by Joe Bird Many of the various agreements in the mortgage loan process and between mortgage brokers, lenders and banks and their employees contain provisions that require disputes to be submitted to arbitration. What is arbitration and why does the large wealthy entity drafting these agreements desire arbitration rather than resolving legal disputes in front […]
Postscript on Goldman Sachs Story
by Brian Mahany When Greg Smith quit Goldman Sachs, he did it in style. He wrote an Op-Ed in the New York Times. That piece would soon go viral and has been read millions of times. Smith’s piece has special meaning to us. It seems that fraud is running rampant these days. We get calls […]
Why It May Make Sense To Only Deal With Larger Brokerage Firms
by Brian Mahany My “in box” is likely to explode after people see the title of this post. But its true. Although large broker dealers and investment banks can fail (think Lehman Brothers or MF Global), smaller firms tend to fold far more often. An article by Bruce Kelly yesterday in the online edition of […]
Regulators Pursue Stockbrokers For Private Placement Abuses
The title of this post sounds rather boring – unless you are one of the tens of thousands of Americans burned by private placement scams. Ponzi schemes and fraud have been with us since the beginning of time. As much as we stress prevention and due diligence on this website, unfortunately bad people will continue […]
Appeals of FINRA Arbitration Decisions
Can I Appeal an Arbitration Award if I Lose? Recently we wrote about brokerage giant Raymond James taking on FINRA. An arbitration panel awarded an 87 year old man $1.7 million for mismanaging his brokerage account. Rather than pay the victim, Raymond James took the highly unusual step of challenging the award. A Dallas judge later […]