Victims of Scott Wayne Reed’s Selling-Away and Speculative Private Placement Investments

Scott Wayne Reed (“Agent Reed”), of Scottsdale, Arizona, has been engaging in various misconduct in customer accounts for years now. Most recently, earlier this year a Wells Fargo customer alleged that Agent Reed solicited him to invest in “an investment opportunity in a company not offered by Wells Fargo Advisors”, Reed broker-dealer at the time. Upon information and belief, Reed tried to solicit several customers to invest in outside business activities sponsored by Hollywood producers. This “selling away” activity led to Reed’s departure from Wells Fargo on April 7, 2020.

Several of Agent Reed’s customers have complained that he sold them unsuitable investments in private placements, oil and gas investments, hedge funds, and mutual funds and over-concentrated their accounts in private placements. In 2017, elderly clients of Reed filed a complaint against Reed’s previous brokerage firms, Accelerated Capital Group (“ACG”) which is now out of business, and Coastal Equities, and later adding him personally to the complaint, for selling them several unsuitable investments. Included in these investments were various Staffing 360 issuances, Aeon Multi-Opportunity Fund, which became Kadmon, and Aequitas, which ended up being a Ponzi scheme. The clients lost their entire investment in Aequitas. They lost between 92% to 99% of their investments in Staffing 360 and lost 70% of their investments in Aeon/Kadmon. Reed sold these investments to his clients even after there were red flags that these companies were completely failing and drowning in debt.

Agent Reed has bounced around several brokerage firms, and has also worked as a registered investment advisor. From 1999-2001, he was registered at Ameritrade. His longest tenure was at Fidelity from 2001 through July 2010. He had brief stints at Strategic Advisors, Inc. and Meridian United Capital before joining Accelerated Capital Group from 2010 through 2015. Agent Reed was registered with Coastal Equities for only five months then joined Wells Fargo from April 2016 through April 2020. While his CRD Report states that he “voluntarily resigned” from Wells Fargo, the explanation details that his resignation came while he was under investigation for selling away. He has been registered with First Financial Equity Corporation since April 2020. Reed was also a dually registered RIA with Gentry Wealth Management from July 2010 through April 2016, which became Ashton Thomas Financial in 2015. According to his FINRA BrokerCheck Report, Mr. Reed operates as “Reed Private Wealth”.

Stoltmann Law Offices is continuing to investigate Agent Reed. If you have lost money in your accounts managed by Mr. Reed, or were solicited to invest in Agent Reed’s selling away scheme, please contact our office at 312-332-4200 to help our investigation or to determine if you have route to recover your investment losses. We handle all cases on a contingency fee basis, so we don’t get paid until you do!