign up do I.

Gabriel Mesmo

I am a complete new comer to stock investment and would appreciate very much suggestions on how to start/who to contact. Can anybody help? I was hopeful that MF woud be great fool-proof advice but I have figure out from most of your comments they are not. Thanks for your help. Gabriel

Rick Martin

You want to know why Motel Fool picks do so well, here is why…
1) The advertise their stuff for free (at first) and build a fan base.
2) Once people start to dig their stuff, people start buying their picks ( and with small caps it doesn’t take much to get to up)
3) Then they start selling their lists. People buy them and feel obligated to purchase stocks that they paid to see, hence driving the price up.

So in reailty, they make sound picks, but those picks are driving up by the user community.

Todd

I know that the hidden gem picks do spike for a first few days of when they are recommended, but do you really think that is going to impact how the stock does over a 1 – 5 years ?

migs

What I like about HG is the message boards. Unlike what Slim claims above, the message boards are quite open to contrarian ideas and skepticism, provided they are backed up by analysis. In addition, the message boards are basically noise free. Compare them to the chaos of the yahoo message boards which are nothing but yelling and screming about people being pumpers or bashers.

And no, it is not HG members who cause BWLD, DWSN, or CMGB to spike 15% each in the past week. That was due to strong earnings of companies that HG had rightly identified as undervalued.

David

I am not a subscriber of HG but have followed their recommendations for 2 years. In my opinion, Tom Gardner did his job good. If one can use his picks and throw in some trend analysis, the success rate will be much enhanced.

Jakub Keller

People just want to get everything for free. Hey lets not pay for music and lets not pay for movies. Its not like it takes hundreds of thousands or millions to make this stuff right? Bottom line is, if you want something go out and make the cash then spend it accordingly. If you can’t afford it, sorry, you don’t get to have it period. The web isn’t free and $3000 isn’t a lot for a good web site as well as $15 isn’t a lot for music and $14 for a newsletter is nothing. You would pay more for HBO.

Bob

Motley Fool has a support number for all of their products:

1-888-665-3665

I just called to cancel my order; there was no hold time and the guy on the phone was really helpful about the whole thing. They don’t run any sales pitches at you or give you any trouble, they just ask for some feedback if you have any. Hope that helps.

JaWone

I’ve purchased the Hidden Gems articles last year and just did some mock portfolios with some of their picks. The stocks that they advised actually performed well. I think what people don’t realize is that in the end you have to make the decision on whether to purchase the stock or not based on how you feel it will do in the future.

Rickey Galloway

Yes, they do try to sell newsletters. But anyone bashing Hidden Gems is clueless. Maybe someone bought a few bad picks, but overall it’s an incredible service.

62% for Hidden Gems vs 26% for the S&P
(as of 6/21/2007)

My personal picks that I got from them are up over 50% in 3 years. Great message board content.

Terry Heller

All I know is that they are, simply put, the best stock pickers anywhere. I’m up 70 percent with them in 13 months.

cheersandjeers

after having read every comment, it would be foolish of me not to spend the meager $200.- for MF’s HG’s. (i, like few of you have not grown comfortable with the years of free advice) many spend that much for a single dinner for 2, a monthly mobile phone bill, a spa treatment or 2 (depending where you go), a pair of deisel jeans…i could really go on…you could buy a 3 year subsciption for the price of the iPhone…i’m not sayin’, i’m just sayin’…
i’m certainly not defending the sales tactics…they could certainly be much more conscientious. (maybe a little something for their suggestion box?)
it seems that many of the jeers are in direct relation to a bit of inexperience, impatience and a knee-jerk need to point the finger (you know what finger). and the cheers, well confidence and maturity (patience included) and as a consequence incomparable gain.
hats off to you
sp

Investbeginner

I am tempted to sign up for Hidden Gems by Mottely Fool, but have not decided yet.

One of the earlier posters on this blog mentioned that Faro was suggested by Hidden Gems, but that it was doing pretty poorly (that was in May 2006), but I just looked up Faro today and it had more than doubled its price from less than $18 to about $39 per share (Aug. 2007). Not so bad on that one at least.

dannyR

I was on their site and reading their sells pitch for the Green Light newsletter. They claimed that each newsletter would have suggestions that could make you at least $450.

I decided to sign up, but I also decided that if I couldn’t find a suggestion that led directly to me making $50 within a month I would cancel my membership. All past issues are posted online and I’ve read through most of them. All the advice is very generic and mostly common sense, and I haven’t yet found anything specific that will directly contribute to me making $50 anytime soon.

I will be calling 1-888-665 3665 to cancel my Motley Fool Green Light membership.

Since I can supposedly cancel for a full refund, I decided that I would keep the subscription if I could find one piece of advice that led to a directly to me saving/making $50 within one month.

Scott

I generally like TMF, but am always struck by the paradox of their site (and others) selling stock advice. If their advice is so fantastic, can’t they make more money by just following their own stock picks? Why go to the hard work of writing come-on ads for stocks, maintaining web sites and e-mail lists, etc. etc. If these stocks were such sure fire bets, these folks could surely be multi-millionaires many times over and not need to sell stock advice. The hard truth is that they CAN’T make more money following their own advice—-so have to make do by selling it to you and me. So my advice is to drastically scale back your expectations and realize that their stock picks are educated guesses based on current market conditions and a certain amount of honest analysis, but are unlikely to ever enable you to quit your day job. If you’re lucky you may do a bit better than index funds.

Actuary

BjK …they can make money by following their own advice

StockAdvisor

I have been an HG subscriber for 3 years. While not all picks are winners, the overall portfolio of picks soundly beats the market.

I do agree that their articles have become a bit to much like ads, but like others have said, they have to make a living and I have no problem with that. Do you remember all those dot com startups that offered no decernable product and had no way of producing income? Neither do I because they aren’t around anymore.

Fool.com was heading down this path but they discovered they could produce a quality product at a reasonable price.

Dave

Here’s my due dilligence: saw their banner ad for “the next Berkshire Hathaway”, read their stuff, and saw they had a 30 Day Free Trial.

The FIRST thing I ever do with any such thing is find the cancellation link online. Not that I plan to cancel, but I use it as a gauge of how trustworth the company is… if you can subscribe online but have to phone to cancel, I run.

I’m running.

Ryan M

Is it just me, or has every request for alternative sources to TMF for sound investment advice gone unanswered? Why aren’t the negators posting the results of their own picks? Perhaps it is because they suck even more…

I just got done reading the pitch for HG before coming here. There are dozens of negative critiques with the same solution… “run!” But not one of these meatheads has an answer for where to run to. I’ve fired plenty of managers like these over the years. People pointing out plenty of problems and offering no solutions. Seems to me the objective posts on here are the only thing that keeps this portion of the site from becoming a joke.

RG

What are we all trying to do here? Make money through investing! Who cares how TMF hawks its wares; they need to promote any way they can to get you in the door and look at their products, i.e., their line of newsletters. Bottom line, most investors don’t beat year-to-year performance of the S&P 500. As of this date, all their newsletters are beating the market. Some spectacularly so. Sure, some of their promos reek of hucksterism, and may even offend our intelligence. But forget style and look at the substance. Investment legends like Buffett and Lynch, as well as TMF’s Tom Gardner and Bill Mann will all tell you: keep your emotions out of your investment decisions.

Not My Name

Hidden Gems ( hiddengems.com) / Fool ( fool.com) cancel / cancellation problem: I have subscribed to Hidden Gems for over a year and decided to cancel. I have tried 2 times to cancel and never received any acknowledgment. It looks like I’m going to have to contact my credit card company now to deal with them. If they don’t seem to offer any decent way to cancel and at the same time provide an acknowledgment, I will NEVER use their services again.

Shane

These guys require your street address, name, credit card and your agreement to automatically renew in 12 months from now on.
This lifelong commitment also requires your identity, street address and access/monitoring of your credit status via credit card.
How do you get out? Need to call a person and request personally request a cancellation using a hidden phone number?

Looks like these fools are tapping an asset that will pay dividends forever; our desire to make money without earning it.

Read some books, study individual stocks, invest in respected mutual funds run by professionals, partner with a trusted advisor. Don’t give your credit card to these clowns, put your money to work.

Take this free advice and invest that $ 200 monthly for the long term.

Underwhelmed

I have been less than impressed with HG, and unsubscribed a while back. Yes, they do have a few winners. But if you want to get their touted returns, you have to buy every single stock they recommend. Most of their returns come from a tiny fraction of their full set of stock recommendations, and those are the ones that they’ll quote in their marketing (206% !! 700% !!). And even if you buy them all, you’ll still make way less than their marketing material claims (the latest junkmail brochure for HG says you can make 50% compounded annually — I got it in the mail today).

Some real examples from HG below. Note that my buy price was almost always equal to or less than their recommendation price. You can look up their current prices and decide whether you can make Warren Buffet style returns following their recommendations.

Cryptologic (CRYP) bought at $20.10 in Aug 2005

Flamel Tech (FLML) bought at $20.73 in Jul 2004

Stanley Furniture (STLY) bought at $21.09 in Sep 2004

Select Comfort (SCSS) bought at $17.83 in Apr 2004

Neenah Paper (NP) bought at $32.10 in Jan 2005

I did make a good amount of money on Middleby (MIDD) and Drew (DW), also recommended by HG, but I lost about as much as I made, so the overall returns sucked.

Milton Platt

I am neither endorsing nor criticising Motley Fool, but i did note that 1) most of the critics seem to want these guys to run a large website and dispense financial information for free
2) a few seem to complain after obviously NOT following the strategy in the newsletter they complained about (one poster says he subscribed to the Hidden Gems newsletter and bought “one or two” of the stocks recommended. First, the newsletter says this is to be part of a larger diversified portfolio, and second, that some of them will loose and that you need to spread the risk among numerous “gems” to reduce that risk. If he had followed that strategy he would probably have been okay in the long run. He didn’t give stock names or time lines, so who’s to know?

Aaron.G

Shane said “… invest that $200 monthly for the long term”.

A HG subscription is $200 per year, isn’t it – not per month? If you’re any kind of serious investor at all you could make the lousy $200 bucks back before you take your next morning visit to the mens (or ladies) room. $16 a month for researched stock ideas doesn’t seem unreasonable to me unless you’re playing with some mighty small capital, in which case individual stocks probably isn’t the way to go. I really don’t understand all the complaining about the cost of HG. It’s nothing. Go for a morning drip coffee instead of the non-fat spice latte and you’ll be ahead of the game in no time. Or don’t, but don’t vetch about the price of the service.

Dennis Novak

I think most of us agree that they are providing a service and have a right to charge for it. It follows then that they are doing this for income. Having said that it should be obvious that NOBODY would bother providing a newsletter or investment service if they had a sure thing. It would be much more lucrative just to invest in the stocks and make a fortune – why bother with a Newsletter to make somebody else wealthy? If you had a sure fire method would you give it away? The surest GUARANTEE to profit from the stock market is to sell an investment service and not invest in stocks. Like many of you, through the years I have tried dozens of services and worked with them thoroughly – I have found no consistent success. Most do well during a bull market and fail miserably at other times. A buy and hold strategy on any one of many index funds always trounced these services. I always find it amusing to read testimonials concerning how good a service is to find folks saying: “I made enough to easily pay for my subscription fee” – WOW! Just my two cents for what it’s worth.

slug

Man I think you guys really just need to learn how to trade, maybe you all need to return to school and open a few books for yourselves instead of paying and praying!!:) You guys remind me of all the Cramericans, what a laugh….. Good luck to all of you suckers!

Doug Duggins

I didn’t re-up my HG subscription this year. After two years on the service, I was unimpressed with my returns. One of my best examples- buying into BWLD on their third buy recommendation. It’s now 91% down from that point. I seem to recall buying RIMG on the basis of their recommendation; that’s now at -57%. FLML is -50%. LOOP: -48%. STRZ: -47%.

Their current ads are pure hype. I wouldn’t buy into any of MF’s subscription services anymore. I’ve lost far too much money with them as it is. They’re now officially worse than BullTrade, and that says a lot!

Warrior

Does the Motley Fool actually beat the market? Yes, but be careful about relying on the average returns they post on their website. Average returns are skewed towards positive picks with returns over 100%. Remember a stock can only go down 100% but it can go up infinitely in theory.

Mark Hulbert of the Hulbert Financial Digest provides annual returns on all Motley Fool newsletters. These are numbers you should consider if you want to subscribe to an MF newsletter, since as investors consider how are portfolios compound annually…we do not measure average gains.

The numbers below are from the Mark Hulbert and are compared to the Wilshire 5000 Index in annual terms. The numbers are tracked since inception for each individual newsletter.

Hidden Gems 15.9% vs. 8.7% for the Wilshire 5000

Rule Breakers 1.5% vs. 6.7% for the Wilshire 5000

Income Investor 9.8% vs. 8.0% for the Wilshire 5000

Inside Value 8.7% vs. 7.0% for the Wilshire 5000

Annual numbers don’t lie, be careful of which newsletter you choose. This performance shows that the Motley Fool does pretty good for itself. Although their returns are not much better than many mutual funds.

Craig

YOU are the fool if you listen to the MF crap.

Why do they shill and charge so much? Because they now have HUNDREDS Of a-holes working for them…gotta pay the bills!

It would be much better for them to reduce to 4 or 5 total staff and work with volunteers and the public…..alas, they won’t do that as long as FOOLS pay the bills.

Worse yet, they are somehow feeding shill headlines to Yahoo and others…what a pain. I’ll have to find another financial site.

sherry

I received a Motley Fool Pro invitation that was long and involved and contained

“The most exciting development in my lifetime as an investor”
— David Gardner, Motley Fool co-founder

It dazzled a NASA scientist and forced a hedge fund
pioneer out of retirement. Now, there’s proof it can
propel you past 99.4% of investors — even in a
stomach-churning market like this …

Motley Fool Pro is dealing in the following:

PUT and CALL options, for example, can juice our gains in up and
down markets, generate excess passive income, and reduce overall
volatility.

In addition to options, you’ve also expressed an interest in
profiting from and learning more about…
– Exchange traded funds (ETFs), both long and short
– Individual short positions
– Market neutral long/short paired trades
– Income-generating energy limited partnerships
– Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs)

For $1500, but if you join now it will be $500 off.

A hugely long email that they kept sending –”only 36 hours left” “offer ends tonight at 11:59 pm.” As so many of the above posts state they seem to be fishing and using techniques to push people into it. I feel it’s a bit like snake oil.

Did anyone get the same invite and what do you think of that and the evolvement of all these Million Dollar Portfolio etc so called premium investment vehicles.

Coffeyshop

I agree that TMF hides their customer support number…that should be a red flag – both to the company and the consumer. I however found it quite easily despite their best efforts to hide by simply typing in their address to google maps. Once I called their Alexandria VA long distance number of (703) 838-3665‎, they “kindly” gave up their toll-free number of (888) 665-3665.

Mark

I have a copy of The Motley Fool’s book “Rule Breakers, Rule Makers,” published in 1999. The book basically says you should buy America OnLine, Cisco, Coca Cola, Dell, Disney, Gap, Intel, KMart, Microsoft, Nike, Pfizer, Schering Plough. 10 years later, every single one of these stocks is down at least 30%. If you’d put equal dollars into each back then, you’d still be down 65% after 10 long years! How can these guys even have a career after publishing something like that? It’s got to be the worst call since British prime minister Neville Chamberlain’s 1938 claim that we’d have “peace for our time.” It’s like Cramer pumping internet stocks for five years and then having the chutzpah to publish a book called “You Got Screwed.” As if it wasn’t him doing the thrusting.
Anyone who listens to these morons deserves to lose all their money.

BT

I agree that Motley Fool’s marketing tactics are a bit excessive. However, many of you sound like a bunch of contrite whiners. First of all, I found this site because I’m trying to see if there are alternatives to MF. What I find instead are a bunch of complainers that offer no alternatives. If MF is so bad, what else is out there that’s better?

Second, even though the marketing tactics are annoying, you have to admit that $140 to $200 / year isn’t bad if you consider what it costs to hand over your money to a financial adviser. If you don’t want to manage your own investments, then maybe that’s what you should do. However, paying for MF empowers you to manage your own portfolio and take the risks along with the rewards. Yes, it would be nice if it was a free service but that isn’t realistic.

Finally, some of you sound like a bunch of welfare recipients. The term entitlement comes to mind. It appears that you feel entitled to making it rich in a declining economy if you invest in the MF. I have used MF in the past and withdrew my money from the stock market before the economy tanked–the signs were there. I am responsible for my own money not MF. You have to use some common sense and do some homework if you’re to be successful. If you honestly feel that there are better alternatives, what are they? I’m interested.

Chris

I also just received the Motley Fool Pro advertisement. To be honest, Fool provides some really sound commentary out there in terms of analysis of macro factors, and as a subscriber to Hidden Gems, I was able to walk through their reasoning for their purchases – THAT was what I found most helpful, not just picking what they chose. In fact, I didn’t invest in anything except for two of their pics. But they really do what they set out to do: teach; and I can apply their principles on my own. The whole idea of buying/selling what they buy/sell and this whole Motley Fool Pro thing (now it’s 2000, or 1,500 if today act now) isn’t my cup of tea in general, but I’m sure pro and the rest of MF still offers really great analysis.

Look into gurufocus.com perhaps. I’m not sure what style of investor you are, but gurufocus has some good stuff from the value perspective.

Li

Motley Fools uses dishonest practice of getting rid of their services that are not performing well. I subscribed to their Pay Dirt service and set up a mock portfolio with their first 8 recommendations to track their earnings. Now the entire portfolio is down -48.01% when AAPL, which lost half of its value during the mortgage crisis, is back up to -25.51% during the same period. You won’t see that bad score on their homepage. They have swept it under the rug and come up with new products that still “beats” the S&P500. What scammers.