PODCAST
Protecting Investors: FINRA Securities Helpline for Seniors' 10th Anniversary
This month, we are marking the 10th anniversary of the FINRA Securities Helpline for Seniors—an important milestone for a critical service that FINRA provides to protect vulnerable investors and assist harmed investors.
On this FINRA Unscripted podcast episode, we will be speaking with leaders from FINRA’s Vulnerable Adults and Seniors Team—Elizabeth Yoka, manager of VAST Intake, and Michael Paskin, manager of VAST Investigations—to discuss the Helpline and its 10 years of protecting investors. We will be focusing on the Helpline's results and will provide a few examples of how the Helpline has become an effective conduit for investor protection, and how it has been helpful to member firms.
Resources mentioned in this episode:
FINRA Securities Helpline for Seniors
Ep. 152: Fighting Financial Exploitation: FINRA’s Vulnerable Adults and Seniors Team
Ep. 168: Investing Wisely in 2025: Avoiding Scams and Achieving Your Financial Goals
Ep. 171: Protecting Yourself from Financial Fraud: Navigating an Evolving Landscape
2025 Annual Regulatory Oversight Report
Listen and subscribe to our podcast on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you listen to your podcasts. Below is a transcript of the episode. Transcripts are generated using a combination of speech recognition software and human editors and may contain errors. Please check the corresponding audio before quoting in print.
FULL TRANSCRIPT
00:01 - 00:37
Rita De Ramos: This month, we are celebrating the 10th year anniversary of the FINRA Securities Helpline for Seniors, an important milestone for a critical service that FINRA provides to protect vulnerable investors and assist harmed investors. On this FINRA Unscripted podcast episode, we will be speaking with leaders from FINRA's Vulnerable Adults and Seniors Team Elizabeth Yoka, the manager of VAST Intake, and Michael Paskin, the manager of VAST Investigations, to discuss the Helpline and its 10 years of protecting investors.
00:46 - 01:27
Rita De Ramos: Welcome to FINRA Unscripted. I'm your host, Rita De Ramos. Welcome back, Liz and Mike. Both of you are no strangers to this podcast. Last year, you discussed with us the work of the Vulnerable Adults and Seniors Team. We're honored to have you back on FINRA Unscripted, particularly because this month we are celebrating the 10th year anniversary of the Helpline. We won't be doing a deep dive this time around on what the VAST Intake and VAST Investigations do, because this time around, we want to focus on the results and provide a few examples of how the Helpline has become an effective conduit for investor protection and how it has been helpful to member firms.
01:27 - 01:48
Rita De Ramos: We'll include a link to last year's podcast episode for those who want to review it, where we did a deep dive on the processes involved in VAST Intake and VAST Investigations. Even if you're no strangers to FINRA Unscripted, could you please give our audience a brief description of what you do at FINRA? Liz, maybe we can start with you.
01:48 - 02:50
Elizabeth Yoka: Hi, Rita. It is our pleasure to be back here to celebrate such a huge milestone, such as the 10-year anniversary of the Senior Helpline. So I manage the intake side of our Vulnerable Adults and Seniors Team, orr as you will hear me say for short, VAST Intake. The team's primary function is the intake and assessment of calls that come in through the Securities Helpline for Seniors. I have a very small but mighty team of four analysts answering phone calls. Our team also conducts outreach events. We speak at conferences and seminars, and we're also responsible for enterprise-wide adult protective services reporting for financial exploitation of seniors. I have been with the team since its inception 10 years ago, where I started out as a volunteer answering the phones in addition to my regular caseload of examinations. Prior to that, I worked the majority of my tenure at FINRA in examinations as a principal examiner.
02:51 - 02:53
Rita De Ramos: Thank you. Liz. Let's go to you, Mike.
02:54 - 03:40
Michael Paskin: Thank you for having us, Rita. It's a pleasure to be here. We are very excited about the 10 year anniversary of the Senior Helpline this month. I manage the investigation side of our Vulnerable Adults and Seniors team. We are known in-house as VAST Investigations. Our team's mission has three main areas of focus, which are to detect complex and emerging threats, deter instances of financial exploitation as they relate to protecting vulnerable adults and seniors from illicit actors. And we conduct complex investigations, which is our primary day-to-day activity. Prior to joining VAST nine years ago, I was an assistant director in Market Regulation here at FINRA, and our team was responsible for detecting aberrational trading activity on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, as well as investigating related customer complaints.
03:41 - 03:49
Rita De Ramos: Thank you. Mike. I'm excited to discuss this topic with you. Liz, why don't we start by explaining to our audience, what is the Helpline?
03:49 - 04:18
Elizabeth Yoka: Yes, of course. So the Helpline is a toll free number that investors or their the families can call if they have concerns or questions relating to their brokerage accounts, concerns with their registered representatives or their broker dealers. When someone calls a helpline, they will get a live, experienced analyst willing to talk and provide resources as needed. We are open Monday through Friday, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Eastern Standard Time.
04:18 - 05:22
Elizabeth Yoka: It is important to note that initially, the Helpline started out specifically to help out our senior investors. As the team has evolved throughout the years, we've expanded. The Helpline will assist anyone of any age that calls the Helpline and, as soon you will see in some of the statistics that I will share, we have had calls with concerns relating to investors as young as 13, all the way up to 102. The majority of our calls are from investors themselves, with an average age of approximately 70. But of course, in our younger investors or for some of our older vulnerable adults, caretakers or family members will call on their behalf. We have also evolved to provide resources and guidance to member firms that call us with questions or concerns in relation to their senior investors. Most of these calls relate to our senior-specific rules, such as holding of distributions or transaction rules, or our trusted contact rules.
05:23 - 05:26
Rita De Ramos: What led to the creation of the Helpline 10 years ago?
05:27 - 06:30
Elizabeth Yoka: You know, Rita, in 2025, a record-breaking 4.1 million Americans are expected to turn 65, with an average of 11,400 people reaching that age every day. It is a phenomenon known as "peak 65," which is directly related to the Baby Boomer generation reaching retirement age. This has been the case for the last number of years. Protecting our investors has always been at the forefront of our organization. It's part of our mission statement. The Helpline was created by the head of Member Supervision at the time it was created, because FINRA realized that seniors have unique needs that require attention from regulators. Drawing from the expertise of the staff, they assembled a team to monitor the Helpline. It started out in the Boca Raton office. There is a large population of retirees in Florida. The Helpline started out with a group of volunteers, who also had a full caseload of other investigations on their docket.
06:31 - 07:09
Elizabeth Yoka: As the calls started to come in, we quickly realized that we needed to staff the team full time. We really take pride in providing that white glove service to our callers, and at the time, that was one of our staple points. I am proud to say that that same white glove service still exists today. Today, the Helpline is just one of the functions that the intake team conducts. Educating our senior investors is very important for us. We partner very closely with our colleagues in our Investor Education department to provide resources relating to trending issues and scams targeting our investors.
07:09 - 08:05
Elizabeth Yoka: We continue to evolve and expand as needed, and for the last few years, we've started conducting more outreach events where we are visiting senior communities and attending senior expos, and we offer information about our Helpline and resources that are relating to different types of scams out there. We are always looking for ways to reach more of our investing public. As I mentioned earlier, we also have become a huge resource for our membership as well. More and more firm representatives are calling us for guidance and best practices when it comes to their senior investors. Every case is different and they all have many moving parts. The answers are sometimes not as simple as we may think. We may not have all the answers, but we try to provide best practices of what we see in other firms do in similar situations. The firms appreciate our willingness to help and provide those insights.
08:06 - 08:17
Rita De Ramos: At the start of this episode, I mentioned results. Liz, I know you have some headline numbers about the success of the Helpline. Can we share those numbers with our audience?
08:17 - 09:24
Elizabeth Yoka: Yes of course. So over the past 10 years, the Helpline has received more than 32,000 calls from investors asking the simplest of questions, such as, "how do I find out more information about my representative or my broker?" to the more complex allegations of fraud and deception. We've had calls in all 50 states and several countries, including Canada, the United Kingdom, Barbados, Australia, Thailand, the Netherlands, Africa and the Middle East. As a result of the work the Helpline conducts, we have assisted with the return of more than $9.3 million to investors in the last 10 years. Now, that's a huge number, but it's very important to note that this number is not part of any formal dispositions. This is solely funds that were voluntarily returned to investors as a direct result of some of the phone calls that came in through our Helpline. We have also made more than 2,750 referrals to state, federal and international regulators.
09:25 - 09:54
Elizabeth Yoka: And lastly, as I mentioned earlier, we're also the centralized hub for all of FINRA's Adult Protective Services reporting. And what that means is that anyone at FINRA, during the normal course of their work, who come across red flags of financial exploitation of a senior or vulnerable adult, has a responsibility to report that to the states. And as a result of those efforts, we have made well over 560 referrals to State Adult Protective Services.
09:55 - 10:07
Rita De Ramos: That definitely is an impressive set of numbers, Liz. Let's talk more about the 32,000 calls. Can you share with us a little bit more about the common types of calls the Helpline receives?
10:08 - 10:43
Elizabeth Yoka: Yes, definitely. So, the majority of calls are relating to misunderstanding of account information or account activity questions. The Helpline provides educational resources and account information and product information. As an example, we get many calls from individuals questioning things that they have either read online or have heard certain trigger words as being a bad thing. One example of that is the word "churning." We will get seniors that will call alleging churning in their account because they see a ton of activity within their accounts.
10:43 - 11:18
Elizabeth Yoka: One of the first things we will ask is what type of account the client holds. Now churning, by definition, is a broker engaging in excessive trading in a customer's account, primarily to generate commissions for the broker. If the client's account is solely a managed account that is being charged a yearly advisory fee or a percentage of assets under management, it will be unlikely that it could be a churning situation. These are good opportunities for us to provide investors with education on the types of accounts they hold.
11:18 - 12:23
Elizabeth Yoka: In the last few years, the Helpline has also received more calls about potential scams such as romance or confidence scams, imposter scams that usually will impersonate a broker dealer, a registered representative, or even in organizations such as FIRNA or the SEC. And then lastly, crypto asset scams. The clients will call us because the firms have either placed a hold on their withdrawal request or placed of hold on a transaction that they're trying to do. Firms will do this to protect the client, especially if there are red flags of potential scams or financial exploitation occurring. Through our services on the Helpline, we will reach out to the broker dealer to gather additional information and share with the callers that the firms are trying to act in their best interest and protect their assets. When we explain why their accounts are being restricted, or why there's a hold that has been placed on their account, it surely helps them to understand the why behind why the firm is doing a certain thing.
12:24 - 12:28
Rita De Ramos: Could you give an example of a call that ended up in a voluntary settlement?
12:29 - 13:43
Elizabeth Yoka: Yes. So, we received a call from a senior investor and his daughter with concerns of potentially unsuitable variable annuity recommendation. The senior and his daughter had tried to resolve the issue directly with the firm and the insurance carrier, but they were having trouble reaching the individuals that could assist them at both companies and needed our assistance. The daughter explained to us that her dad had purchased a variable annuity for $507,000 in March, yet had not received copies of the contract in the mail until late June, after the free look period had passed. After reviewing the contract and all of the paperwork, the investor and his daughter wanted to exercise the free look period and cancel the policy, as they feared that it may not be suitable for him. After a call to the firm from the Senior Helpline and a brief investigation conducted by the firm, the firm decided to cancel the policy and settle with the client for a total of approximately $515,000, which included the original annuity amount plus $8,000 of interest.
13:44 - 13:56
Rita De Ramos: That's a significant amount and a great result. What about an example of a call that ended up with a positive result because of the Helpline's outreach to member firms, and the member firms’ willingness to help?
13:56 - 14:58
Elizabeth Yoka: Yes. So computer takeovers are scams that are unfortunately are targeting our seniors that are rampant in rate. We had a 74-year-old senior call us. At the time of her call to us, she had no idea what was occurring in her account. She explained that while using her laptop, she received a notification popup from Microsoft saying that her account had been compromised and that she should contact Microsoft immediately at a number provided on the popup. She called the number and spoke to an alleged Microsoft agent, who informed her that her financial accounts were being stolen and that he knew someone who worked at the fraud department where her accounts were held, who could potentially assist her to secure her account. She was instructed to download an AnyDesk app to her laptop, which allowed the agent access to her laptop. She provided him copies of her driver's license and other identification.
14:58 - 16:14
Elizabeth Yoka: She was told that she had to close out her accounts and transfer her funds to her bank account for safeguarding. The alleged scammer coached her on what to say to the firm when closing her IRA and transferring the money to her savings at her bank. She was also coached to close her annuities that were held with the insurance companies and transfer the funds to her bank. After her call to us, we reached out to the broker dealer who elevated the case to their fraud risk department. It appears that on that same day, the scammers were able to open another account at another broker dealer in her name and began to transfer money into the account from her bank account. and then subsequently into a cryptocurrency wallet. That second broker dealer noted the suspicious transactions and called the client, who had no idea that the account even existed. The firm was able to stop the transactions and return close to $250,000 back to the client's bank account. Quick action not only by the firm, but also by the Senior Helpline and our intervention, helped this woman not lose close to $250,000.
16:14 - 16:32
Rita De Ramos: Those are great examples that give life to the numbers that we discussed earlier. There's a story for each of the 32,000 calls that the Helpline has received over the past 10 years. Mike, when does VAST Investigation enter the picture? When it comes to the Helpline.
16:32 - 17:11
Michael Paskin: When VAST Intake does not receive a fulsome response, or if they still have concerns after communicating with a brokerage firm or registered rep about the allegations, they typically contact us to open an investigation so our team can look into the issues further. Additionally, if VAST Intake has concerns about a customer that's being financially exploited by a family member or a friend, or perhaps unduly influenced by the registered rep, those are the type of matters that will come to our team and we open an investigation. And this typically happens almost immediately. Based on the allegations, we quite often collaborate with our department of Enforcement colleagues right from the start of the investigation.
17:11 - 18:20
Michael Paskin: An example of this is VAST Intake contacted us about a phone call they received from an elderly customer. The elderly customer was defrauded by his registered rep. The registered rep offered the customer an opportunity to invest in an annuity with what was purported to guarantee a 10% return on his investment. The registered rep also directed the customer to make checks out for $970,000 to the registered reps' family members, resulting in the conversion of large portions of the money for his own benefit. So after failing to respond to our information request about the scheme, the rep was subsequently barred from FINRA membership. We also made external referrals to law enforcement in this matter. Last year, the United States Attorney's Office announced that an FBI investigation ultimately resulted in the registered rep pleading guilty to wire fraud, and very recently, the registered rep was sentenced to 22 months in prison for defrauding the elderly client. The customer sadly passed away during the criminal investigation. As part of the registered rep's sentence, he was ordered to pay the customer's next of kin over $867,000 for the losses the customer endured.
18:21 - 19:27
Michael Paskin: Rita, one other matter I would like to mention that we received from VAST Intake involve the phone call they received regarding a broker, dealer agent, investment advisor representative that was recommending and selling unsuitable, high-risk investments to two elderly clients that were not in their best interest that also resulted in financial losses for the customers, and it was determined they also benefit the registered rep financially. The sales to these elderly customers totaled over $3.6 million in securities in a lending company, without disclosing that the CEO of the corporation was a friend of his who had been barred from the securities industry. The rep also neglected to disclose that he had a referral arrangement with a lending company, and he was compensated by them for more than $1.5 million. Accordingly, the rep was subsequently barred from FINRA membership for failing to respond again to our information requests about the scheme. We made external referrals to law enforcement entities and state securities regulators in this instance. Most recently, the attorney general announced that the broker-dealer agent and investment advisory representative's registrations were revoked.
19:28 - 19:34
Rita De Ramos: Could you talk about significant advancements in the protection of vulnerable investors over the past 10 years?
19:35 - 20:07
Michael Paskin: Absolutely. Since the Senior Helpline was founded 10 years ago, there have been substantial developments that have really enhanced the protection of seniors and vulnerable adult investors. In particular, there are three main senior financial exploitation rules that have been established. The first one allows for a firm for a prescriptive certain period of time, number of days, as provided in the rule, to place what is called a temporary hold on a customer's securities transactions or disbursement of funds when there is a reasonable belief of customer financial exploitation.
20:07 - 21:01
Michael Paskin: The next one is our trusted contact rule, and this rule requires members for each of their non-institutional customer accounts, to make what is referred to as reasonable efforts to obtain the name and contact information for a trusted contact person that is age 18 or older. And our third and newest main senior financial exploitation rule is Rule 3241. This rule relates to certain obligations of a registered person and specifically represents they should decline being named as an executor or a trustee, or holding a power of attorney or similar position for a customer once they become aware of being named to that particular position. Unless the customer is a member of the registered rep's immediate family member. They should also decline being named a beneficiary of a customer to state or receiving a bequest from a customer, again, unless the customer is a member of the registered rep's immediate family.
21:03 - 21:16
Rita De Ramos: Thank you Mike. We will be sure to include links to those rules on our podcast page. One of the rules you just talked about involves a trusted contact. What exactly is a trusted contact?
21:16 - 21:47
Michael Paskin: A trusted contact is intended to be a resource for the firm to assist in administering the customer's account, protecting their assets, and responding to potential financial exploitation. So a trusted contact may be asked to confirm your contact information. They may be contacted if your registered rep or your firm cannot reach you, if you're in a foreign country, or perhaps you do not have cell phone service, there's a natural disaster, something such as the pandemic occurs, or if someone is concerned about fraud on the account. Having a trusted contact on your account is designed to protect you.
21:47 - 22:27
Michael Paskin: You can always change your trusted contact. Perhaps the customers had their original trusted contacts since they opened their account or since the pandemic began, and they would like to update it, or they no longer desire to have that person as their trusted contact. They can simply contact their broker or firm, and update it. And you can also have multiple trusted contacts on your account if you choose to. Rita, I mentioned what a trusted contact is, but I would also like to describe what a trusted contact is not. Trusted contacts cannot make trades in your account., they cannot make decisions about your account and very importantly, being a trusted contact does not appoint them as a power of attorney, a guardian, a trustee or an executor.
22:28 - 22:36
Rita De Ramos: Could you share with us some success stories with regard to Rule 2165, or the financial exploitation of adults rule?
22:37 - 23:22
Michael Paskin: Sure, we have heard of firms, in many instances, placing a temporary hold on disbursements of funds or securities to prevent senior investors from losing money. For example, a hold was placed on $200,000, which represented approximately two-thirds of the investor's account related to a Central Intelligence Agency lawsuit scam. A hold was also placed to stop a $10,000 disbursement in a lottery scam, $60,000 in a romance scam, as well as $50,000 related to financial exploitation by a customer's brother-in-law. These are just a few representative examples that I want to highlight of firms placing holds on disbursements related to protecting their customers due to a suspicion or evidence of possible financial exploitation.
23:23 - 23:28
Rita De Ramos: Have you received feedback from member firms about the three FINRA rules you've talked about?
23:29 - 24:14
Michael Paskin: Yes, we have many times. In addition to feedback, there are actually also effective practices. In protecting our target demographic of seniors and vulnerable adults, Rita, we have heard from firms about certain practices they utilize to assist in mitigating elder financial exploitation. The tips and practices that they quite often mention, along with some others, can be referenced in FINRA's 2025 Annual Regulatory Oversight Report. Some of those, for example, include that firms do indeed rely on FINRA Rule 2165. And I mentioned a few of those examples just prior to placing a temporary hold on a customer's disbursement or securities transactions when the firm does have reasonable belief of customer financial exploitation.
24:14 - 25:14
Michael Paskin: Another area of feedback we have heard about is for firms to really emphasize internally, in particular, anyone that is forward facing or may have some touchpoint to the customer, the importance of adding a trusted contact and promoting effective practices in connection with methods they utilize to make a reasonable effort in adding trusted contact information. And one other effective practice we hear about quite often is the importance of discussing and providing educational material and resources to customers can be and is very impactful. For example, last year, VAST, along with our Financial Intelligence Unit, we released a threat intelligence product, or a TIP, that highlighted some frequent scams that we hear about, such as grandparent, romance, imposter, computer takeover scams. We have received feedback that this type of material is quite useful in raising awareness, and also increasing financial education to assist in the prevention of elder financial exploitation.
25:15 - 25:30
Rita De Ramos: Thank you Mike. We'll also include a link to the Regulatory Oversight Report on this podcast page. We're nearing the end of our podcast episode. Liz, Mike, are there any key takeaways that you would like to leave for our audience?
25:31 - 25:58
Elizabeth Yoka: Sure. So one key takeaway that I'd like everyone to leave with is to make sure that individuals know that the Helpline is not only for seniors. We will assist anyone who calls the Helpline, and additionally, the Helpline is also available to provide resources and guidance to member firms and other regulators, such as the state Securities division. That's very important for us.
25:59 - 26:23
Michael Paskin: I would like to highlight that education is key. Being aware of tactics perpetrators are using is paramount as they are constantly changing and especially in today's digital world. Technology allows us to open a new account without leaving our home. So attending seminars, listening to webinars, podcasts, speaking to your firm, your registered rep, and also not being ashamed or hesitant to ask for help is really important.
26:24 - 26:50
Rita De Ramos: That's it for today's episode of FINRA Unscripted. Liz and Mike, thank you so much for joining me to talk about the FINRA Securities Helpline for seniors and its 10th year anniversary. Listeners, if you don't already, please be sure to subscribe to FINRA Unscripted wherever you listen to podcasts. Today's episode was produced by me, Rita De Ramos, and engineered by John Williams. Until next time.
26:50 – 26:55
Outro Music
26:55 - 27:23
Disclosure
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