Monthly Archives: June 2017

A large group of stockbrokers previously with Wells Fargo were “permitted to resign” because of annuity sales practices, according to some of their Brokercheck reports.

According to Ameriprise, approximately 15 of the Bison Financial Group’s 21 brokers have joined it in the past few weeks, all leaving Wells Fargo. The publicly available Brokercheck reports for CEO David C. Vorbeck, President F. Stephen Dunnuck and Lafayette Market Director Stephen R. Wien were all recently amended to state they were each “permitted to resign” by Wells Fargo due to “termination of licensee agreement of certain annuity processes.”

The attached Advisorhub.com article: https://advisorhub.com/wells-fargo-confirms-expulsion-big-indie-team-annuity-violations/ suggests that these 3 brokers at Bison Financial Group were forced out by Wells Fargo due to improperly generating commissions through the switching or churning of certain investment products called annuities. This article further claims that an insider tipped off Wells Fargo about this problem in September of 2016.

In April of 2017, RBC settled a case involving Indianapolis broker James Wilson for $3.5 Million. The investors alleged that Wilson and RBC had overtraded in many accounts and excessively sold their family various closed end funds that included Unit Investment Trusts (UITs). More details can be found in the story in the Indianapolis Business Journal at: https://www.ibj.com/articles/64159-brokerage-resolves-complaint-with-skinner-family-for-35m?utm_source=this-week-in-ibj&utm_medium=newsletter&utm_campaign=2017-06-10

On behalf of our clients, our firm is investigating various claims against RBC and its brokers, including James Wilson,  for the sale of closed end funds such as UITs, and other bad practices such as overtrading accounts. If you are an individual or institutional investor who has any concerns about your investments with RBC and/or its brokers like James Wilson, please contact us for a no-cost and no-obligation evaluation of your specific facts and circumstances. You may have a viable claim for recovery of your investment losses by filing a securities arbitration case with the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA).