Raymond James Financial
Financials
60
out of 100. Number 125 of 512, counting from the worst.
Where Raymond James Financial does well
- Renewals 2 of 20. Few problems found.
- The privacy notice explicitly states Raymond James does not 'sell' personal information and does not share with nonaffiliates so they can market to you — a hard no where many peers share.
- Despite the sneaky compensation-change clause, the total advisory fee cannot be increased without the client's consent — a meaningful guardrail.
- State-law opt-in protections are honored: California and Vermont residents must give affirmative consent before an advisor can take their data to a new firm, and RJ Bank/Trust entities don't share for joint marketing.
- The full FINRA-mandated pre-dispute arbitration disclosures are printed in the client agreement — jury waiver, limited appeal rights, limited discovery, industry-affiliated arbitrators, time limits — more candid than peers that bury this.
Opening a Raymond James account means you waive your right to sue in court or have a jury trial, and any dispute must go to binding FINRA arbitration with very limited appeal rights.
The fine print
6 clauses and findings from the draft archive, dated 1 October 2026. The plain English comes first; the small print is the company's own words. None of these has been checked yet.
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Opening a Raymond James account means you waive your right to sue in court or have a jury trial, and any dispute must go to binding FINRA arbitration with very limited appeal rights. Class actions are barred from arbitration. Note: the agreement candidly admits your arbitrators may include people affiliated with the securities industry.
This Agreement contains a predispute arbitration clause. By signing an arbitration agreement the parties agree as follows: 1. All parties to this Agreement are giving up the right to sue each other in court, including the right to a trial by jury, except as provided by the rules of the arbitration forum in which a claim is filed. 2. Arbitration awards are generally final and binding; a party's ability to have a court reverse or modify an arbitration award is very limited. 4. The arbitrators do not have to explain the reason(s) for their decision... 5. The panel of arbitrators will typically include a minority of arbitrators who were or are affiliated with the securities industry... No person shall bring a putative or certified class action to arbitration... Any dispute or controversy... will be resolved by arbitration conducted before FINRA, pursuant to the FINRA Arbitration Code, and in accordance with the Federal Arbitration Act (Title 9 of the United States Code).
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Raymond James can rewrite its website terms at any time without telling you, and merely visiting the site again counts as agreeing to the new terms — no email, no clickwrap, no consent step.
We reserve the right to add, delete or otherwise modify the TOU (or any Supplemental Agreements) at any time without notice to You. The most current version of the TOU can be reviewed by clicking on the 'Terms of Use' link located at the bottom of this Website. Any continued use of the Website after such additions, deletions or modifications shall be deemed to constitute acceptance by you of the additions, deletions or modifications.
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Raymond James can re-cut how your fees are split among the advisor, the manager, and the firm at any time without telling you or asking permission — the only protection is that the total fee can't go up without your consent. Changes hidden inside the components of the fee are fair game.
Client agrees the financial advisor's, AMS's and Raymond James's compensation may be changed at any time without notice to or consent from Client; however, in no event will the total Fee charged to Client's Account be increased without Client's consent.
Raymond James Research Portfolios Investment Management Client Agreement (IMAC Form 1521, 12/2024)
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Raymond James shares your personal data to market its own products and for joint marketing with outside financial companies (banks and credit unions are named as partners), and federal law gives you no right to limit either. The firm says it doesn't 'sell' data — but it shares it for marketing freely.
For our marketing purposes — to offer our products and services to you: Does Raymond James share? Yes. Can you limit this sharing? No. | For joint marketing with other financial companies: Yes. Can you limit this sharing? No. | Please note that Raymond James does not 'sell' your personal information, with 'sell' meaning the disclosure of personal information to a third party for monetary or other valuable consideration.
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Closing your account doesn't stop Raymond James from sharing your personal information with affiliates and joint-marketing partners — the sharing continues indefinitely with no stated end date or deletion timeline.
When you are no longer our customer, we continue to share your information as described in this notice.
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Unless you affirmatively opt in in writing to FINRA Rule 5320 protection, Raymond James reserves the right to trade the same security for its own account alongside your order — potentially ahead of it — without your approval. Similarly, all institutional orders are treated as 'Not Held,' which 'provides RJA with discretion... [to] trade in the security for our own account prior to the completion of your order.' Separately, the website Terms of Use gives you only one year to bring any legal claim against the firm ('Any cause of action with respect to the Website or the Content must be commenced by You within one year after the claim or cause of action arises').
For clients who have not opted into Rule 5320 protection, pursuant to FINRA Rule 5320, the Firm reserves the right to trade along with a client's order without approval and/or acknowledgement.
How these were found
Documents relied on (all read directly via official domains, no mirrors): (1) Raymond James Terms of Use, read 2026-10-01 at raymondjames.com/terms-of-use (page shows no revision date); (2) Privacy Notices, Rev. 06/2026, read 2026-10-01 at raymondjames.com/privacy-security-and-account-protection/privacy-notice; (3) Master Client Agreement (mca-clearing.pdf), version code 'MCA CCD 09/25', for accounts introduced via correspondent/clearing relationships — PDF text extraction came through partially scrambled, so the unilateral-amendment clause below is presented as a close paraphrase rather than verbatim; the arbitration section extracted cleanly; (4) Raymond James Research Portfolios Investment Management Client Agreement (Form IMAC 1521, 12/2024), read 2026-10-01; (5) RJA March 2026 Annual Disclosure to Institutional Clients (FICM-Annual-Disclosure---2024-CLEAN.pdf) — its arbitration and FINRA Rule 5320 / 'Not Held' order provisions are written for institutional clients, so they apply to institutional accounts rather than retail; the retail arbitration clause is from the Master Client Agreement. Raymond James is a FINRA-registered broker-dealer, so pre-dispute arbitration is industry-standard and uses FINRA-mandated disclosure language, but there is no opt-out.
These notes come from the original draft and are not independent verification.