About PlainAdvisorCheck

Our Mission

PlainAdvisorCheck is a free public tool that makes FINRA BrokerCheck disciplinary data accessible and easy to understand for everyday investors. We believe that transparency in financial advisor disciplinary records is essential for investor protection.

Every registered broker and broker-dealer firm in the United States has a public disciplinary record through FINRA BrokerCheck, but most investors do not know this resource exists. Those who find it often struggle to interpret the complex disclosure categories and legal terminology.

Our purpose is to aggregate, grade, and present this data so that investors can quickly assess a financial firm's disciplinary track record before entrusting their money. We do not recommend or endorse any financial firm or advisor. We present publicly available government and regulatory data and let investors make informed decisions.

Financial advisor misconduct causes billions of dollars in losses to individual investors annually. The SEC and FINRA maintain public databases precisely to help investors protect themselves. PlainAdvisorCheck makes these databases more accessible and actionable for the general public.

Data Sources

PlainAdvisorCheck draws from two primary regulatory data sources to build a comprehensive view of broker-dealer disciplinary records:

  • FINRA BrokerCheck: The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority's public database of broker-dealer firms, including disclosure events such as customer complaints, regulatory actions, employment separations, civil proceedings, criminal matters, financial events like bankruptcies and liens, branch-office counts, and registration information. FINRA is the self-regulatory organization that oversees broker-dealers in the United States.
  • SEC EDGAR, Litigation Releases: The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's public enforcement actions, including litigation releases documenting SEC civil lawsuits and administrative proceedings against individuals and firms for securities law violations such as fraud, insider trading, market manipulation, and registration violations.

Both sources contain public domain regulatory data. We do not access non-public records, and we do not modify or editorialize the underlying data. Each firm profile shows the data as reported to FINRA and the SEC.

Methodology

Our data processing methodology is designed to present FINRA BrokerCheck data in a more accessible format than the raw regulatory database. We follow a structured approach:

Firm identification: We query the FINRA BrokerCheck API for registered broker-dealer firms across the United States, capturing CRD numbers, firm names, registration states, and branch-office counts.

Disclosure extraction: For each firm, we extract all publicly available disclosure events from BrokerCheck, including the type of event (customer complaint, regulatory action, arbitration, etc.), the date, and the resolution status. Disclosure categories are defined by FINRA's uniform registration forms.

Grading system: Each firm receives a size-normalized letter grade (A through F). A firm with no reportable BrokerCheck disclosures earns an A regardless of size. Firms that do carry disclosures are ranked by disclosure intensity, their weighted disclosure load per branch office, against other firms of a similar size, so large firms are not penalized simply for operating more offices. FINRA publishes a branch-office count for every firm but not a firmwide registered-representative headcount, so branch footprint is our size measure. This grading system is PlainAdvisorCheck's analytical contribution and is not derived from FINRA or the SEC.

Geographic aggregation: Firms are mapped to their registration states, enabling state-level analysis of disciplinary patterns, average disclosure rates, and grade distributions across the United States.

SEC enforcement matching: SEC litigation releases are parsed and displayed chronologically to provide a timeline of federal enforcement activity, complementing the FINRA firm-level data.

Data Freshness and Update Schedule

FINRA BrokerCheck data is updated by FINRA as firms file required disclosure updates. Our database captures a comprehensive snapshot at the time of our most recent data pull. We periodically re-process the BrokerCheck data to incorporate new disclosures, firm registrations, and disclosure-profile changes.

SEC litigation releases are published on an ongoing basis as enforcement actions are filed. We update our SEC enforcement timeline periodically to include recent releases. Between updates, new enforcement actions and FINRA disclosures may not be reflected in our database.

Always verify current information directly at FINRA BrokerCheck or SEC EDGAR for the most up-to-date records. Our data is a snapshot, not a real-time feed.

Editorial Independence

Content on PlainAdvisorCheck is compiled by our editorial team. Raw data from FINRA BrokerCheck and the SEC EDGAR litigation release archive is transformed into readable firm profiles by our continuous editorial pipeline, validated against the source before publication. The PlainAdvisorCheck editorial team, is responsible for editorial standards, the letter-grade methodology, and corrections.

We do not accept payment, sponsorship, or promoted placement from broker-dealers, registered investment advisers, SEC-regulated firms, or any covered entity. Our only revenue source is contextual display advertising served by Google AdSense, advertisers do not influence which firms we cover, the letter grade assigned, or how disclosure events are presented, and they do not receive preferential placement.

Limitations and Disclaimer

PlainAdvisorCheck is not affiliated with FINRA, the SEC, or any government or regulatory agency. Important limitations to understand:

  • Not investment advice: This site provides publicly available regulatory information for research purposes only. It does not constitute investment advice or endorsement of any financial firm or advisor.
  • Grading system limitations: Our letter grades are based on disclosure intensity relative to firm size and do not account for the severity, resolution, or context of individual disclosure events. A single large regulatory action may be more significant than multiple minor customer complaints.
  • Data completeness: Our database covers a substantial but not exhaustive portion of registered broker-dealer firms. Some firms may be missing or have incomplete disclosure data.
  • Not all disclosures are equal: A customer complaint that was denied or settled for a nominal amount is very different from a regulatory sanction resulting in industry bars. Our grade treats all disclosures equally by count, which is a simplification.
  • Time lag: There is inevitably a delay between when events occur and when they appear in our database. Always check FINRA BrokerCheck directly for the most current information.

Always verify information directly at FINRA BrokerCheck and consult a qualified financial professional before making investment decisions.

Contact

For questions, feedback, or data correction requests, email us at hello@plainadvisorcheck.com. We welcome reports of data discrepancies and suggestions for improving the site.

For corrections to the underlying regulatory data, contact FINRA or the SEC directly, as they maintain the official source records.