Broker Fraud

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Published on: November 22, 2022 | by Shepherd Smith Edwards & Kantas, LLP

Secured Income Group Investors May Be Victims of Alleged $100M Investment Fraud

If you are someone who invested in Secured Income Group, you may be reeling from the news that in September 2022, the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filed civil charges accusing the real estate investment company, its owner/President Max McDermott, and investor relations representative Stacey Porter with running an alleged $100M offering fraud. $99.9M of “Secured Debentures” were reportedly offered to investors, including many non-accredited investors.

Secured Debentures were touted as safe, “CD-like” even, only with a higher yield. Secured Income Group claimed that it would hold the loans it made, as well as corresponding security interests while collecting income from them. It was from this income that investors were told to expect 6% to 9% in interest rate payments. Instead, many of them have suffered significant investment losses.

What Is Stockbroker Misconduct?

Published on: November 8, 2022 | by Shepherd Smith Edwards & Kantas, LLP

Our Seasoned Brokerage Firm Arbitration Attorneys Are Here To Help Recover Investor Losses when Stockbroker misconduct is Suspected

There are different kinds of broker misconduct that can be committed by registered representatives and/or their broker-dealers. There is, of course, the most egregious kind, which is when a financial advisor purposely commits stockbroker fraud by running an investment scam or misappropriating investors’ funds by theft. These are crimes that should be prosecuted. However, criminal fraud charges don’t always lead to recovery of investor losses for victims. The same can be said for the outcomes of civil cases filed by the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA), or a state securities regulator against a broker-dealer.

For over 30 years, Shepherd Smith Edwards and Kantas (investorlawyers.com) has been fighting for investors pursuing damages from their broker-dealers and financial advisors. With savvy FINRA lawyers representing you, filing your own broker misconduct against your brokerage firm can increase your chances for a full, or even partial, financial recovery.

How Can Our Broker Misconduct Attorneys Help with Investment Fraud?

Published on: November 8, 2022 | by Shepherd Smith Edwards & Kantas, LLP

What Are Common Types of Investment Fraud and How Can Our Broker Misconduct Attorneys Help?

Every day, there are financial scammers out there looking to steal money from unsuspecting investors. Some of these fraudsters are registered brokers using the legitimacy of their profession and the brokerage firms they are employed by to hide their schemes while targeting customers.

If you are someone whose financial advisor defrauded you in some type of investment fraud, our skilled broker misconduct attorneys at Shepherd Smith Edwards and Kantas (investorlawyers.com) may be able to help you pursue damages against the broker-dealer, which should have detected there were red flags and protected you from sustaining significant investment losses.

When Failure To Supervise Requires a Broker Fraud Attorney

Published on: November 8, 2022 | by Shepherd Smith Edwards & Kantas, LLP

When Failure To Supervise Enables Broker Fraud

Texas Retirees Whose Financial Advisor Stole Their Savings File FINRA Arbitration Claim Against Planmember Securities

As their customer, your broker-dealer has a fiduciary duty to properly supervise your accounts and your financial advisor’s activities when working with you. Unfortunately, failure to supervise these types of financial firms happens way too often. This lack of oversight makes it easy for stockbroker mistakes and wrongful misconduct to happen, which can lead to serious investor losses. That is why it is important to know when failure to supervise requires a broker fraud attorney to recover losses.

What is Breach of Fiduciary Duty by a Stockbroker?

Published on: September 19, 2022 | by Shepherd Smith Edwards & Kantas, LLP

When Your Financial Advisor Fails To Act In Your Best Interests

Your registered broker-dealer owes you a fiduciary obligation to act in your best interests. Unfortunately, this doesn’t always happen. Instead, your financial advisor might have unsuitably recommended an investment or trading strategy that was too risky for your risk tolerance level or engaged in unauthorized trading in your brokerage account without your permission. You also may have been the victim of outright broker fraud in which misappropriation or theft was involved. This is where our securities attorneys step in and help you.

Bottom line, financial advisors and their brokerage firms who breach their fiduciary duty to customers are placing them at risk of suffering significant investment losses. This is why breach of fiduciary is often what our securities lawyers hear as one of the most common claims made by investors seeking to pursue damages against a broker-dealer.

Did Your Broker Recommend You Invest In The Deeproot Funds?

Published on: September 15, 2022 | by Shepherd Smith Edwards & Kantas, LLP

You May Be The Victim of a $58M Ponzi Scam

More than one year after the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filed a civil lawsuit against deeproot Funds and its owner Robert J. Mueller accusing them of running an alleged $58M Ponzi Scam that defrauded nearly 300 investors, these same alleged victims are still struggling to recover their losses without a securities attorney. Unfortunately, waiting for the SEC’s case to conclude very likely won’t help deeproot investors get most, or maybe even any, of their money back. The Commission’s main priorities in these types of complaints are to hold parties that violate securities laws responsible and issue sanctions and penalties against them.

This is why if you are a deeproot investor, it is important that you explore your legal options with the help of a skilled Texas securities lawyer. You will want to go after your broker-dealer or financial advisor that recommended this speculative, unregistered, risky private investment vehicle while very likely failing to conduct the proper due diligence to ensure that the deeproot Funds were legitimate investment ventures.

Ex-Transamerica Financial Advisors Broker Scott Allen Fries Ordered To Pay Over $747K For Allegedly Defrauding Investors

Published on: April 21, 2022 | by Shepherd Smith Edwards & Kantas, LLP

SEC Obtains Default Judgment Against Former Cincinnati, Ohio Registered Representative

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has obtained a default judgment against Scott Allen Fries. He was a Transamerica Financial Advisors registered representative from 2014 to 2019.

The regulator’s amended complaint accuses the former broker and investment advisor of raising approximately $458K from at least ten investors, including customers from the brokerage firm, and using the funds to pay for his personal expenses. Fries is barred from further fraud violations and must pay disgorgement of $428,334.53, a civil penalty of $208,500, and a prejudgment interest of $110,548.02.

FINRA Suspends Ex-Stifel Nicolaus Broker Andrew Elsoffer for Two Years

Published on: March 10, 2022 | by Kirk G. Smith

Ohio Financial Advisor Andrew Elsoffer Named in Multiple Customer Disputes

Andrew Bruce Elsoffer, who Stifel, Nicolaus & Co. fired in 2018, is suspended by the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) for two years, beginning March 7, 2022. The suspension comes in the wake of customer allegations that he exercised discretion in their accounts without their written authorization.

He also allegedly lent money to one client, his personal friend, for home renovations without the firm’s approval. The friend later repaid him.

Former UBS Broker German Nino Allegedly Stole $5.8M From Client

Published on: January 31, 2022 | by Shepherd Smith Edwards & Kantas, LLP

Ex-UBS Financial Services Advisor Faces SEC and Criminal Charges

German Nino, a former UBS Financial Services (UBS) broker and investment advisor, is accused of stealing $5.8M from a customer. Nino, who left the broker-dealer in 2020, is now facing related civil charges brought by the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), and parallel criminal charges.

Our Florida broker misconduct lawyers are looking into claims of significant investment losses by other ex-customers of the financial advisor, German Nino. Contact us at Shepherd Smith Edwards and Kantas today so that we can help you determine whether you have grounds for a FINRA arbitration claim to file for damages.

Ex-Western International Securities Broker Megurditch Patatian Allegedly Unsuitably Recommended Non-Traded REITs to Investors

Published on: October 26, 2021 | by Shepherd Smith Edwards & Kantas, LLP

FINRA Claims Former Financial Advisor Also Cost Investors Over Variable Annuities

The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) has filed a complaint accusing ex-Western International Securities registered representative Megurditch Mike Patatian of unsuitably recommending to 59 customers that they purchase non-traded real estate investment trusts (non-traded REITs). According to the self-regulatory organization (SRO), Patatian lacked reasonable grounds to make 81 recommendations to these customers. Not only that, but for four of the non-traded REIT sales at issue, the ex-financial advisor recommended that they surrender their variable annuities (VAs), which caused them to have to pay surrender fees and incur taxes.

These purportedly unsuitable recommendations which caused investors to lose money, occurred while Patatian was with Western International Securities in Westlake Village, CA. (After leaving that brokerage firm in 2020, he became a Supreme Alliance broker for less than a year in Charlotte, North Carolina.)