{"id":3647,"date":"2016-07-19T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2016-07-19T05:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/stockbrokerfraudblog.blawgcloud.com\/2016\/07\/prudential_annuities_to_pay_95"},"modified":"2022-03-22T16:09:16","modified_gmt":"2022-03-22T21:09:16","slug":"prudential-annuities-to-pay-95","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.investorlawyers.com\/blog\/prudential-annuities-to-pay-95\/","title":{"rendered":"Prudential Annuities Fined $950K for Not Stopping Broker From Stealing $1.3M from Elderly Customer\u2019s Variable Annuity Account"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority is fining Prudential Annuities Distributors Inc. $950K for not identifying and stopping a senior fraud scam that allowed a broker to steal $1.3M from an older investor\u2019s<a href=\"https:\/\/www.stockbroker-fraud.com\"> variable annuity <\/a>account. The self-regulatory organization said that the firm failed on numerous occasions to properly investigate \u201cred flags\u201d indicating that Travis Weitzel was moving money from the 89-year-old\u2019s VA account to a bank account listed under the maiden name of Wetzel\u2019s wife.<\/p>\n<p>According to FINRA, from 6\/10 until 9\/12, Wetzel turned in 114 forged annuity withdrawal requests to Prudential Annuities. He initiated up to five withdrawals a month, totaling close to $50K. He asked for the money to be wired from the elderly customer\u2019s account to the third-party account of his wife. <\/p>\n<p>The SRO said that Prudential Annuities did as Wetzel instructed without properly investigating the warning signs. When the firm looked at certain withdrawals during several quarterly audits, it saw that the money was going to a third party and determined that these were legitimate transactions. Prudential also purportedly failed to discern what the relationship was between the elderly customer and the third-party account holder.\n<\/p>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.investorlawyers.com\/blog\/prudential-annuities-to-pay-95\/#more-3647\" class=\"more-link\">Continue Reading \u203a<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority is fining Prudential Annuities Distributors Inc. $950K for not identifying and stopping a senior fraud scam that allowed a broker to steal $1.3M from an older investor\u2019s variable annuity account. The self-regulatory organization said that the firm failed on numerous occasions to properly investigate \u201cred flags\u201d indicating that Travis Weitzel [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3803,3884],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3647","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-senior-investors","category-variable-annuities"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Prudential Annuities Fined $950K for Not Stopping Broker From Stealing $1.3M from Elderly Customer\u2019s Variable Annuity Account &#8212; Investor Lawyers Blog &#8212; July 19, 2016<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority is fining Prudential Annuities Distributors Inc. $950K for not identifying and stopping a senior fraud scam &#8212; July 19, 2016\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.investorlawyers.com\/blog\/prudential-annuities-to-pay-95\/\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:title\" content=\"Prudential Annuities Fined $950K for Not Stopping Broker From Stealing $1.3M from Elderly Customer\u2019s Variable Annuity Account &#8212; Investor Lawyers Blog &#8212; July 19, 2016\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:description\" content=\"The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority is fining Prudential Annuities Distributors Inc. $950K for not identifying and stopping a senior fraud scam &#8212; July 19, 2016\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Shepherd Smith Edwards &amp; Kantas, LLP\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Prudential Annuities Fined $950K for Not Stopping Broker From Stealing $1.3M from Elderly Customer\u2019s Variable Annuity Account &#8212; 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