Or as his mother and father called him, Praxedes Russi. Now I am sure that Praxedes is a difficult name to use while cold calling, so I don’t fault him for using Pat, but when I asked him to spell his last name, he spelled it wrong. He started with “Marc, this is Pat Rusci from Legend.”

Of course, I asked him to spell his name and then asked him about Legend, first asking him if it was Legend Securities (from whom I have previously heard) or Legend Equities, the former subsidiary of Waddell & Reed. He said it was Legend Securities and that they were “very, very big.” Not just big, or very big, but very, very big. I asked him how big. He said it again. I asked, like Merrill Lynch big? No, he said, and I wouldn’t want to deal with those guys anyway.

So how big? Never got an answer. But he told me that their main office is on the entire 10th floor of a building on Wall Street. And that it was a whole 8,000 square feet. I was not suitably impressed. He told me they have brokers all across the country. They are neither on the 10th floor (maybe he’s never been there) nor do they have offices all across the country. According to their website, they have 8 offices in New York and New Jersey (plus the very, very, big main office) and one office each in Florida and Indiana. I think he overstated things a bit.

And that’s a shame. Because Praxedes Russi appears to be a fairly clean guy. His Brokercheck report only shows one old complaint from 1999. He does have some questionable firms in his background, but he spent 10 years at Park Avenue Securities, which is owned by Guardian Life Insurance. Even at Park Avenue, I wouldn’t do business with him, but he didn’t know who he was talking to and clearly hadn’t read my blog. Maybe he will now.

We parted ways and I don’t think he’ll be calling back. The source of these calls appears to be a list sold by Dun & Bradstreet. I hope the brokers who are using the list didn’t pay too much for my name.

That’s the anti-cold caller view of one lawyer from Jupiter, Palm Beach County, Florida. I’m Marc Dobin.