In a recent survey conducted by Fair Isaac, the company behind the FICO credit score, 79 percent of respondents said that financial professionals were their most trusted source for personal finance and credit information. (Family members came in second at 70 percent.)

That doesn't really surprise me, but it sure concerns me. The fact is that there are plenty of professionals out there who sell clients financial products that put a lot of money in the adviser's pocket regardless of whether they're truly the best choice for the client.

I'm not making a blanket statement that all financial professionals are bad; that's how I got my start as one back in the 1980s, after all. But you really need to do your homework to make sure anyone giving you financial advice is giving you good advice.

Here are five signs that a financial advisor may not have your best interests at heart:

1. You own a mutual fund with the letter "B" in its name.

B-share funds are bad news. While it's true that you pay no sales commission (or load) when you first invest in the fund, you could be hit with a load when you try to leave the fund.

These funds are known as deferred-sales charge funds: If you cash out in the first year you'll pay a commission of, say, 5 percent of the money you pull out; if you leave in the second year , the fee is 4 percent, and so on. After five years or so you typically won't pay a fee when you sell.

But the longer you stay invested in the fund the longer you'll be paying a very steep expense ratio. That's the annual charge all mutual fund investors pay on their investment. The problem with B share funds is that the expense ratio can be 1.5 percent a year or more, because a big portion of that charge goes to pay the advisor who sold you the fund.

When you compare that to index funds or ETFs, which have expense ratios that can be just two-tenths of a percentage point or less (0.20 percent), it's a huge difference. Your advisor is doing well, but the high expense ratio you're paying makes it harder for you to do well.

2. You pay the advisor through commissions rather than a flat rate.

A financial advisor -- which can just be a gussied-up name for broker -- who makes all of his or her money on commissions for the investments you buy and sell obviously has an interest in getting you to do a lot of buying and selling. And it's not unreasonable to see that the advisor has a financial incentive to get you to pay high commissions.

How is that good for you? You and your money deserve a better deal than an advisor who works solely on commission can offer. A better arrangement is to work with an advisor you pay a flat annual fee to rather than per-trade commissions.

A typical advisor fee might be 1 percent to 1.5 percent or so. But again, you need to be careful that your advisor is taking good care of your money. If you're paying an advisor 1 percent or so a year for his fee, and the advisor is then turning around and putting you in mutual funds with annual expense ratios of around 1.5 percent, your total investing costs are way too high.