FINRA fined and suspended Stephen "Steve" Samuel Salm of Securities America's Solana Beach, California branch for disclosing personal information about customers to a nonaffiliated third party without the customers' knowledge or consent.
According to the findings, Salm (CRD #1970888) sent multiple e-mails containing firm customers' nonpublic personal information to a broker at another FINRA member firm (deemed a "nonaffiliated third party") without the customers' knowledge or consent and in contravention of SEC Regulation S-P which prohibits firms from disclosing said information to third parties without notifying the customer first.
In the past, FINRA has sanctioned brokers for misusing customer information in order to conduct business on behalf of customers, including instances where the customer did not consent to the activity. For example, FINRA in 2016 suspended Mauneel Desai of Edward Jones in Irvine for creating new accounts using fake information for prospective customers who had not agreed to open accounts with the firm.
Also in 2016, FINRA suspended Ryan Alexander Logan (Northwestern Mutual Investment Services of Newport Beach) for changing customers' personal data in the firm's database shortly before Logan left Northwestern and formed a new association with MML Investor Services.
In another case, FINRA ordered Fidelity Brokerage Services to pay $1 million in fines and restitution after fraudster Lisa Lewis purportedly posed as a Fidelity broker in order to obtain personal information from her elderly victims.
All of the aforementioned actions were allegedly effected without the customers' knowledge or consent; Fidelity's punishment, for instance, carried a finding that the firm failed to supervise and/or detect red flags that could have helped prevent Lewis' theft from Fidelity's investors.
Salm's BrokerCheck report includes one previous settled customer dispute from his time at Torrey Pines Securities (San Diego, CA), alleging that Salm failed to follow customer instructions to sell mutual funds.
If you have invested with Steve Samuel Salm or with any broker or financial adviser who has transmitted, sent, modified, or otherwise accessed and transformed your personal data without your knowledge or consent, and this has proven harmful to your investments or interests due to disruptions to your communication with your firm or account activity that you did not consent to, please call The Law Offices of Jonathan W. Evans & Associates at (800) 699-1881 for an investigation and consultation.