Former Ameriprise rep barred for unauthorized trades

The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority Inc. has barred former Ameriprise Financial representative Maria Tamburro for executing approximately 30 unauthorized mutual fund purchases for six customers and for failing to provide information to Finra in connection with its investigation of the matter. According to Finra, Ms. Tamburro, who was based at the company's Florham Park, N.J., office, executed the trades without contacting her clients, one of whom had insufficient funds in his brokerage account to fund the purchase. Finra said that in five separate transactions, Ms. Tamburro sold securities in another brokerage account held by the same customer, and then transferred the proceeds to the purchasing account. Because two of the affected clients had fee-based accounts, she first submitted new account documentation to Ameriprise to open commission-based accounts in the customers' names, which she did without their permission. Finra said she then placed the unauthorized trades in the newly created, unauthorized accounts. The principal amount of Ms. Tamburro's unauthorized trades totaled approximately $260,000. The six customers were charged $7,549 in commission for the unauthorized trades. Ms. Tamburro, who no longer works in the securities industry, was registered through Ameriprise from November 2011 to October 2016.