Bank Recommended a Bad Investment?

If a bank referred you to a broker, financial advisor, or investment professional and you lost money, the recommendation may deserve closer review.

Former Broker & Investment Adviser. Now Representing Investors.

Speak Directly With Attorney Glenn Mazer

How Bank-Recommended Investments Can Go Wrong

Customers often place special trust in an investment recommendation made through their bank. But a bank referral does not necessarily mean the investment was safe, appropriate, or properly supervised. Problems can include:

  • Unsuitable or overly risky investment recommendations
  • Illiquid investments that the customer could not easily sell
  • Concentrating too much of the customer’s savings in one product
  • Misrepresentations about safety, income, liquidity, or risk
  • Failure to explain that the broker or investment program was separate from the bank
  • Excessive commissions or other sales incentives
  • Failure by the brokerage firm or financial institution to properly supervise the recommendation

 

If a bank referred you to a broker, financial advisor, or investment professional and you lost money, the recommendation may deserve closer review.

Financial advisors and brokerage firms have duties to recommend investments that are appropriate for their customers, disclose important risks and conflicts, and properly supervise the people who give investment advice. When those duties are violated and an investor suffers losses, the investor may have a claim to recover those losses.

Why the Bank Referral Matters

Many customers agree to an investment because the recommendation came through a bank they had trusted for years. The introduction may occur inside the bank branch, through a bank employee, or through an investment professional presented as part of the bank’s financial-services relationship. That setting can give customers the impression that the investment and the person recommending it have been carefully vetted by the bank.

When a Bank-Recommended Investment Should Be Investigated

A loss alone does not prove misconduct. But a closer review may be warranted when the investment did not match the customer’s age, income, investment experience, need for liquidity, risk tolerance, or financial objectives. The same is true when the customer was given misleading information about the product or relied heavily on the credibility of the bank relationship.

Who May Be Responsible for the Losses?

Depending on the facts, responsibility may extend beyond the individual broker or financial advisor. The brokerage firm, investment adviser, bank-affiliated investment program, or other financial institution may also be responsible if it failed to supervise the recommendation, ignored red flags, or allowed an unsuitable investment to be sold through a trusted banking relationship.

  • The individual broker or financial advisor
  • The brokerage firm responsible for supervising the advisor
  • An investment advisory firm involved in the recommendation
  • A bank-affiliated investment program
  • A financial institution that ignored obvious warning signs
  • Other firms or entities involved in selling or supervising the investment

Talk With an Investment Loss Attorney About a Bank-Recommended Investment

If you lost money after relying on an investment recommendation made through your bank, Mazer Law Firm can review what happened, who made the recommendation, what you were told, and whether the broker, brokerage firm, or other financial institution may be responsible. Speak directly with Attorney Glenn Mazer about your situation.

No Fee Unless We Recover for You.