Financial Advisor Duped, Then Fined

A financial advisor with mega-bank UBS was fired and fined after falling for a Phishing scam. In October 2018, William Darby received a legitimate-looking email requesting a sizable cash disbursement from a large client's account.

It was later determined that the client's email account had been hacked, and Mr. Darby failed to take the standard precautions prior to releasing funds from a client account.

UBS terminated Darby in November 2018 over allegations that he had “violated firm disbursements policy by failing to call client to confirm disbursement requests."

In order to raise the necessary funds, Mr. Darby "sold securities in the client’s account, for a total amount of $525,896, without authorization."

FINRA suspended and fined Mr. Darby after the investigation revealed he failed to get verbal approval from the client for the securities sales and subsequent wire transfers. Unfortunately, compromised email account frequently lead to costly scams like this one.

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Original article here.
[https://financialadvisoriq.com/c/2600713/299823/fined_after_allegedly_conned_hacker_disburse_client_funds]