Matthew Ewonus
Image Credit: FACEBOOK:Matt Ewonus
October 16, 2022 - 8:46 AM
A Kelowna-based financial advisor is facing allegations he promised to give a client $5,000 after they complained about him and then lied to regulators who were investigating.
According to an Oct. 11 Mutual Fund Dealers Association of Canada decision, Matthew Ewonus offered to compensate a client $5,000 and then told the client they would receive a specific amount from their investment.
The decision says Ewonus then made "false or misleading statements" to the Mutual Fund Dealers Association investigators.
Ewonus founded Latitude Financial Services and has two decades of experience in the financial sector.
According to the decision, the issue arose in the very early days of the COVID-19 lockdown.
The decision says on Mar. 19, 2020, a client emailed Ewonus and asked to "cash out" all of her accounts "immediately" and put the $128,000 in a high-interest saving fund.
However, Ewonus needed up-to-date identification paperwork to perform the transaction and didn't have it.
Because the identification paperwork was more than two years old, the computer system wouldn't allow him to process the trades his client wanted.
The next day Ewonus updated the paperwork but missed the cut-off time for same-day transactions. He submitted the transaction but as it was a Friday it wasn't processed until after the weekend.
By the time the transaction had gone through four days later, the client's portfolio had declined in value by approximately $5,000.
The client emailed Ewonus and made several complaints about what happened.
The decision says Ewonus then left the client several voicemails.
"I’ll make sure that your portfolio, the balance is at ($)128," the voicemail said. "I want to make sure that you’re not down. How I do that is going to have to be a little sneaky because there’s a rule about me basically comping you back. So what I’m going to do is personally put money into your portfolio."
The client then complained to the regulator.
The decision says Ewonus on several occasions denied to the regulator that he had offered to compensate his client.
"(Ewonus) made false or misleading statements to the ... Mutual Fund Dealers Association staff during the course of investigations into his conduct, " the decision reads.
The Mutual Fund Dealers Association says Ewonus's conduct violated three of the regulator's bylaws and policies.
Ewonus is scheduled for a hearing Dec. 6. None of the allegations have yet been proven.
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