D. Allen Blankenship (CRD #2842335, King of Prussia, Pennsylvania)

December 7, 2023 – Blankenship was named a respondent in a FINRA complaint alleging that he engaged in unsuitable short-term trading of mutual funds by effecting trades in customer accounts that lacked a reasonable basis. The complaint alleges that the holding periods for these trades ranged from 119 to 364 days. Those transactions resulted in sales charges of $21,158.45 paid by the customers and generated commissions of $16,014.16 for Blankenship. In addition, Blankenship recommended mutual fund purchases where he failed to ensure that customers received $21,873.91 in available mutual fund breakpoints. The complaint also alleges that Blankenship circumvented his member firm’s procedures for supervising mutual fund transactions when he intentionally divided his customers’ mutual fund investments into multiple purchases of amounts less than $20,000 to avoid completing and submitting forms required by the firm, in order to evade the firm’s supervisory requirements, and circumvent the firm’s system for reviewing mutual fund transactions for suitability. Blankenship’s circumvention of firm procedures deprived his customers of important information concerning their mutual fund transactions and impeded the firm from supervising his mutual fund transactions. The complaint further alleges that Blankenship caused his firm to maintain inaccurate books and records by mismarking the purchases of mutual funds as unsolicited, even though he solicited these investments. (FINRA Case #2019064333401)