Initiated By
FINRA
Allegations
Without admitting or denying the findings, Tomer consented to the sanction and to the entry of findings that he falsely attested to his member firm that he had confirmed a customer's intention to transfer funds out of the customer's account, when in fact, an imposter had requested the transfer, and Tomer, through his false attestation, unwittingly enabled the fraudulent transfer. The findings stated that a branch office of the firm, received an email from a customer, requesting that $50,000 be transferred from the customer's firm account to an outside bank account. This request followed a similar request five days earlier, which had resulted in a $37,000 wire transfer. Unbeknownst to Tomer and others in the branch office, these requests came not from the customer, but from an imposter who had hacked the customer's email account. The findings also stated that the registered sales assistant facilitated completion of the requisite paperwork. Because the branch-office manager was unavailable, Tomer signed the Outgoing Wire form in his stead, after which the firm transferred $50,000 out of the customer's account. The findings also included that by signing the Outgoing Wire form, Tomer attested that he had confirmed the customer's intention to transfer funds by placing an outbound call to the customer's phone. In fact, Tomer had neither telephoned nor otherwise attempted to contact the customer about the request to transfer funds. FINRA found that the imposter made two more requests to transfer funds out of the customer's account. The third request, which did not involve Tomer, succeeded in causing the firm to transfer an additional $60,000 out of the customer's account. The fourth request prompted the branch office to contact the firm's compliance department. The firm subsequently investigated, determined that the requests were fraudulent, and reimbursed the customer the full $147,000 that the imposter had succeeded in transferring out of the customer's account.
Resolution
Acceptance, Waiver & Consent(AWC)
Sanctions
Suspension
Registration Capacities Affected
any capacity
Duration
10 business days
Start Date
3/6/2017
End Date
3/17/2017
Sanctions
In determining this sanction, FINRA considered the fact that Tomer's firm separately suspended and fined Tomer for the same conduct.