Consumer complaint received 2023-09-02
Company: BANK OF AMERICA, NATIONAL ASSOCIATION
State: RI
Product: Debt collection
Sub-product: Mortgage debt
Issue: Took or threatened to take negative or legal action
Sub-issue: Seized or attempted to seize your property

Complaint:
Everyone has the right to a standard of living for health & well being including food, clothing, housing, medical care, and the right to security including protection from eviction. A Finra registered representative targeted my elderly relatives on a cruise ship, cold-calledthem at their residence, & gained control of their considerable assets in XXXX around the time he was very publicly dismissed from a firm in XXXX, RI for disrespecting his customers & the firm, and convinced them to transfer their funds to his mismanagement at another firm.Theregisteredrepresentativehad worked in a health club prior to his short tenure at the firm from which he was dismissed in XXXX, RI. He was no financial savant. My relatives weren't thetype of people to be satisfied with strictly retail financial services.After the intergenerational wealth transfer, whichhe expedited, theFinraregistered representative lost about {$300000.00} of my brother 's inheritance when he convinced my brother to puthisaccount on margin. My brother wasXXXX XXXX XXXXXXXX XXXX of the XXXX XXXX XXXX in Washington XXXX DC, formost of his adult life. The Finra registered representative 's DUI arrest & subsequent coverup during the timeframe he waslosing much of my assets ( a {$300000.00} deposit from the sale of partial ownership of resort property justevaporated ), was not a coincidence. It's clear theregisteredrepresentative never missed a beat or a day at the office. 

Hate crimes are a social problem because they directly marginalize and target specific people based on their identities. In XXXX prior to thesigning of the mortgage, I was physically assaulted, harassed, robbed & my property was vandalized, a seditiousconspiracyby right wing extremists. Records were quashed of an officer who abused me who was in a standoff in XXXX, RI where a swat team was brought in to diffuse the situation. I am autistic. A sophisticated investor is a classification of investor indicating someone who has sufficientcapital, experience, and net worth to engage in more advanced types of investment opportunities. In XXXX, I was ignorant of finance, which is not a crime, and had barely balanced a checkbook. I never had money of my own before theintergenerational wealth transfer. I was on my own for thefirst time in mylife & relied ontheregisteredrepresentative todothe right thing by me. At that point I didnot know whoto trust. I had no professional certifications, designations, or credentials. I didn't even have an income or credit history. I had never worked. Private offerings are available to investors with sufficient knowledge and experience to make them capable of evaluating the merits and risks of the prospectiveinvestments. A person is considered an accredited investor if they have a net worth exceeding XXXX XXXX dollars. I had {$1.00} XXXX. An accredited investor has the financial sophistication and capacity to take the high risk high reward path of investing in unregulated securitiessans certainprotections of the SEC and have reduced need for protection. High net worth individuals are allowed to buy unregistered securities. Private placements present a great deal of risk. Sophisticatedinvestors have access to private market opportunities not available to average, non-accredited investors subject to investment minimums. 

My relationship with money hasn't always been easy but that doesn't mean it can't improve drastically.I pay with cash or by check. To this day I use neither credit or debit cards, I have none. I trade nothing. I am no longer being coerced. I now live by XXXX XXXX check to XXXX spousal benefit check. If you research the records youwill notice I used a credit card XXXX time in XXXX to buy my daughter a snowboard with a card that came with the wrap account from the broker dealer firm. Under mismanagement XXXX carriedhundreds of thousands of dollars of margin debt. I foundmy fortune reverted. Know your client. There were glaring conflicts of interest. I have been persisting without relief of an ending. It is time for closure. I haven't seen a single penny. You should never have all your capital in one place so you can live to fight another day. It goes without saying youshould never put a houseinto a margin account as the registeredrepresentative did tome. I am struggling to make sense of a world in which help is hard to come by.

I was framed. There are people responsible for my plight.Those seeking to solve the problem are also causing it. It is a problem characterized by organized irresponsibility. It is a problem whose solution requires a great number of people to change their mindset & behavior.The preservation of life overrides any rule. I am in critical danger.My life is on the line.When times are tough you can throw your hands up and get angry or you can work hard & find solutions.I feel the whole system is rigged against me. Power is being deployed for specialends.The value function is steeper for losses. Out of court statements are untrustworthy. I never had money and then I did. I don't think the Finra Registered Representatives knew too much about the effect of what they were doing. It's a nice daily reminder we're all going through XXXX and it's going to take a lot of blood, sweat, & tears to fix it. The struggle carries on even though the case might end in defeat. There's a role to play in calling out where you perceive the problem to lie & suggesting a possible way forward and gaining some sense of agency. Life finds a way. In the rules of evidence there's an ancient document rule, an exception from the hearsayrules, out of court statements are untrustworthy and therefore inadmissible to prove the truth of their contents. I made arrangements to transfer the account out of the broker dealer because they scared me. When the account was transferred, after nearly 4 months, not 2 weeks, theholdingsin the margin account were rejected by the receiving broker for credit violations. The account was placed in margin deficit & subjected to forced liquidation resulting in an additional {$260000.00} loss on top of the {$400000.00} already lost. 

The firm used audit by exception XXXX XXXX XXXX, Protegent Brokeraudit, web enabled suitability based exception reporting and analysis developed under guidelines of The Patriot Act and the Bank Security Act. XXXX of XXXX exception notices went unanswered. A former Head of XXXX The New York XXXX XXXX found this to be a red flag. If a system like this is in place to supervisory personnel looking for evidenceof compliance and suitability violations existing in accounts which violate patternsand trends to manage suspicious activity, what good is it if there is no one to follow through? From an internal control perspective automated reporting systems must have manual, sometimes automated, as in suspending a transaction for further examination. Without follow up, the control they are supposed to implement is rendered as an ineffective method of exception reporting if no one does anything about it. 

Know your client is a suitabilityobligation. I never signed paperwork giving the registered representative full discretion.To this day I useneither credit or debit but while under mismanagement I often carriedhundredsof XXXX dollars of margin debt. Regarding his use of margin, if you lose XXXX of your money, like we did, you will need the market to double just to break even. If you are a seasoned investor who fully comprehends the risks, margin is fine. Margin presents a huge source of revenue for the brokerages. Margin accounts are risky and not for all investors. Leverage is a double-edged sword and increases risk in the portfolio. A dive of 50 % will cause you to lose more than 100 % with interest and commissions on top of that. It goes without saying you should never put the downpayment to a house in a margin account, like he did to us. Furthermore, I wonder why the registered representative sent me a margin agreement in XXXX when he had already been using margin for years, even after i told him to take me off margin, that I didn't like margin, & when I only inquired about margin to educate myself and heturned that inquiry into his cause celebre, a controversial one he hung his haton, to make me appear to be a 'sophisticated ' investor, a coverup. One third of the portfolio contained indeterminate, unspecified securities that the Rhode Island XXXX  XXXX XXXX XXXX & the RI Securities Regulator were unable to determine what they XXXX out of XXXX holdings.The account transferred with an open margin balance. The holdings were opaque and it was impossible for theDBR to determine the underlying investments. They only appeared legitimate. I truly believe they were disguised so they could be used without detection of the illegal activity which produced them and that the monetary proceeds were obtained through criminal activity and washed into funds with an apparent legal source. 

I was clearly taken advantage of by the broker-dealer inan intergenerationalwealth transfer gone horribly wrong. There was fraud. There were lies. There was deceit. There was a cover-up.From an internal control perspective, automated reporting systems must have manual ( sometimes automated, as in suspending a transaction for further examination ) follow up or the control they are supposed to implement is rendered ineffective. From an audit perspective, one can not cite such a system as an effective method of exception reporting if no one does anything about the exceptions. 

Members of a white supremacist hate group coordinated a brutal racially motivated attack on me in XXXX prior to the mortgage signing. Theirmembers claim their ancestors conquered America & bequeathed it to them & no one else. Their little army iscalling for the formation of a white ethnostate. They are like a separate state withtheir own laws and justice system. I suffered physical injuries, significant emotional distress and continue to suffer to this day because of the incidents. Among other harms, those physical & emotional injuries have adversely affected my ability to earn a living. Myonly income ever was my long gone stock portfolio, the lifeof an XXXX who hasn't madeany money, yet.I am plagued by severe anxiety, mental anguish, intrusive thoughts, & emotional distress including persistent concern for my physical safety and loss of sleep. I routinely have nightmares & flashbacks. What happened to me was no accident. The vandalism did not occur in a vacuum, they defaced my property with impunity. The vandalism was an act of intimidation to make me feel unsafe. This case alleges civil rights violations, assault & battery and intentional infliction of emotional distress. I want to hold the perpetrators accountable for a pattern of intimidation and sendamessage thathatefulactivity will not be tolerated. History has shown that when left unchecked hateful activity will grow and escalate. For the situation to be brought to the highest good for all concerned requires change.

Company public response: Company has responded to the consumer and the CFPB and chooses not to provide a public response
Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation