Columnist’s Advice on Ethics Unethical

I’ll bet columnist Carla Lazzareschi would scream bloody murder and the National Assn. of Security Dealers’ phones would light up if the brokerage firm owed her $91 (“Brokerage’s Foul-Up Clearly Its to Swallow,” Aug. 28). Yet somehow all is OK if the customer doesn’t want to live up to their end of the deal and deliver what was sold.

Ms. Lazzareschi appears to champion the downtrodden against the evil brokerage empire when she states, “The broker clearly made a mistake and should own up to it.” Was it not the customer who requested the broker sell 100 shares? After making the sale, was it a mistake to expect delivery of 100 shares?

The Securities and Exchange Commission requires public companies to notify shareholders of changes in capitalization such as reverse stock splits. Was it the broker’s mistake the customer failed to exchange the old shares for new as requested? If a bank mistakenly credits money to your account, it is illegal to spend that money. Why is it OK to keep the money from this mistake? Ms. Lazzareschi sees no problem with the customer keeping money from the sale of shares he didn’t own (“. . . you are not breaking any laws”) and in the same breath suggests the branch manager be contacted if the customer was treated shabbily!

The broker lived up to his end of the bargain based on what the customer said they owned (“The check arrived promptly”). Despite this, Ms. Lazzareschi devotes two paragraphs to telling readers how to report unethical behavior.

Please tell me what’s so ethical about keeping that which does not belong to you? What is so ethical about not correcting a mistake that you instigated? Knee-jerk answers make for poor advice.

PHILLIP COOK

Manhattan Beach

The writer is a certified financial planner.