BEWARE of Pearl Lee of Janney Montgomery Scott in Philadelphia, PA.
This woman is morally bankrupt and a complete fraud in both her professional and personal life!

In 2005, Pearl Lee Gitter was a financial advisor with Morgan Stanley Dean Witter. At that time, her future brother-in-law and co-worker, Steve left Morgan Stanley for another financial firm. Immediately after his departure from Morgan Stanley, Pearl Lee did not hesitate to seize Steve's richest of clients for herself. It may be a common practice for an investment firm to make every effort to retain their clients and convince them to not move with their adviser but for Pearl Lee, it did not morally compute in her head that Steve was FAMILY. Greed took over.

Anyone with an ounce of decency and basic morals would know not to steal, especially from friends and family. But Pearl Lee lack these convictions and got caught. She says she was deeply sorry, regretted it and profusely apologized to Steve and his team of associates. Because no damage was done, Steve forgave her. The lesson Pearl Lee claimed to have learned, "Never take advantage of family".

Fast forward to 2011, Pearl Lee is now with Janney Montgomery (she left Morgan Stanley in 2006). In 2011, she received her first FINRA investigation due to a complaint filed against her. Who filed it?
Her own brother (the closest member of her nuclear family).
In the first 4 years with Janney (2006-2010), she needed to meet her monthly quota and the easiest prey among her clientele list - her own brother.
She took advantage of his trust and naivety of the market and made over 140+ unnecessary trades on his small IRA accounts between 2006-2010 - basically decimated his retirement portfolio.
She bought stocks high and sold them low.
She bought him long term mutual funds and sold them in less than 6 months.
She made his retirement account fluid and would not stop CHURNING - charging over $3000 per year in fees and commissions. And she did all this with no regrets.

When her brother discovered her actions, he confronted her.
Unlike her brother-in-law Steve, damage was already done.
When given a choice to make restitution or face retribution, she chose money over her own family. This is the very nature, the true colors of Pearl Lee - Selfish Greed! Her brother reported her to FINRA who agreed to investigate.

So to anyone who is a current client or about to use Pearl Lee as their financial adviser, beware and consider this! If Pearl Lee is reckless, irresponsible and greedy with her own family member's financial accounts, how do you think she would manage your life savings and investments? She is deceptive and does not learn from the mistakes of her past. Money is her god! Be forewarned.

Pearl Lee has absolutely no integrity and no morals when it comes to money. Her betrayal deserves nothing but contempt!
I would know - I am her brother!

Wall street stockbrokers are money-hungry, bottom dwelling evil cretins.
They do not possess the fiduciary duty to protect you and your investments.
They are in this profession for themselves.
They don't care about your retirement future.

http://www.slate.com/articles/business/the_customer/2011/01/does_your_broker_love_you.html

Pearl Lee Gitter of Janney Montgomery Scott in Philadelphia, PA is my sister. I use to be the closest member of her nuclear family! I use to look up to her and would do anything for her and for her happiness. As a close family member, it would never cross my mind to do anything to hurt, harm or take advantage of my big sister, it was just NOT in my nature. Never would I have imagined Greed was COMPLETELY her true colors. Pearl Lee has betrayed me with such reprehensible enormity. Today, I DESPISE everything about this woman.

There are many facets to Pearl Lee's true ugliness, but the bottomline is - she is a Greedy, Lying, Selfish, Self-serving Cheap $#*!! To sum it up, I highlighted Pearl Lee's hubris and betrayal of my Past, Present and Future!

Future - I had invested my savings and transferred ALL my 401Ks to an IRA with Pearl's financial firm for 18 years. The last 4 years with Janney Montgomery Scott (2006-2010), Pearl had manipulated my trust and CHURNED my retirement account, she had me paying Janney over $3000 every year in fees and commissions. I had 2 small IRA accounts (a traditional and a Roth) that had a total of 140+ trades in 4 years, averaging about 2.5 trades per month. Pearl made both my IRAs fluid and she did not care that she was decimating my retirement portfolio. She would tell me she wants to diversify my portfolio but her hidden and only agenda was to make a commission at my expense. She got greedy and careless and bought stocks high and sold low; she bought me long term mutual funds and sold them in less than 6 months. The total amount of my IRAs in 2010 when I fired Pearl was LESS than when I first opened the accounts in 2006. Needless to say after 18 years, I made more money for Pearl than she did for me. She did not care and did not uphold her promise of fiduciary responsibility for me, her brother and her client.

Present - Every gift, every act of generosity and even "the thought that counts", if Pearl bestowed gifts or attributes upon me, it always came with a price tag. She made sure that I OWE her and that she got paid (by money reimbursement, exchange for something better or by labor - fixing, moving, painting, etc). Any Win-Win between Pearl and I, you can be sure Pearl manipulated a bigger Win. She is the cheapest Millionaire sister - every birthday, Christmas or housewarming gift, you can be sure the amount she had spent on my gift was minimal or it didn't cost her anything. Even petty items that have no value to her but she thought would benefit me, she would try to sell it to me. Pearl never contributes to anyone or anything unless there is some return in her investment - this is how she lives her life. Don't be fooled by her charity or volunteerism, there is no altruistic bone in her body. I have heard someone say "Frugality in a woman is the most unattractive" - this would explain why Pearl never found a mate in her 20's, 30's, 40's and even in her 50's. Needless to say, for Pearl to finally get married in her 60's to someone in his 70's was more a marriage of convenience and less about love (and to finally rid herself of the 'spinster' stigma), but I am fully certain a prenup that benefits her was signed.

Past - Pearl was 17yo when I was born and she kept from me the biggest SECRET about my birth. The knowledge about my adoption (DNA confirmed) lifted a dark cloud of UNANSWERED questions I held my entire life as to why I was so different from everyone in the Lee family and why both my parents were always indifferent to me. Growing up in this dysfunctional family was completely at odds with the cultural "son in a Chinese family" dynamics. This knowledge that I was adopted was a paradigm shift and a cure for my personal self-esteem and Pearl deliberately WITHHELD this medicine from me. When confronted, her pathetic explanation to divert blame had changed from "I never knew, I never put 2-and-2 together" to "I suspected, but everybody suspected". The reason why she never told me is simply, IT DID NOT BENEFIT HER. However, there was more of a possible risk that I may react negatively and turn against her knowing the truth. In the end, the evil part of all this is knowing that this woman had used this secret to her own advantage by manipulating me, obligating the male son in this Chinese family by having me PROMISE to care for her in her senior years since she is childless.

In summary, there is a silver lining to this story!
An old Serbian proverb says - "A greedy person has thieves for children".
It is a BLESSING to the world if that person never reproduced!
Count yourself lucky for never crossing path with this greedy, selfish woman!
The life and memory of Pearl Lee deserves nothing but contempt!

Pearl Lee (married name: Gitter) was my Financial Adviser at Janney Montgomery Scott.
This woman's business ethics is completely without integrity nor morals.
She would take advantage of any opportunity that would garner her financial benefits without crossing any legal lines - all at the unknowing expense of the client.

Pearl Lee's ability to dispense financial advice to persuade her clients is all driven by "How can this benefit me"? Beware, she is very deceptive!

One tactic she did to my account fooled even Janney, having the company think she made money in my retirement account when she clearly did not. This deceptive tactic was done at the end of December when all her clients portfolio performance were to be evaluated by yearend.

Few years ago, I liquidated some stocks from my IRA that was performing poorly and asked Pearl to withdraw $31,000 for personal emergency. She did without hesitation.
But here's what happened, in December of that same year, Pearl made another $31,000 exact amount withdraw from the same IRA account.
However, after the withdraw, she recanted and deposited that amount back into my account.
By doing this, she can cleverly explain, "Opps sorry, I made a mistake but immediately corrected it. No harm".

Well I strongly believe this was completely intentional.
How convenient for this "mistake" to happen on the last business day of December.
In addition, making a withdraw on an IRA cannot be a simple keystroke "mistake", there are penalties involved for the client. To withdraw, Pearl must authorize the amount, add her password and do a verification for this action to be executed.

Here is how she fooled Janney.
The 2 cash withdraw would use the same transaction code in Janney's computer system.
However, there is a different code to return the money.

When Janney evaluated my IRA portfolio, all they look at is the starting balance and ending balance. They would calculate any amount contributed into my IRA and of course, any withdrawals. Since the transaction code for withdraws are the same, the 2 withdrawals were factored in giving the illusion I had took home $62,000.
They did not factor in that other code that nullified the 2nd withdraw in December.
So for an account that was performing poorly, Janney would see and believed Pearl did an excellent job and made money in my IRA (and that of course would dictate bonuses, rewards or advancements, if any, for her).

Those of you who are still her clients, take note.
This is just one greedy tactic out of many she would do to fool her unsuspecting clients.
If you made a withdraw on an account that has performed poorly (thanks to her) and by year end, another withdraw of that same amount was "mistakenly" executed but rectified, she is using you.

Do not reward her for poor performance. Fire her immediately!