UBS Financial Services Inc. Broker William Meador Has Customer Complaint

According to records kept by The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) financial Broker William Meador (Meador), currently associated with UBS Financial Services Inc., has at least one disclosable event. These events include one customer complaint, alleging that Meador recommended unsuitable investments in different investment products including debt securities among other allegations and complaints.

FINRA BrokerCheck shows a pending customer complaint with a damage request of $1,000,000.00 on November 01, 2024.

Time frame: 2008 and 2022. Claimants allege that account used to collateralize a line of credit was unsuitably allocated in equities. Claimants further allege that the overall investment strategy was not in their “Best Interest”.

Brokers must, under securities laws, act in their clients’ best interests and recommend only suitable investments. The SEC has also implemented “Regulation Best Interest (Reg BI)”, which, according to the SEC, elevates the brokerdealer standard of conduct beyond current suitability obligations, requiring them to act in the best interest of retail customers when recommending any securities transaction or investment strategy. Regulation Best Interest and the fiduciary standard for investment advisers are drawn from key fiduciary principles that include an obligation to act in the retail investor’s best interest and not to place their own interests ahead of the investor’s interest.

Brokers must first collect and evaluate sufficient information about a retail investor to reasonably believe that their account recommendations serve the investor’s best interests. Recommendations cannot be based on materially inaccurate or incomplete information. Every recommendation’s cost and investor details are essential parts of material information. Types of costs that must be considered including account fees, commissions and transaction costs, tax considerations, as well as indirect costs.

In addition to obligation to understand the customer the broker must also investigate the product being sold. FINRA firms have an obligation to conduct a reasonable investigation of the issuer and the securities they recommend in offerings. A brokerage firm has a special relationship with a customer from the fact that in recommending the security, the broker represents to the customer that a reasonable investigation has been made. So, a brokerage firm should not depend solely on information from the issuer regarding a company, but must perform its own thorough investigation.

Additional, it should be required to mandate broker disclosures for investor’s protection. Brokers are required to reveal important events, such as customer complaints, IRS tax liens, judgments, investigations, terminations, and even criminal matters, publicly on their BrokerCheck reports. FINRA has recognized that recent research shows past regulatory and customer complaint issues can indicate future problems for brokers. The Office of the Chief Economist (OCE) at FINRA released a study demonstrating that past disciplinary and disclosure events can indicate the likelihood of future similar events. The OCE study showed that past disclosure events, including regulatory actions, customer arbitrations and litigations of brokers, have significant power to predict future investor harm. The data shows that where a member firm on-boards brokers with a significant history of misconduct there is a high likelihood that the broker will continue to engage in similar behavior.

Meador entered the securities industry in 1992. Meador has been registered as a Broker with UBS Financial Services Inc. since 2008.

Investors who have suffered losses are encouraged to contact us at (800) 810-4262 for consultation. At Gana Weinstein LLP, our attorneys are experienced representing investors who have suffered securities losses due to the mishandling of their accounts. Claims may be brought in securities arbitration before FINRA. Our consultations are free of charge and the firm is only compensated if you recover.

 

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