Securities Lawyers Blog
According to records kept by The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) financial Broker Maria Tsalis (Tsalis), currently associated with the Jeffrey Matthews Financial Group, L.l.c., has at least one disclosable event. These events include one customer complaint, alleging that Tsalis recommended unsuitable investments in different investment products including debt securities among other allegations and complaints.
FINRA BrokerCheck shows a pending customer complaint with a damage request of $20,000,000.01 on November 22, 2024.
Client became interested in cryptocurrency in December 2022 and January 2023 and invested in legitimate sites. At the end of January 2023the client requested to liquidate his accounts to invest in NFTS. This was against the recommendation of the representative as a municipal bond portfolio takes years to build. However, the client said that he was too conservative over the years and wanted to increase his wealth. The rep followed his instructions and carefully liquidated his bonds over a course of time. The client directed the rep to wire out funds to a certain company in which he was investing. We followed his directions. When the company names started to change, she questioned him and was told it was the different NFT platforms. All companies were also researched by compliance and found to be listed in the US and not on OFAC. The rep was also told that billionaire investor friends from college were involved that the client did real estate deals for and made them a ton of money. She was told he was receiving statements and had legal contracts drawn up. In April 2023 when he attempted to withdraw his money from the site, he was told he had to pay taxes. He then borrowed money from his brother who agreed to lend him the money to increase his ownership their company. It was then that he finally revealed the name of the NFT platform, Openraritypro.com, this was a fraud site that banked off of Openrarity.com a division of OpenSea.com, two legitimate sites. We found out a woman was also involved as she contacted the client on Facebook and helped lead the whole pig butchering scam. The rep did not endorse the NFT site or investment at all as she was not aware of the site name until April. The statement of claim contains many inaccurate statements.