The name on the door should give you absolutely no comfort.  Stockbrokers at big brokerage firms are just as likely to take advantage of you as stockbrokers at no-name firms.  A recent case from the SEC illustrates the point.  According to the SEC’s press release: Read the rest of this entry »

The SEC has stopped a prime bank scam operating in Colorado.  The Commission charged  Stanley W. Anderson, Edwin A. Smith, with running the scheme through their companies, Trinity International Enterprises, Inc., and CFO-5, LLC, and charged Michael D. Norton, Nicholas R. Fair, and Charles L. Kennedy with selling the bogus investments.   Read the rest of this entry »

The SEC has charged Sarasota, Florida-based Aerokinetics, Inc. with securities fraud.  According to the SEC: Read the rest of this entry »

The SEC has shut down another pump and dump scheme, charging Mobile Ready Entertainment Corp. (Mobile Ready) and its former co-chief executive officers Michael H. Magolnick (Magolnick) and Craig A. Mora with running the scheme.   According to the Commission: Read the rest of this entry »

The SEC has charged Beaufort, South Carolina Mayor William J. Rauch with insider trading.  According to the Commission: Read the rest of this entry »

According to the Minneapolis Star Tribune, when the SEC sued her employer - the Joshua Tree Group - the company’s book keeper followed instructions from the company’s founder, Neulan Midkiff, to remove records and computers from the office.  The book keeper lied to a federal grand jury about it, but is now telling her story to a federal jury assembled to consider Neulan’s liability.  More than 500 Minnesotans lost approximately $30 million in the scheme. Read the rest of this entry »

Len Wells of the Evansville Courier & Press reports that  Carl E. Royse of Fairfield, Ill., and his daughter, Jeanette Riley of Olney, Illinois have pleaded guilty to scamming investors out of approximately $4 million in connection with a scam structured around bogus oil wells.  Wells reports: Read the rest of this entry »

Scamsters have an affinity for fast cars.  The SEC has found another one, charging investment adviser Robert C. Brown, Jr., of Hillsborough, California, with helping himself to more than $20 million of his clients’ money after promising them risk-free returns through option trading.  Among the things Brown bought with the money was the by-now-cliché Ferrari, as well as limousine services, and shopping trips (probably not at Wal Mart). 

According to the SEC: Read the rest of this entry »

According to the Wall Street Journal, New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo has sued UBS, claiming that the Zurich-based banking giant misrepresented “to clients the risks of auction-rate securities before the $330 billion auction-rate market seized up earlier this year.” Read the rest of this entry »

Is there anything more in the public consciousness than the price of gas?  Scam artists know that and are busy crafting bogus companies to take advantage of the public’s demand that America find an alternative to foreign oil.  The SEC claims that it has caught one such company, charging U. S. Sustainable Energy Corp. (USSE) and John H. Rivera (Rivera), with issuing false press releases regarding USSE’s supposed ability to make fuel from soy beans.   According to the SEC: Read the rest of this entry »