About 6 or 7 years ago, I moved $100,000 worth of stock to Fidelity to get some Delta frequent flyer miles worth about $1,300 (enough for a round-trip Economy ticket to Europe or Asia. So the promotion was 1.3% of the account value.
Around the same time, there were brokerage firms offering a $4,000 statement credit on a new brokerage account of $1 MM or more (0.4% of the account value.) I would have done that, but for the fact that the $4,000 was reported to you as income on an IRS Form 1099 and the additional income would have put my “free Obamacare” at risk.
I got a pair of stainless steel coffee mugs in the mail today, maybe worth $15 or $20, from that Denver brokerage firm that opened that $900,000 fraudulent account. What pikers.
I wonder if the guy (the Denver brokerage firm guy) who opened the account got some sort of reward for opening a new account. And I wonder if the SVP of that division got some sort of reward for “his people” opening a bunch of accounts? A la Wells Fargo …
Absolutely. Anytime a new account is opened, somebody gets a commission, fee or bonus. There probably isn’t even claw-back on a fraudulent account.
Year’s ago somebody charged over $4,000 to my Discover Card for concert tickets. Discover immediately flagged it as fraudulent and canceled the charge, but I got to keep over $80 in “cashback” on the fraudulent charge.
