Overview
On December 26, 2024, a public FINRA Arbitration Panel awarded an estate of a deceased investor close to $3.4 million for Wells Fargo’s failure to identify and respond to elder financial exploitation and abuse. According to the filings, the deceased investor’s nieces improperly convinced the investor to transfer out more than 75,000 shares of Aflac stock from her portfolio, which were purchased at a low cost basis, under the guise that the sales would reduce estate tax liability. Evidence from a financial expert established that this was false.
Documentation of TCPs and Durable POAs
Wells Fargo and Stephen L. Smith’s liability arose from their failure to identify and appropriately respond to issues with the documentation of Trusted Contact Persons (“TCP”) and durable powers of attorney (“Durable POA”) on the deceased investor’s account prior to the transactions at issue. A TCP is a person authorized on your account that can speak to your financial advisor in limited circumstances to prevent financial exploitation. A Durable POA is a legal document that identifies an individual to make decisions on your behalf even if you become incapacitated. TCPs and Durable POAs help investors safeguard their assets and protect against investment fraud.
Impacted Investors
If you are a senior investor or executor of an estate that believes a financial institution or professional did not take proper steps to protect your brokerage account from investment fraud, do not hesitate to contact our office at 800-556-3526 or complete our contact form for a free consultation. We work on a contingency fee basis to try to recover losses. In other words, if we do not obtain a recovery, you do not owe us any legal fees. Act before time runs out on your claim.