AG Edwards Class Action – Update 1
November 11th, 2009. By LucyC
We’ve had a lot of interest from you about the status of the A.G. Edwards class action and what, if any mutual funds may be involved. This is what we’ve managed to find out—we hope it helps. We’ll continue to follow this for you, so keep your questions coming.
First off, why where you notified about the AG Edwards (AGE) Class Action?
According to official documentation provided on the AGE class action website:
“Records show that you maintained a brokerage account at A.G. Edwards in which you may have held shares of any mutual funds that were advised by, distributed by, or in any way related to companies that compensated A.G. Edwards based, at least in part, upon the holdings of A.G. Edwards’ clients in the respective mutual funds during any part of the period beginning on April 12, 2000 and ending on April 12, 2005. This notice explains that the Court has allowed, or “certified” a class action lawsuit that will affect you if you are a member of the Class.”
So, a class has been certified, which means the lawsuit can proceed as a class action. No determination of right or wrong has been made—and that could be decided in court. Again, according to the official documentation:
“The Court has not decided whether A.G. Edwards or the Plaintiffs are correct. By establishing the Class and issuing this Notice, the Court is not suggesting that the Plaintiffs will win or lose the case. The Plaintiffs must prove their claims at a trial scheduled to start on December 14, 2009.”
So what AG Edwards mutual funds qualify?
According to the documentation, the following is a list of mutual funds “that might be involved:”
Aim Funds
Alliance
Allstate
American Century
American Funds
American Skandia
Bank One
Bear Stearns Funds
Black Rock
Citigroup
Colonial Management/Colonial Investment
Columbia Funds (Fleet)
Conseco
CNL Securities
CRM Funds
Credit Suisse
Davis
Delaware (Lincoln)
Dreyfus
Eaton Vance
Equitable
Evergreen (Keystone)
Federated
Fidelity
Franklin/Templeton
Gabelli
Gartmore
GE Life
Goldman Sachs
Guardian
Hartford (Fortis – ITT)
HNCM
Hotchkis & Wiley
ING (Pilgrim – AETNA)
Invesco
Janus
John Hancock
Kopp Funds (Firstar)
Liberty (Colonial)
Lord Abbett
MFS
Mainstay (NYLIM)
Managers
MetLife
Montgomery
Munder
Nations
Neuberger Berman
Nike Securities
Nuveen
NYLIFE
Oakmark
Oberweiss
Old Mutual
One Group
Oppenheimer
Pimco – Allianz
Pioneer
Planco
Putnam
Russell Investment Group
Rydex
Salomon Brothers
Scudder (Kemper)
Seligman
State Street
Strong
Sun America
T Rowe Price
TCW Investment Mgmt
Thornburg
Touchstone
UBS (Brinson – Paine Webber)
Van Kampen
William Blair
Wells Fargo
W.P. Carey
And just a refresher—if you wish to opt out of this class action, the AG Edwards class action website states:
“If you choose to do nothing and participate in the lawsuit, you do not need to do anything at this time.
If you choose to exclude yourself from this lawsuit and do not wish to participate in this lawsuit at all, you must send an “Exclusion Request” in the form of a letter sent by mail, stating that you want to be excluded from Bachman, et al. v. A.G. Edwards, Inc., Cause No. 22052-01266-03. In the “Exclusion Request,” you must include your legal name, your address, your A.G. Edwards account number, and sign your name. If you are signing on behalf of a Class member that is an entity, such as an estate, corporation or partnership, please indicate your full name and the basis of your authority to act on behalf of the entity. You must mail your “Exclusion Request” postmarked before December 11, 2009, to:
A.G. Edwards Class Action
P.O. Box 2252
Faribault, MN 55021-2375″
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Please keep me on the mailing list.
Hi Nickoletta, Thank you for your comment regarding the AG Edwards class action. This lawsuit has not yet had a settlement announced–so your best bet is to bookmark this site, http://www.lawyersandsettlements.com where we will continue to post updates as we obtain them. You can also sign up for our weekly newsletter that will be sent automatically to your email address. To sign up, simply click here and submit your email information. -Abi
I am the executrix for the Estate of someone who held numerous Bond Funds sold to her by A. G. Edwards
After working for over 40 years (20 yrs. were with DST Systems) I became disabled and had to retired in March 2001. I rolled over my retirement account to AG Edwards and it started out okay but when the economy began to decline so rapidly so did our retirement funds. I was always told to 'hold on a little longer' and felt that I should be able to trust a company such as
AGEdwards so I held on. My account kept losing and losing and I finally started to pull some funds to get some things done at our home before the account finally went to zero. Well that happened in January of 2009 and we now have only Social Security. It has put us in a terrible financial bind and what really aggravates me is that the company officials and staff kept pulling their high salaries and bonuses when the company was losing money. In my opinion if company officials are mis-managing their companies and their staff is giving customers mis-leading information they should not be allowed to get raises and bonuses. This money SHOULD be put in a trust and given back to the people whose money they mis-managed. At the very least they should have told the retirees that their funds were going to be put into a money market fund until the recession (which is simply a fancy term for depression) began to recuperate. I am sick of we little people being penalized for someone elses mistakes.
Absolutely I want to remain in this class action suit. Anything we can get back at this point will be better than nothing.
BELOW IS JUST ONE COPY OF CORRESPONDENCE I SENT TO A.G.EDWARDS REGARDING MY ACCOUNT. I was not informed of this class action suit until an acquaintence sent me a copy of the letter she received. My question: Why was I not part of this class action since I clearly lost over $300,000.00+ because of bad advice by A.G.Edwards financial advisors?
COPIED FROM AN E-MAIL SENT TO A.G.EDWARDS dated 10-16-2002
I have just read the information on your website. I am pleased your company was awarded the J.D. Power award; HOWEVER, I would like to comment on 3 categories of this award.
I have had an account with you since January, 2002. Since that time, my account has LOST over 60% of it’s PRINCIPAL – not interest – PRINCIPAL. I have recently taken the opportunity to discuss my account with another firm and the agent has told me that there should have been NO WAY that the agent responsible for my account should have let it lose that much money without making contact with me to distribute the monies in a way to ‘stop the bleeding.’
No. 1 – Customer Service – the two agents in charge of my account have made NO effort to contact me since March of 2000. I have called several times and have made arrangements to sit and discuss my account with them 3 times. The last time we discussed my account, it was decided they would move my monies to ‘something less volatile.’ (That was June 8, 2002) – Since then my monies have continued to decline. (By the way – one of these agents received a nice promotion based on his wonderful customer service. Maybe the other one too although I don’t know)
No. 2 – Advice – I feel the advice I have been given is very bad. Other people with whom I am in contact have lost dollars in the 20 to 40% range – not in the 60% range. Something is amiss here.
No. 3 – Account Management – I definitely feel my account has been badly managed. Not only was I told on June 8, 2002, that my few dollars that remained would be placed in something more secure, I was also told that my other account (which is now pitiful with loss) would also be looked at and redistributed (this account had $25,000+ and is now down to $8,821). I have heard nothing about that account since and my dollars were obviously not put in something ‘more secure’. My husband placed $10,000 in an account which one of your managers called to tell him would be put in a stock account for 3-4 weeks and then taken out. He has heard nothing from this person since that call which was in early 2000. His $10,000 is now worth $4,363.
Needless to say, I am very unhappy with A. G. Edwards. You can rest assured that anyone who mentions your name as an investment advisor certainly gets an earful from me.
I am in the process of moving my accounts (which I am sure you are glad to hear) to another broker and I STRONGLY recommend the $50.00 closure per account be waived.
Please keep me informed when something changes. Did the trial start when scheduled? Thanks.
Hi Marilynn, Thank you for your question–we are awaiting information on the start of the AG Edwards trial, which was scheduled to begin earlier in December; we've been in contact with the claims administrator and are awaiting an update. As soon as we have any updates, we'll post them, so do keep us bookmarked–or if it is more convenient for you, we also send out a weekly newsletter that includes updates on current class actions, lawsuits, settlements and more. Stay tuned… -Abi
I am a 67 year old who cannot afford to loose a penny in my funds and was shocked to learn about this issue.This country is now a plutocracy with very few SEC regulations in place. We, the little people have suffered tremendously from 8 years of a nightmarish government from the White House on down. The good old boys have gotten super wealthy, while the rest of the unwashed masses, like myself have suffered. I am now looking for a job in my declining years so I can eat and drive a 1993 Ford. Whoever said senior citizens live the GOLDEN years. There is nothing about gold in my old age, but fear of my poverty. These investment firms are greedy, selfish, evil people who only look out for themselves. What a tragedy. Please help us all to recoup whatever might result from this lawsuit. I can only hope that the super rich who did this loose their retirement funds.
Yes I LOST MY SAVINGS .I just want to recover some of it back.
Please forward me the weekly newsletter, it would be greatly appreciated. I too, like many others lost a great deal of money last year. Something would deffinately be better than nothing. Thanks for the help!!
Hi Marilynn, Will do!…the newsletter will be sent out weekly to the email address you've provided–and we'll keep tracking the story.
I chalked up much of my losses with A.G. Edwards to the crash of 2001, but when 2007 rolled around and I suggested everthing be coverted to money market. I met strong resistance and lost more money though the change was eventually made. It appears to me there was some very systematic across the board fraud going on but how does a so called little man ever regain what was lost or even a portion of it.
I TOO HAVE LOST OVER HALF OF AN INVESTMENT'S I HAD BEEN LIVING ON.I NOW DO NOT HAVE ENOUGH LEFT TO INVEST , SO I HAVE TO KEEP USING THE PRINCIPAL.
MY CONSULTANT IS WITH A DIFFERENT FIRM NOW, AND I HAVE SOMEONE NEW.
THE DAMAGE IS DONE SHE ONLY WANTED HER FEES TO MANAGE BUT DID NOTHING TO KEEP MY INVESTMENTS SAFE.JUST KEPT SAYING IT WILL COME BACK…WELL IT DIDN'T.
I TOO WILL BE LIVING ON SS IN 6 MONTHS AND THAT IS NOT ENOUGH TO KEEP MY LIFE GOING.
THERE ARE GOOD AND HONEST BROKERS BUT THERE ARE GREEDY ONES WHO LIE AND JUST WANT TO GET "FEES" I GET SICK EVERY TIME I REALIZE I WILL HAVE NO QUALITY OF LIFE IN MY "GOLDEN YEARS"
IT IS A SORRY WORLD AND DISHONEST BROKERS DO NOT HELP!!!!
These sorry excuses for men sold a perfectly good bond in order to buy an annuity (Met Life)for me which I did not tell them to buy and in fact told them I didn't think I wanted. Fortunately I became aware of their perfidy and made them cancel the Met Life deal, but they they could not get my bond back. Needless to say, I am now in another brokerage and basically managing my own funds, gradually trying to get together a portfolio that represents my interests rather than those of some AG Edwards wheeler-dealer, and, of course, paying some of the tax consequences of their actions. May they suffer boils and any other plague I can think of.
Here it is March 3, 2010 and I wonder if they got started in court??? Do you have any information on it? I would appreciate hearing from you. Thanks! Marilynn
Through the mismanagement of Brokers my 'nest egg' went from a quarter of a million dollars to under 40k. It sickens me. I am disabled and my Mother gave that to me to help me for the remainder of my life.
Today, I manage my own affairs and am in no Brokerage House. I wouldn't trust them if my life depended upon it.
I had the same problem as the others. Took what I had left and went to another broker. Anything I could recoup would really be bennificial at age 75. Please keep me informed also. Thanks
I talked with an investor at AGEdwards and he assured me that he
had just the fund for me to invest my $10,000. So as a single mother trusting him to guide me…….He put me in a Putnam fund
that did nothing but continue to decrease. I called several times
concerned and was told that just hang on and everything would be ok. the market is known to go up and down. Unfortunately, if a concerned customer called several times asking for the investor to look over their account. It looks like the investor would have moved them instead of leaving in the same fund. I closed my account with less than or equal to $3,000. So, with this figure I don't feel a wise and accurate decision was made to concerned with the customer. How sad but,true. I thought it was just me but, now I see by being on this site many others dealt with the
same concern I have with AGEdwards.I feel I just gave my investor
$7,000.
Please forward any update on this case. Thanks.
The AG Edwards class action has a proposed settlement–you can read more about it here; also, if you had opted in on the AG Edwards lawsuit initially, then you should've (or should soon) received the notice of the proposed settlement in the mail–notices started to go out in the mail last week
My husband lost a tremendous amt of money. I lost also but not the amt he did. He kept calling our
agent and the agent just treated him like a country bumkin. He was to ill to argue and just maintained until about 2002. Keep me informed.
Hi Virginia, Thank you for your comment–I'm sorry to hear that both you and your husband were affected by the troubles at AG Edwards. We did recently post an update to the AG Edwards Class Action based on the notice of proposed settlement that was sent out to claimants in March. You can read about it here.
I am the Trustee for a trust established by my parents. Dad passed away in 2007, Mom in 2010. Documentation found in their files subsequent to their deaths leads me to believe that the Trust they established may be impacted by this litigation.
I recieved a letter sometime back stating this had been settled and the attorneys recieved 35 million dollars and the rest would be divided up between everyone involved. My share was to be $20.24 because i closed my account. If your account was still open you would get $25.00 plus some change. The total of the settlement was 60 million. So far I haven't seen anything. Attorneys probably use it for there bunus.
I have not received any money yet. what gives?
I am a member of the lawsuit which was finalized some time ago. I have never received any payment at all. I have been trying to get in touch with Mr. Christopher Baughman. I have been given his name as someone who can solve my problem and get me my money. After
six months I have only spoken to him one time and he stated that he would look into it and get me an answer. I have never heard from him again. I have also been given the name of Mr.Rust who might be able to help me.
So I am looking for some help from anybody to get my share of the money.
Thanking you in advance,
Mr. Francis J Selewski