MichaelNYC

Auction Rate Securities: Who's To Blame?

Michael Steinberg - I don't know if you bought ARS for yourself or not, I'll assume you didn't. Happens to be I did. I have corporate and other accounts at Chase, and the sales person definitely marketed the AUS as cash, same as a Chase Money Market account except if you buy the 7 days lock up or the 4 week lock up, you’d need to manage you needs for those periods. No prospectus was given to me or anything else. In fact I had a substantial amount in a Chase MM account for years and this money went into AUS. It happens to be it was a 501 (c), and there's no question in my mind of what I was told. All of you who in previous comments on this article scream "buyer beware", should have been there and then you can talk.

If the Chase wants to be a bank it shouldn’t have sales people from Case Securities sit right next to my regular relationship manager and have that person have access to my Chase bank accounts to see how he can help me take money out of my case MM account and put it into AUS. I know of other Chase customers who were put into AUS as interchangeable vehicle for Chase MM or CD accounts. There was no disclosure, just the opposite. Sounds like somebody was making more money on the AUS, so that was being pushed.

I wonder why the others are forced to buy back the AUS and not Chase so far. As soon as the liquidity evaporated in AUS, the Chase thieves circled the wagons, it was almost comical, announced they couldn’t communicate about AUS by email only phone – it was pretty sad. As much as I don't like lawyers and AG Cuomo (or his father) I find that Chase’s behavior throughout the AUS saga was and still is very shabby and if it takes Cuomo to slap them around, unfortunately, so be it. I hope Chase is somehow not protected by the Fed for being the “good guys” on Bear. Nothing would surprise me anymore.