Auction Rate Securities - Latest News
| ARBITRATION LOCATION | DEALER | ISSUER | DOLLAR AMOUNT | |
| San Francisco | UBS | Iowa SLLC Access Grp |
$200,000 $350,000 |
foxrosie@comast.net |
| Miami | UBS | Iowa SLLC CONNECTICUT S LN ILLINOIS ST AST MISSOURI HGR EDUC COHEN&STEERS RLTY |
$200k $150,000 $200,000 $100,000 $25,000 |
russkyserge@hotmail.com |
| Las Vegas | UBS | John Hancock I F Eaton Vance I F |
$200,000 $100,000 |
donzie7@peoplepc.com |
| Ottawa, Canada | UBS Miami Office | ILLINOIS ST AST |
$400,000 |
hellison@rogers.com |
| Nashville | UBS | DNP - The Worst Calamos Kayne Anderson |
$L A R G E |
arpsfraud@yahoo.com |
| Los Angeles | Merrill Lynch | Nuveen Blackrock Morgan Stanley Alliance |
$12,000,000 | arpscef@cox.net |
| New York |
Smith Barney Morgan Stanley |
Too many to list |
$1,200,000 | MrkLoren@aol.com |
4-01-2008 @ 12:59PM
frank said...
First, I hope I can get my money out of the ARCs (sorry UBS I am using your trademark). Second, I hope that UBS goes down along with all the other brokerage firms that practice these deceptive acts.
Here is the problem - GREED:
* UBS was paid to underwrite this crap
* UBS could change the rules anytime they wanted
* UBS supported the market and pushed their brokers to sell this to their clients
* UBS made more money doing this than pushing CDs
* UBS brokers made more money doing this than pushing CDs.
* UBS has a trademark on ARCs (the market was so big they filed for trademark!)
In this day and age of full disclosure, UBS failed to ever think any of this was material information to their clients.
Finally my UBS broker tried to comfort me by saying that we made $30,000+ on the money last year, and even with the $20,000 paper loss on Friday we are still up.
He forgot that I told him (and his e-mail confirms) that I asked for only two things. The money needs to be liquid and the capital must be preserved. Both of these now did not happen.
Bacteria that live in the stomachs of maggots are more scrupulous than UBS or their brokers
To: russkyserge@hotmail.com
Dear Sir
I have $1,1ml with MorganStanley a $100k with SmithBarney.
All 100% of money.
To pay taxes and make investment I borrowed $285k om margin.
Til last day my broker kept saying that money liquid.
To arbitrate with attorney I have no money.
To arbitrate to self represent I have no money.
FINRA is not a charety institution.
Attorney General of N.Y.S. seems has no website.
May be somebody has any idears.
P.S.Latest news:Today at 4P.M. Citigroup conducting conference call about ARS.
With respect. M*** L***********
Dear future clients of UBS, Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley, Wachovia, eTrade, Ameritrade, please read this carefuly BEFORE you trust them your money
ERIC: You wrote: "Now I'm sitting with an Access Group ARS that just reset to 0% for the next 90 days and will default to LIBOR + 150 BPS every period thereafter."
You are the first person I've seen on this blog who is holding exactly what I'm holding. An Access Group ARS (private student loan company) that just reset to zero and will be there for the foreseeable future. Most of the folks on this blog are dealing with liquidity issues that, I expect, will eventually be resolved by the issuers who wil ultimately be pressured to de-leverage and buy back the ARPs.
A far less hopeful situation is faced by holders of the student loan ARCs, ESPECIALLY the private (rather than government backed) student loans like those funded by the ACCESS GROUP. I've not heard ANYONE mention ANY strategy -- even a long-shot one -- which addresses the problems faced by those of us who are holding student loan backed ARCs. These student loan backed ARCs are re-setting to ZERO for long periods of time (and then Fed-Rate plus .6, I think) when higher rates that were paid earlier get averaged out so that the running 12-month total does not hit some incredibly low cap that was set forth in some amendment published last year, long AFTER publication of the original prospectus, which none of us ever saw anyway and which my FA can't even FIND.
SO ….. not only are we getting NO interest on these securities right now -- not only are we waiting for VERY LOW interest rates later (something like Fed-Rate plus .6; not even LIBOR plus 1.5 which is low enough) -- but it seems that we'd have to discount these VERY VERY steeply to get anyone interested in buying them on a secondary market because of these incredibly low interest rates, including many months of ZERO. So, this is not likely to be just a LIQUIDITY problem that will eventually get ironed out. It's a MAJOR loss of VALUE. In fact, these securities were NEVER worth what we paid for them.
It seems to me that - for the most part - the remedies that are being pursued for the ARPS holders simply don't apply for holders of student loan backed ARCs.
Am wondering if holders of these Student Loan Backed ARCs should have our own blog or site or SOMETHING. We are the ones who got left holding the most ugly of all the “old maid” cards in the deck.
So, ERIC .... I too share the dubious distinction of holding an ACCESS GROUP ARC. Mine's probably even worse than yours, since it's a SERIES B issue ... but we are pretty close to being in the same boat.
Perhaps we could communicate directly, since this blog is pretty much focused on issues pertaining to ARPs holders. Am really wanting something like this blog for holders of student loan backed ARCs, so that we could share the strength, support, encouragement, ideas, and brainstorming that the ARS folks are sharing here.
ANYONE ELSE OUT THERE holding these bottom of the barrel "old maid" cards? (Student Loan Backed ARCs)
Please contact me at: foxrosie@comcast.net .
P.S. my dealer is UBS.
P.P.S.
ONE MORE THING: I AM extremely grateful for all the helpful information and organizing tips and encouragement offered on this blog. Some of the remedies talked about here DO apply to holders of Student Loan Backed ARCs as well as holders of the ARPS.
But the most likely remedy. involving pressure on the closed end funds. does not apply to us. I spoke with the investment fellow at The ACCESS Group and he was not the least bit sympathetic. He said he had no contract with me. Only with UBS (the underwriter, dealer, and auctioneer). And the money is not sitting in some higher-yield security which can be sold to pay me off .... it's been disbursed into student loans which will (or won't) be paid off over a 30-year period.
ARScammed wrote...
the interesting thing is that EVERY institution led conservative investors to the ARPS. my brother says that the merrill 'handbook' for brokers said that clients should be encouraged to shift assets from money mkt funds to ARPS. actually, merrill sold me both the blackrock ARPS and the CEF that issued them - kind of a neat deal, huh? believe me, i've sold all the CEF! then, every institution walked away from supporting the auction market simultaneously. i know people think you're a nutcase if you start talking about conspiracies, but....all of wall street sure did the same things!
raccoon wrote...
ANOTHER CLUB MEMBER JOINING HERE. EXCELLENT BLOG!
I was done in by an E*Trade FA broker in December 2007, MY TRADE CONFIRMATIONS ARE MARKED SOLICITED to boot. I swallowed his line for $250,000.00 of these ARPS turds. He probably saw the impending collapse. I have complained to SEC, FINRA, my State Securities Div, E*Trade compliance,and my Congress-person. E*Trade won't comment, just worthless empathy, but no help.
Like all the above experiences, E*trade blows me off, and says," not our problem, its a global issue," Global my azz this is my IRA, and I am almost 60 frecking yrs old !
In December I just called about what MMF rates were late last fall after my T-Bill matured, and the broker offered up these ARPS, probably sold them out of their own inventory to boot. Then the broker left the firm in late Jan08, and he was supposed to call and follow-up,, LOL, NOT! I heard the same BS, good as cash, liquid etc etc, I told him safety of my principle was my first concern! He said, "5% yield safe and liquid, good as gold! HA, I wish I had bought gold. We all know therest of the story.
Mass complaining and complant filing is what needs to be done as others suggest. These brokers should be forced to buy them back and or the closed end fund companies need to start selling the common to pay us off. MAD AS HELL AND NOT GOING TO TAKE IT ANYMORE, I WILL BE PONDING ON THE DESK OF MY LOCAL E*TURD BRANCH TOMORROW.
The lying scum on CNBC and Wall Street crooks all the way from E*Trade, Schwan, up to Goldman and Bear, all pond scum.
" The fat cats privitize all the profits, while the losses are socialized to us bag-holders." Time to REVOLT !
E*Trade, they have probably two dozen walk in branches, and an FA so-called worthless advce team in NY.
Not all phone and on-line. I wish they had been. They are the same bunch of morons like Schwab, Ameritrade up to Merrill and Lehman GS, Bear etc etc
All these brokers colluded together IMO the night of last Feb 11th to frock us like choir boys in the ARPS crapola, after they dumped as much as they could out of their own inventory. Look at the new lawsuits piling up daily.
There will be a formal complaint logged against E*Trade now soon to, well deserved to be billboarded with the rest of the whores and thieves.
If I ever get my money out I am putting it all in Canadian dollars, Euros, and silver, and then cancelling the cable for CNBC, and the happy talk talking empty heads. Those chicks giving us smiles and cheerleading, half of them are not old enough to have hair on their puzzy cats, and they hype, .."are we at a bottom yet ?" "Time to buy !! The dangerous Jim Cramer, notwithstanding, hyping Bear Stearns at $87. SEC should take him off the air, or have CNBC label it the untruth comedy hour. What a douche bag he is! The only bottom we got was the butt of Wall Street Fat Ctas on our faces, unfortunately not the chicks on CNBC.
P.S.
I am signing up... I've signed up to be Girard Gibbs' (temporary) lead plaintiff in the ARS class action complaint against E*Trade ,
their compliance department had the juevos to actually hang up on me.
I even found out today the broker who solicited me to buy the ARPS isn't even licensed in my state!!! Boy o boy
We all need to w/d all funds and o/o all securities from these 3 steps below pond scum brokers. CNBC won't even touch the story yet... the bottom is in.. right, they would all be outta work if the total scam that is America capitalism is exposed!
I maintain this web page to gather as much information as possible and spread the word to help other victims of this financial misrepresentation and alleged crime by the major financial institutions.
I can be reached via e-mail at russkyserge@hotmail.com
Serge Birbrair and I am not just a web page publisher, but also a victim who trusted UBS and got burnt. Do YOU want to be next?
No? Don't believe everything you hear from your Financial Adviser, as they are played by the management too.