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Investment advisors should be particularly careful when considering filling claim forms for people they manage money for. I.A’s are not owners of securities and therefore not the rightful person to collect a settlement recovery. A claims administrator should not be mailing a check to someone who is not the rightful owner of securities. The beneficiary should be filling out claim forms or have hired someone to do so for him, whether it is a custodian, Class Action Services, or a law firm.
The Investment Advisors Association web site advises that your investment advisor agreement with your clients should definitively state whether or not you are going to fill out claim forms for your clients. Typically, broker dealers and custodians have the transaction data necessary to fill out claim forms.
Relationships built over years between investment advisors and clients have become the norm needed to be continued or the service is deemed to be a step down. Let Class Action Services get involved. Our system, having developed years of relationships with claims administrators will get your process in compliance. Your clients will be better served as claims are filed correctly and the exact amount of money owed is returned to them.
It is the unfortunate reality that a client may terminate his or her relationship with you. If you previously filled out a claim form for the client, you may receive a check in the mail seven years down the road. Perhaps that client could be a company that has been acquired by a third party and has no relationship with you. And that client could be a company that has been acquired by a third party and you has no relationship with the client.
The monetary responsibility of the Investment Advisor remains ambiguous. Where or who the money goes to uncertain and puts the I.A at risk for liability. If you send the check back to the claims administrator and it ultimately does not go to the client, you do not want to be liable for that money.
With Class Action Services you are absolved of this responsibility and indemnified for all claims arising from those for which we are presented data.
Let Class Action Services help your clients get the money they are owed and take you out of the liability trap.
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