Reverse Mortgage Loan Blog

A registered representative from Virginia Beach, Va., was ordered to pay a $20,000 fine for his involvement with reverse-mortgage seminars against his company’s policies and for his statements and materials for the seminars.

Based on its findings, FINRA barred David Allen Abbott from associating with any FINRA members for 60 days, ending Oct. 1, according to FINRA records.

The practices of registered representatives selling products to older investors has been the subject of greater regulation over the last several years, after complaints surfaced about seniors being taken advantage of at seminars, including those that offer free lunch in return for a sales pitch.

In the Abbott case, FINRA investigators found that he presented seminars promoting reverse mortgages and other investments to senior citizens despite his member firm’s prohibition on the practice. The member firm was not identified.

He also was found to have used communications in the seminars without the prior written and dated approval of the registered firm’s principal and to have failed to filed slides used in his presentation with FINRA’s Advertising Regulation Department, records show.

To promote the seminars, Abbott sent “invitations that used exaggerated and unwarranted claims, and used a slide and handouts that projected unfounded claims of future performance,” according to FINRA records.

Abbott used public communications that included “unbalanced discussions of reverse mortgages and made claims regarding his expertise and status in the financial industry that were misleading, false, unwarranted or lacked a sound basis,” FINRA said.

He also was found to have distributed communications with “incomplete and unbalanced discussions of investment products and omitted material information.”

Investigators said Abbott also failed to disclose the broker-dealer’s name on his seminar invitation.

Found here.

Bookmark It