Investing is a smart idea for building additional income streams and building up savings for important things, like retirement and traveling. Making the right decisions regarding investing can be difficult though, which is why people in New York often turn to professionals. Sadly, not all professional investment advisers have their clients’ best interests at heart, which can lead to costly and unsuitable investments.
An out-of-state investment adviser was recently suspended after he sold unsuitable investments to his clients. His suspension started on June 6, 2019 and will last for a period of 90 days. The unsuitable investments were stream-of-income investments, which are high-risk. He apparently did not warn his clients of this because he claims that he did not even fully understand the complex nature of such investments.
Shortly after he sold the investments, regulators at both the state and the federal level issued warnings regarding steam-of-income investments. However, as a professional investment adviser, he should have understood the needs of his clients before selling them investments that were obviously high risk. In one case, he convinced a couple who were in their 70s to invest $275,000 in these and other types of high-risk investments. In another situation involving a different investor, clients invested half of their liquid assets, which amounted to $173,306.
While one of the advisers was suspended, the other was ordered to repay nearly $89,000 to the clients he sold the unsuitable investments. However, this may not accurately reflect how much money these clients lost. When investors in New York are sold unsuitable investments, they may need to pursue civil lawsuits in order to fully recover their losses.