Securities Fraud Investigation: Jennifer Guelinas

Have you suffered losses as a result of investing with former Ameriprise financial advisor, Jennifer Guelinas?  If so, the securities attorneys of The White Law Group may be able to help you recover your losses through a FINRA arbitration claim.

FINRA recently announced that it has fined Ameriprise Financial Services, Inc. and its affiliated clearing firm, American Enterprise Investment Services Inc. (AEIS), $750,000 for failing to have reasonable supervisory systems in place to monitor wire transfer requests and the transmittal of customer funds to third-party accounts.

In February 2011, FINRA barred Jennifer Guelinas from the securities industry for converting approximately $790,000 from two customers over a four-year period by forging their signatures on wire transfer requests and disbursing the funds to bank accounts she controlled.

According to FINRA’s announcement, FINRA found that Ameriprise and AEIS failed to establish, maintain and enforce supervisory systems designed to review and monitor the transmittal of funds from customer accounts to third-party accounts. FINRA also found that the firms did not have policies or procedures to detect or prevent multiple transmittals of funds going to third-party accounts, instead relying on a manual review of wire requests without the benefit of exception reports that could have helped to discern suspicious patterns.

Finally, FINRA found that Ameriprise failed to detect Guelinas’ scheme despite multiple “red flags.” For instance, Guelinas submitted three requests to wire funds from a customer’s account to a bank account that appeared to be under Guelinas’ control. Ameriprise apparently processed these forged wire transfer requests and disbursed the funds without any inquiries.

If you had similar issues while investing with Guelinas, you may be able to recover your losses through a FINRA arbitration claim.

To discuss your litigation options, please call the securities attorneys of The White Law Group at 312/238-9650 for a free consultation.

The White Law Group is a national securities fraud, securities arbitration, and investor protection law firm with offices in Chicago, Illinois and Boca Raton, Florida.

For more information on The White Law Group, visit http://whitesecuritieslaw.com.