offce of financial affairs
Complaint 332352 Details

I refer to my recent experience with the "Office of Financial Affairs".

I have written to ask for the money to be reimbursed that I paid for in order to "de-restrict" shares that I own!

I was told that an investigation conducted by this department stated that the shares were "restricted" and that $6300 was required in order for this impediment to be lifted which would allow me to sell the shares! I was told that this action would take about 10 days!

Ten days later I had heard nothing from your department so sent an email to
Mr Reese asking why no one had been in touch to check that the bank details were correct as I was initially told by him this would happen.

It was two days before I received a reply from Mr Reese. I received a short curt email stating that further investigation showed that the shares were under some sort of "warranty", and that $45,000 was required in order for the shares to be cleared!!

1) Why didnt the initial investigation discover the fact that they were also "warranted" at the same time they were found to be "restricted"?

2)Why did it take so long before I was told about this? (10 days)!!

3)Somebody has been negligent in this matter in not informing me of the correct situation and consequently has caused me to make a decision based on erroneous or incomplete information which must have been known but was what I can only assume, deliberately witheld!!

4)What has happened can only be described as deriliction of duty!

I am 70 years old and retired. I have only my State Pension to live on (£130) and get Government help to pay for my accommodation, and without question, if I was told that $45,000 would be required I would have definitely not gone ahead paying $6300 - which incidentally I had to borrow but felt it worth it if I could pay it back immediately!

I was told, again very curtly, by Mr Reese that no refund of the $6300 would be forthcoming which is the reason why I am writing this. I am surprised that when asking for the Regulatory body in order to do so, it appears that you regulate yourselves!!! I find this extremely unusual as I thought that the SEC or some such external body would take this role. Surely you are not as primitive in the US as to not having an independent review organisation or some form of "ombudsman"! I await with interest to your response.