Former WIS rep who impersonated clients gets a slap on the wrist
Some people have great acting skills but do not use them the right way… Impersonation of clients has landed Martin Ray Evans, a former general securities representative of Western International Securities, Inc (WIS), in trouble with the US authorities.
Mr Evans has agreed to pay a $5,000 fine and to a 45-day suspension from associating with FINRA members as a part of a settlement with the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA). Evans, while registered through WIS, impersonated 11 customers of his former employer in order to obtain their account information.
Evans first became registered with FINRA in 1993. From October 2009 to March 2019, Evans was registered as a General Securities Representative through an association with a FINRA member firm (Firm A). On March 6, 2019, Firm A filed a Uniform Termination Notice for Securities Industry Registration (Form U5), disclosing that it had terminated Evans’ registration “for company policy violations including failing to obtain authorization from a client prior to processing an RMD transaction and failing to disclose material information to another client.”
From May 2019 to July 2019, Evans was registered as a General Securities Representative through an association with Western International Securities, Inc. (WIS). On July 11, 2019, Firm A filed an amended Form U5 for Evans, disclosing that Firm A had completed an internal review, which concluded that Evans had impersonated clients of Firm A. On July 17, 2019, WIS terminated Evans’ registration due to “concerns regarding potential client impersonation as disclosed by Firm A.”
After joining WIS in May 2019, Evans, with the consent of his former customers from Firm A, began to transfer customer accounts from Firm A to WIS. When Evans submitted account transfer documentation to Firm A for certain customers, the account transfer requests were rejected because Evans had submitted incorrect customer account information.
Between May 28, 2019, and July 1, 2019, Evans made numerous telephone calls to Firm A’s customer service department to obtain account information for his former customers for use in transferring their accounts to WIS.
During these phone calls, Evans impersonated 11 customers of Firm A.
Evans did not have the customers’ permission to make these phone calls or to impersonate them on these phone calls. Through these calls, Evans obtained account information from Firm A for the customers, which he then used in resubmitting account transfer requests to Firm A.
FINRA notes that, through his telephone calls to Firm A, Evans caused Firm A to disclose customers’ nonpublic personal information, including their account balances and account holdings, to an unauthorized third party without Firm A’s or the customers’ knowledge or consent, in violation of Regulation S-P.