Va. rep barred by Finra in annuity claims flap

Finra has barred a registered representative after finding that the Virginia rep had misrepresented the return a client would receive on a deferred annuity. According to the regulator’s BrokerCheck records, Kimberly Sue Rutherford told a client that the annuity would generate a higher rate of return than what the policy terms offered. Ms. Rutherford allegedly provided the client with false annual account statements — inflating the account balance by more than $5,000 — as well as an altered annuity contract that reflected that higher rate. The broker, who at the time of the transaction was working for Southern Farm Bureau Fund Distributor Inc. of Roanoke, Va., also allegedly placed more than $5,000 of her own personal cash into the client’s account to cover up the disparity. Ms. Rutherford hasn’t been affiliated with a broker-dealer firm since February 2008, but Finra moved to bar her from the securities industry permanently in September. She neither admitted nor denied the findings by the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority Inc. Ms. Rutherford’s BrokerCheck record also indicates that she had also agreed to pay off another client who incurred withdrawal penalties related to transferring money into an annuity. In that case, she allegedly falsified an annuity confirmation statement that inflated the balance to cover a surrender charge after the client complained about the penalty. This isn’t the first time that Ms. Rutherford has had a run-in with a disgruntled customer. In 2008, a client complained that the rep had sold him a fixed annuity with an interest rate that was higher than what was stated on the contract. Though Broker Check records indicate that no violation could be substantiated in this case, Ms. Rutherford admitted that she verbally guaranteed the higher interest rate.