Merrill Lynch fined for overcharging customers - WQOW TV: Eau Claire, WI NEWS18 News, Weather, and Sports

Merrill Lynch fined for overcharging customers

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By Amie Winters - bio | email

 

NEW YORK (AP) -- A financial regulator has fined Merrill Lynch $2.8 million for overcharging customers with fees and for failing to provide timely trade confirmations.

The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority says it fined Merrill after it found the broker overcharged nearly 95,000 customer accounts with fees totaling more than $32 million from 2003 through last year.

The agency said Merrill Lynch has since returned the overcharges, with interest, to affected customers. Regulators also found that the brokerage failed to send customers trade confirmations for more than 10.6 million trades in over 230,000 customer accounts from July 2006 to November 2010. Merrill is a division of Bank of America.

In concluding the settlement Merrill Lynch neither admitted nor denied the charges.

In a statement, the firm said problems stemmed from operational issues primarily due to improper coding of accounts.

On other occasions, Merrill Lynch also failed to deliver certain proxy and voting materials, margin risk disclosure statements and business continuity plans, according to FINRA.

 

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