Ameriprise Financial has reached a settlement with the Commonwealth of Massachusetts in connection with allegations of deceptive sales practices. The settlement requires the Minnesota-based broker-dealer to pay fines in the amount of $200,000. The government complaint contended that Ameriprise failed to adequately supervise its financial representatives, thus allowing this instance of broker misconduct to take place..
The government alleged that financial representatives were charging fees for financial plans that were never delivered to clients. Further, the financial reps failed to disclose the fees associated with the aforementioned financial plans in the first place.
This instance of misconduct was limited to six Ameriprise representatives, some of whom had had prior customer complaints. At this time, five of those six have either resigned or been terminated, with the sixth remaining on suspension. In addition to paying the fine, Ameriprise must compensate customers who were affected by these deceptive sales practices and develop new procedures that will hopefully prevent this type of situation from arising in the future.
No comments:
Post a Comment