Unauthorized Futures trading, misappropriation of clients funds
Hi,
'M writing this on behalf of my father. I have been cash trading in DBFS Securities limited since July 2011 in Bhadravati and it was going well until recently. My account was transferred to Bangalore branch as the DBFS office in Bhadravathi was permanently closed. Harish Kumar M, a Branch Manager in DBFS took control of my account. After that, I also opened another account in my wife's name. Before my account was transferred, I regularly visited the DBFS office to keep track of my trading account. After the transfer, he was taking care of my account. He was cash trading with my authorization and I used to call him daily to get the trading updates. In April 2017, Harish Kumar came up with the idea of Futures trading and told me that there would be more profits. He started futures trading on April 27th 2017.
Since I did not have any knowledge about futures trading, I told him not to trade futures. However, he started futures trading and misused the money in my account for that purpose. I warned him to stop when I got to know about some loss initially. But he did not listen. He continued trading in futures without my consent. He made a loss of two lakh rupees in my account and five lakh rupees in my wife's account. Even though I received messages regarding the trading, I did not understand what exactly was happening as there was no clear daily profit/loss information in futures trading and had no idea of futures trading. He continued to trade with a high margin till 35lakhs recklessly without my consent. In june, he emptied all my money in both accounts by incurring heavy losses.
As a small town businessman, I do not have knowledge about computers to check emails. Also, I do not understand futures and how they were traded. Whenever I called him for the updates, he told me he was busy and asked me to call later. He stopped giving any updates about the trading. In May 2017, regional manager called me to inform about the loss and inquire why they were not being cleared. Only then I realized that there was loss and asked branch manager to stop whatever he was doing (futures trading) immediately. Regional manager knew everything but just played a game.
After all this happened, I talked to Harish regarding the loss he made. He agreed that it was his mistake and will start trading on his own again to recover the loss. He said he needed some time to arrange the money. On this condition, I waited until now that he would start trading.He was just bluffing me til now. He also borrowed 12000 for his personal use and never returned. I contacted higher authorities and after all the dramas they are saying that they are not responsible for the loss. They tried to close the matter by making harish talk to me and start trading again which he told me before. I am 60 years old now. He does not have any money and can never return. I want my money back from the company. What should i do next? Should i file a complaint in SEBI?