Keep in mind whoever clears these trades watches this stuff or should be. It would be very easy to audit - "Give me a random sample of 100 statements of accounts with current balances between 23,000 and 25,000." It would take an SEC or FINRA auditor about 15 minutes to spot if this rule being violated, just by flipping through 100 statements. Meaning if they are violating the rule, they'll spot it within 15 minutes. It's hard for me to believe that brokers would take this risk.
I would hazard a guess that the paper trail is readily tracked by computers rather than having to do real person audits.
Gottta tell you way way back in the early 80s I was an auditor for 2.5 years and that's how we would have done it back then.
better say......not an auditor for FINRA or the SEC or anything like that though. But testing samples - hard copies - was in ancient history how it was done.
Do you think such firms want their names thrown around on chatboards? Do you suppose SEC / FINRA aren't able to search the Web? Sheesh.