The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) brought a complaint against broker Anthony Diaz (Diaz) concerning a host of industry violations. Diaz entered the securities industry in January 2000 and has been registered with eleven different firms over fourteen years. Diaz is currently employed by IBN Financial Services, Inc., (IBN Financial) since September 2012.
Diaz has a long and troubled history of securities related violations and misconduct. There have been at least 14 customer complaints filed against Diaz, he has been subject to 5 firm terminations, and has two judgments. FINRA also found that Diaz was fired or permitted to resign by six of the eleven member firms with which he was registered for. On or about November 21, 2002, Edward Jones fired Diaz for providing inaccurate information during a supervisory review, was terminated by Raymond James Financial Services, Inc. because it was “no longer comfortable supervising”, was permitted to resign on April 1, 2009, by First Allied Securities, Inc. because he had a history of customer complaints and administrative infractions., was fired by SII Investments, Inc. for unauthorized trading, was fired by Kovack Securities, Inc. because of complaints alleging unauthorized trades, and finally was fired by Sandlapper Securities, LLC for soliciting sales of variable annuities without being properly appointed by the issuing company.
FINRA alleged that from March 2010, through May 2011, Diaz induced approximately eighty customers to enter into variable annuity exchanges causing significant surrender charges without a reasonable basis for recommending these exchanges. FINRA found that each customer invested in the same fund, had the same subaccount allocation, and had the same rider selected. FINRA alleged that Diaz recommended the annuity exchanges without having an understanding of the features of the new product and used the same three invalid justifications for nearly all of these exchanges.
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