Tim O'Connor's Blog

What is account churning?  Account churning is when a financial advisor engages in the repeated purchase and sale of investments such as stocks and mutual funds for the sole purpose of generating sales commissions.  Churning activity in an investment account can deplete an account’s value due to the payment of excessive commissions, and even margin […]

Internal Revenue Code §72t is a provision which permits retirees under the age of 59½  to withdraw monies from their IRA accounts pursuant to a mathematical formula of scheduled, periodic withdrawals.  Unfortunately, this provision has been used by unscrupulous financial advisors who have implemented excessive levels of withdrawals, which are not only permitted by the […]

The past ten years has seen an explosion in the sale of variable annuity investments to the investing public.  Variable annuities are an investment vehicle, which includes certain tax deferral benefits invested in any number of sub-accounts oftentimes tied to the performance of the stock market.  These investments include annual fees and charges which often […]

Most recently, we have seen a number of separate schemes involving the fraudulent transfer of monies out of legitimate individual retirement annuities and variable annuity-type accounts into a bogus corporation.  In such a scheme, the sales agent appointed by the respective insurance companies has exploited weaknesses in the supervisory, compliance, managerial and administrative systems at the brokerage […]

Qualified Domestic Relations Orders (QDRO) are judgments issued by a judge in a divorce (equitable distribution) proceeding, ordering the freezing of retirement-type accounts, such as IRA’s, 401K’s, 403(b)’s, pension plans, and retirement annuities.  Financial firms are required to adhere to the directives of these orders, but oftentimes fail to assure the proper protection and safeguarding […]