How One Wall Street Moron Ripped Off MILLIONS

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A top salesman at Stifel Financial racked up 34 complaints and millions in fraud claims—and somehow stayed in business. In this episode:

• How a single broker’s “structured notes” scam cost clients millions
• Why Wall Street firms protect rainmakers instead of investors
• The dirty truth about how big brokerages treat fraud as a “cost of doing business”
• What constant job-hopping between Lehman, Citi, Morgan Stanley, and Stifel really means
• How to actually find an advisor who puts your interests first

Wall Street keeps rewarding the crooks who bring in cash. Don’t be their next victim.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
The Watchdog on Wall Street podcast explaining the news coming
out of the complex worlds of finance, economics, and politics
and the impact that we'll have on everyday Americans. Author,
investment banker, consumer advocate, analyst, and trader Chris Markowski.

Speaker 2 (00:16):
Play a quick game of to Catch a Wall Street
crook Stifle Financial. They have been shelling out millions of
dollars to resolve all sorts of customer complaints. They had
one of the their starbroker. He was their star office

(00:37):
in Miami, office in New York selling structured notes. Yeah,
and man, oh man, oh man, did this guy get
a lot of complaints? Okay, whoo, He's already had twenty
five arbitration claims against him, and the firm already shelled

(01:00):
out millions of dollars and they got more to go here,
oh man, we're talking this can end up being hundreds
of millions of dollars. And quite frankly, rumor has it
that you know, Stifles on the block right now they're
looking to sell. They're in so much trouble because of
this guy. This guy has thirty four customer complaints on

(01:24):
his broker check record dating to April twenty twenty three
thirty one, alleging fraud or breach of fiduciary duty. Okay,
how is he still in the business? Again? How is
he still How has he been in you know, remained

(01:46):
in the business over this period of time. Simple simple.
Of the firms that he has worked for, firms he's
worked for deemed him very, very valuable because he is
a top salesperson, top salesperson. Again, it's a game of
what these big firms play is is they automatically assume

(02:11):
that when people get ripped off, they're not going to sue,
they're not going to go after the firm, and if
they do, they will settle. And it's just a calculation
and a cost of doing business for him. This guy
has been in the industry for thirty five years. Let's
go through the firms that he has worked for in
thirty five years. Lehman Brothers, Pain Weeber, MJ Whitman, CIBC

(02:36):
World Markets, Oppenheimer, City Group, Morgan Stanley, and Stifle. Why
are bouncing around so much? Again? Bouncing around? Maybe again
they cut deals? Okay, listen, you know you're getting a
little too hot for us here. You know, we watch

(02:59):
them move on. They call up, their buddies, They hook
each other up when it comes to these things. You know,
this is what you get when you're working with major
firms period the end bottom line. They care about their
bottom line. Now, Stifle's getting whacked on this at this
point in time, I don't know how this is going
to turn out. I don't know if they're going to

(03:20):
be able to push it off. Find some lenient judge somewhere.
They got a ton in fines coming down the road.
But the reality is these firms, they make a calculation.
Stifle looks like they miscalculated on this one. With the
products that he was selling at the volume that he
was selling them should have set off a red flag. Okay,

(03:42):
I mean this business, we manage people. Okay, you know
they knew exactly what he was doing. It was just again,
it was too hard, too hard to turn away those
types of commissions and those bonus checks by the people
that were supposed to be watching over this guy. That's

(04:03):
how they operate. Again, the choice is yours. The choice
is yours. You can continue to work with one of
these big outfits thinking that they actually give a damn
about you. Oh, maybe they'll give you some You know,

(04:24):
some nice little covers for your golf clubs and maybe
an umbrella or a golf shirt if that makes you happy.
Or you can have your money managed by people that
actually give a damn about you. It's going to put
your interests above their own watchdog on Wall Street dot
com