A Vancouver neurotherapist convicted of minor medical insurance fraud in 2012 is facing more fraud charges, this time for allegedly bilking an Australian woman out of $30,000 while posing as a derivatives trader.
Teresa Kathleen de La Boursodière, who runs Vancouver Neurotherapy Health Services, is facing a hearing by the BC Securities Commission for allegedly defrauding a woman she met in Australia in 2007.
The allegations haven’t been proven in court.
According to BCSC hearing documents, de La Boursodière told a woman she met while in Australia that she was a successful derivatives trader and was licensed as a stock trader in B.C. De La Boursodière is not a licensed trader, according to the BCSC.
Reached for comment, de La Boursodière claimed to be unaware of the allegations against her.
“I had a corporation in Australia where I had shareholders, but that’s about the extent of it,” she said.
The company in Australia was a health care company, she said. Asked why a health care company would be trading in securities on the behalf of other people, de La Boursodière said she did not know enough about the BCSC claims against her to respond further.
According to the BCSC, de La Boursodière first obtained $15,000 from the woman in Australia, and invested $10,000 of it through her own self directed trading account, and spent the other $5,000 on bills, gas, groceries and other items unrelated to trading.
De La Boursodière did actively trade, but made withdrawals from the account for personal use without her client’s permission or knowledge, according to the BCSC. When she had drained the account in 2009, she managed to get another $15,000 from the investor in Australia.
In 2010, the woman asked that her fund be closed. Several months later, when she did not hear back from de La Boursodière, she hired a lawyer. De La Boursodière repaid only $7,000, the BCSC alleges. De La Boursodière now faces allegations of fraud and various breaches of the Securities Act.
Around the same time that de La Boursodière was alleged to have committed securities fraud, she was also committing minor fraud related to her alternative health practice.
At the time, according to a 2012 BC Supreme Court decision, de La Boursodière ran the ADNC Neurofeedback Centre, where she used a grab-bag of therapies – from biofeedback to shiatsu massage and reflexology to treat a range of conditions.
In 2012, a BC Supreme Court judge found her guilty of committing minor fraud and forgery related to submitting false claims Pacific Blue Cross on behalf of clients.
De La Boursodière’s Vancouver Neurotherapy Health Services Inc. advertises her services to include neurofeedback (i.e. biofeedback), shiatsu massage and acupuncture for treating conditions ranging from attention deficit disorder to stroke.
