According to an October 17, 2007 article in the Wall Street Journal, several states, including New Hampshire and Alabama, are investigating allegations that large numbers of Ameriprise customers are paying hundreds of dollars for financial plans that they never received. Instead, advisors are allegedly forging customer names to make it appear that investors received these expensive plans.
According to the article, Ameriprise spokesman Benjamin minimized the alleged problem by describing these as “isolated incidents.” But are they really so isolated?
Page Perry’s experience suggests otherwise. In March 2007, Page Perry filed an arbitration against Ameriprise Financial Services, Inc. for failure to deliver written financial plans paid for by the client. The client’s financial advisor, operating out of Ameriprise’s Chattanooga, Tennessee branch office, also forged the client’s signature to a number of documents to make it appear as though the client had agreed to pay for the financial plan and had in fact received it. This arbitration is still pending.
Recent history also suggests that these problems are not isolated incidents. Consider, for example, that this past July, a federal judge in New York approved a $100 million class action settlement by investors who alleged that American Express Financial Advisors’ (Ameriprise’s predecessor company) financial plans were generic and were designed as a way to steer clients into proprietary American Express insurance and investment products. According to the class action complaint, the firm imposed sales quotas on its advisors to sell financial plans and proprietary products. Page Perry’s experience suggests that firm-wide quotas lead to firm-wide compliance and suitability problems for customers who are often unsophisticated and looking for an advisor to trust.
In addition, even though not mentioned in the Wall Street Journal article, Ameriprise agreed in October 2007 to pay $225,000 in penalties to Georgia Secretary of State’s office to settle consumer complaints stemming from a fraud and forgery case. As part of the settlement, Ameriprise also agreed to a two-year reporting and monitoring period. According to a recent article in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, the settlement followed an investigation launched by the Georgia Secretary of State’s office in which investigators found that the company failed to discover forgeries of customer signatures on financial documents.
According to the Wall Street Journal article, the Alabama Securities Commissioner Joseph Borg “believes more than 200 Ameriprise plans weren’t delivered to customers in Alabama.” He also stated that Ameriprise was cooperating with his investigation and has “already made a bunch of refunds” to customers who did not receive a plan. Also, Page Perry’s investigation efforts have uncovered information suggesting that customers in North Carolina may be victims of forgery in connection with the sale of these financial plans.
Page Perry represents investors across the nation seeking to recover losses from financial professionals and their firms for engaging in unlawful conduct.