RiverSource Distributors Accused of Targeting Retail Ameriprise Financial Customers With VA Sales The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is ordering Ameriprise’s subsidiary brokerage firm, RiverSource Distributors, to pay a $5M fine for alleged violations involving variable annuities (VAs). The regulator contends that several RiverSource employees came up with a…
FINRA Settlement Includes Restitution to More than 2,400 Customers In an agreement reached with the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA), Transamerica Financial Advisors consented to pay $8.8M over the unsuitable sales of mutual funds, variable annuities (VAs) and 529 savings plans to customers. $4.4M of this is a fine and…
New FINRA Arbitration Claim Seeks $260K in Damages Former Wells Fargo Clearing Services (WRET) broker Herbert Lee Weith IV is named in yet another customer dispute in which the claimant is seeking damages for losses involving variable annuities. Weith, who was a Wells Fargo broker from 2012 to 2019 in…
An egg-farming family based in New York has been awarded $3.2M in its Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) arbitration claim against AXA Financial. The claimants are an older couple, Sandra and James Fitzpatrick, who own Fitzpatrick Poultry Farm. They contend that Franceso Puccio, an ex-AXA Financial broker, placed their money…
The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has secured a final judgment against ex-Alexander Capital broker William Gennity, who is accused of excessive churning in clients’ brokerage accounts. Gennity, whom the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) had earlier suspended, will pay nearly $128K in disgorgement, nearly $15K in prejudgment interest,…
Just a few weeks after former Wells Fargo (WFC) broker John Gregory Schmidt consented to a final judgment in the US Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC) investor fraud case against him, the regulator announced that it has barred Schmidt for misappropriating more than $1.3M from clients, most of them elderly…
Investors Alleging Negligence and Mishandling of Their Retirement Funds Win FINRA Case A Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) panel arbitration is ordering First Allied Securities and financial adviser Larry Glenn Boggs to pay claimants and early retirees Nita and Mike Snow over $578K in compensatory damages, $500,000 in punitive damages,…
The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority is ordering CFD Investments to pay a $125K fine over what the self-regulatory authority (SRO) found to be the inadequate supervision of its registered representatives when they sold variable annuities(VAs) to customers. FINRA said that between 7/2014 and 7/2016 the broker-dealer did not set up,…
The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) is ordering H. Beck to pay a $400K fine. The self-regulatory authority (SRO) contends that the independent brokerage firm sold variable annuities (VA) to clients even though they were not suitable for some of them. According to FINRA, of the over 7,000 variable annuity…
Ameritas Investment Corp. Must Pay $180K for Inadequate Supervision Involving VA Sales The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority is ordering Ameritas to pay $180K for an inadequate supervisory system that oversaw its multi-share class variable annuity sales. The self-regulatory organization claims that between 9/2013 and 7/2015, the brokerage firm failed in…