Q: Can I take legal actions towards my financial advisor for being dishonest?
So in January my mom got a letter from her financial advisor which was from the IRS telling her that she had to fill out a W-9 because the social security she had in her account was wrong. My mom immediately took action and we went to our financial advisor office to correct the social security number or else she would get a 24% backup withholding. In March when the stocks started going crazy cause of the pandemic, my mom closed her account to get her money out. Days later her financial advisor calls her telling her that she is subject to a 24% backup withholding because her social security was wrong. But we don’t understand how that is my moms fault when we went to his office in January to provide the correct social security number. So today, we went to his office to question why this happened and he couldn’t answer our question. All he says is that this was a “system error” and that we can’t blame anybody for what happen. We are positive that he forgot to sent the w-9 to the IRS.
A: Contact the IRS to verify.
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