ATTORNEY NEWSLETTER
Seniors: Watch Out for Fraud by Financial Advisors, Insurance Agents, and Stock Brokers
If You’re a Victim, We Can Help
Unscrupulous insurance agents, financial and investment advisors, retirement planners, and stock brokers prey on seniors in particular. After all, seniors hold 1/3 of the nation’s wealth. Seniors may also be more receptive to higher return investment opportunities in a low interest rate environment. Be careful. Certain advisors and brokers may put their commissions before your interests when recommending new investments; they don’t earn money if seniors keep clipping coupons off municipal bonds.
The San Francisco and California securities fraud and financial elder abuse attorneys at Evans Law Firm, Inc. represent California consumers, especially seniors, who have suffered from fraud and/or financial elder abuse at the hands of insurance agents, financial advisors and stockbrokers selling them inappropriate or unsuitable investments including annuities, churning their accounts or their annuities, and/or failing to disclose important information. Call us today at (415)441-8669.
Here are a few recently reported cases[1] of financial elder abuse from the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA):
Excessive Trading: FINRA suspended a broker for engaging in excessive short-term trading in several elderly client accounts, including a 95-year old widow who lost $283,000 and a couple in their 70s who lost $239,000. They were each charged more than $260,000 and $210,000, respectively, in commissions and markups.
Control of Customer Accounts: A stockbroker was permanently barred for her role in taking control over two customer accounts and misappropriating funds. According to FINRA, the broker received $9,000 from a terminally ill client after inducing him to name her as the beneficiary of a “transfer-on-death” bank account. The broker also received over $60,000 following the death of an elderly client that had named the broker as a joint owner on their bank account; and another $248,000 as a beneficiary of the customer’s estate.
Theft & Embezzlement: FINRA barred a former stockbroker affiliated with Waddell & Reed for reportedly stealing money from his own mother’s brokerage account. The broker plead guilty to embezzlement and elder financial abuse and was given a two-year suspended sentence
If you are a senior, an agent’s or advisor’s misconduct may constitute financial elder abuse entitling you to extra damages and reimbursement of your attorneys’ fees and costs for bringing an action to recover from economic injury. If that has happened to you, call us today. Our lawyers fight for seniors every day in California courts when they have been financially exploited by brokers, insurance agents, retirement planners, financial advisors, and others. If a new broker reaches out to you, do a background check at investor.gov. You may want to run a check on your current broker too to see if there have been any complaints. Visit https://brokercheck.finra.org/.
Contact Us
If you or someone you love is the victim of any type of securities fraud or financial elder abuse in California, call Ingrid M. Evans and the other San Francisco and California securities fraud and elder abuse attorneys at Evans Law Firm, Inc. at (415) 441-8669, or by email at <a href=”mailto:info@evanslaw.com”>info@evanslaw.com</a>. Our attorneys have experience with fraud and financial elder abuse cases and complex qui tam or whistleblower cases including offshore tax avoidance cases, complex financial contract cases and cases against large insurance companies. We can help guide your case through a FINRA Arbitration, jury trial or toward an equitable settlement. We also handle cases involving physical elder abuse, nursing home abuse, whole life insurance and universal life insurance, and indexed, variable, and fixed annuities.
[1] Evans Law Firm, Inc. was not involved in any of these cases.
