The Bryan Ellis Investing Letter – If you notice that your sister is suddenly flush with cash and listed on your bank and retirement accounts, you might want to investigate how close she’s gotten with your financial advisor. In the case of a J.P. Morgan customer, a former registered J.P. Morgan representative actually worked with his sister to put her name on his bank account and make withdrawals from the account until he had lost nearly $4,000. According to a Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) filing on the matter, Jamal Romero forged the customer’s signature on at least three occasions over the course of three months in 2012 in order to enable the customer’s sister to access his money. Romero has since been dismissed from J.P. Morgan, although he ultimately neither denied nor admitted FINRA’s charges against him. Nearly two years after the fact, he has also been officially banned from the industry.
J.P. Morgan also lost two other reps to FINRA actions. One launched an unsecured business and did not get permission from his firm to participate in outside business activity before doing so, but did not hit up firm customers for money. As a result, he has only been suspended from the industry for a month. The other, who also received a month’s suspension from the industry, helped a customer falsify a bank signature card. However, since the customer in question had already been added to the account in question and just needed a card, the fine was only $5,000 and he was not banned permanently.
Do you think forgery is ever acceptable in the banking industry?
Original article published by Carole VanSickle Ellis on The Bryan Ellis Investing Letter.
