Chronology of Court Case Against TD Ameritrade

Laurent J. LaBrie v. TDAmeritrade

Laurent LaBrie takes TD Ameritrade ("TDAmeritrade" or "TDA") to the Better Business Bureau for misappropriation of $15,174 from a personal individually managed account.

Better Business Bureau case # 300046993

Filed on : May 18 2009

Filed by :
Laurent LaBrie
5 Pleasant Ridge Drive #PH-5
Owings Mills MD 21117

Filed against :
TD Ameritrade, Inc.
4211 S 102nd St
Omaha NE 68127-1031

Your Desired Resolution:

It appears to me that in my relying on TDA to perform their option obligations to me as they had done previously and as they told me they were doing, I relied on TDA to my considerable detriment. TDA's responsibility is to satisfy its responsibility to me as its client.

Until TDA reversed all my properly requested and executed trades, TDA proceeded under our agreement and under my direction. As is evidenced by documents provided by TDA, TDA exercised the option as I requested. TDA shorted the stock as is required by exercising a Put option that I purchased through TDA. TDA covered the short as I requested. This all resulted in a gain for which I took the risk and rightly earned and TDA has now misappropriated.

Clearly, since TDA recognizes that all the trades did, in fact, occur, they have profited from my trading. Thus, the gains of $14,049.94 are rightfully mine and should not have been transferred from my account. I am requesting the BBB to intervene in this misappropriation of personal property by one of its members. Additionally, these profits should be increased by the 8% dividend that TDA did not deliver to me. Thus, I request that the BBB assist me in obtaining the return of $15,173.94 plus interest.

According to an e-mail dated 4/30/09 from the Office of the President, subsequently to executing my requested trades, TDA "would have had a failure to deliver from the OCC." Apparently, TDA has made some type of administrative error with the OCC that nullified all the written confirmations that my option exercised and has made a decision to neglect its responsibility to me as TDA's client. Instead of dealing with the OCC and its force of lawyers TDA is now trying to switch the cost of that failure to someone without an "in house" legal staff. More specifically, TDA's problem with OCC is exactly that, and it is not appropriate to try to make TDA's problem my problem or to shift to me the consequence of whatever mistake TDA made with respect to the OCC - particularly retroactively when the trades had become increasingly valuable the longer they waited and after having provided conflicting misinformation to disguise the reasons for their actions. Obviously, I do not find that satisfactory.

Secondly, I would like the BBB to obtain the telephone recordings and thereby break the spoliation of them by TDA. When a client calls TDA, he hears a recorded announcement which states, "This call may be monitored and recorded for quality assurance purposes." If a client by implication agrees to this, as TDA hopes in order to satisfy Maryland law, TDA has established the expectation by the client that the recordings will be used as TDA states. To use them otherwise renders these recorded announcements misleading. In an e-mail from the Office of the President on 4/16 TDA stated that they have these recordings. In their e-mail of 4/15, the same individual stated that these recordings of my conversations "are considered proprietary to TDA." I certainly did not agree to that.

Also, TDA is using them for other reasons than it stated when I gave implied consent (no explicit consent was given by me) and is now withholding these recordings of me.

By these actions TDA is seemingly invalidating any consent I, and all others similarly situated, may have given TDA to make such recordings.

Further, I now wonder whether the reluctance to furnish them to me is related to the evidentiary value of the truth in this dispute that the recordings represent. Therefore, I would like to request that the BBB obtain these recordings and thereby break the spoliation of them by TDA so that they can be used as originally advertized.

Lastly, I would like to request that the BBB insist that if TDA regards these recordings as proprietary and will not use them for the purposes advertized a more appropriate announcement should inform clients of their intended use for proprietary and risk management purposes.

Thank you for your assistance.

This case will be reviewed by a complaint specialist at the Better Business Bureau, and then forwarded to the business for their response. It is our policy to allow the business no more than thirty working days to respond to your complaint. Within those thirty days, we will write, fax, email or phone the company in an effort to seek a resolution to your case. You will be notified when the business has responded.

For Complaint Description click here.

Carolyn Sheets of the BBB has been assigned to this case.
She responded, "e;The Better Business Bureau is a nuetral 3rd party in disputes between businesses and consumers. We do not make judgements on the honesty or dishonesty of a business practice. This is why I suggested you might want to arbitrate this matter thru the arbitration process TD Amertrade provides. You should also file a complaint with the SEC if you feel there was a theft of your money. The SEC is a government agency with enforcement authority and the BBB is a private non profit group with none."e;

I'm not sure how the BBB gives ratings to companies without making judgments on the practices of a business.

We take TD Ameritrade to the Maryland Attorney General

Chronology of Court Case Against TD Ameritrade