Allstate Financial Services Broker Suspended by FINRA for Forging Customers’ Signatures
William Kerschbaumer, a broker formerly employed by the Carrollton, Ohio branch of Allstate Financial Services, LLC, submitted a letter of Acceptance, Waiver, and Consent (AWC) in which he consented to, but did not admit to or deny, the entry of the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority’s (FINRA) findings that he forged two customers’ signatures without the customers’ knowledge or consent. William Fredrick Kerschbaumer Jr., of New Philadelphia, Ohio, was found by FINRA to have forged the signatures of two customers on four documents which were related to their annuity investments. FINRA’s findings state that Mr. Kerschbaumer forged a customer’s signature on two variable annuity distribution forms and, approximately three months later, again forged the same customer’s signature on a letter requesting restoration of a rider to an annuity investment without the customer’s knowledge or consent. Further, FINRA found that Mr. Kerschbaumer forged the signature of a second customer on a letter to the firm requesting a distribution from the IRA account of the customer’s ex-husband, once again without the customer’s knowledge or consent.
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