Dunno about free equity or trustee accounts - but I expect the terms mean nothing in reality. EG a trustee account only works if the holder obliges the laws/rules pertaining to the use of trustee accounts - they require some level of trust - in this case the word trust means nothing to crooks - and if they use the money in trust contrary to what was intended - th emoney is goneski and trusteeship means ZERO.
When we invested were told and pds said all client funds would be held in a segregated account/s. Yes it referred to ability to co mingle rathe than keeping an idividual account for each client. And yes I think I even sort of accepted that if someone defaulted on a margin call some of those funds could be used to "fill the gap" untill the margin call was met. However, I did not for a second imagine those comingled funds would be drawn upon to pay commissions - pay electricity bills or buy a house for the owners.
Moreover - the law and PDS prohibits the use of those funds in the manner they were used - but that only works if the "owner" has morales etc and obides by the law.
However, segregated only means they are not allowed to do certain things with those segregated funds - NOT THAT THEY CAN'T do those things - there is no security guard standing at the vault with a gun saying you cant do that - I won't give you the money. They just took it!
Because no security guard was there they did what they were not supposed or allowed to do. Big difference between what not allowed to do and what they did.
Lesson learned for me - keep your funds/free cash in a bank account and only trade a market that allows T 3 settlement. That way you keep your cash safe in the bank (as safe as it can be) and only draw down/transfer funds after buying stock. My biggest loss was cash sitting in the client segregated account waiting to be deployed. I don't give a rats about the stock I bought am happy to say its lost - it wasn't covered by a HIN etc - but the cash in the account should come back to me no question - but at best I will get 69 cents in the dollar back
