The FBI reports that Americans lose $40 billion every year to investment fraud. But that figure will not motivate anyone to act. It is a sterile number that does not communicate the humiliation, misplaced guilt, and real world consequences to the victims of investment fraud.
First, your friendly neighborhood stockbroker, the one who everyone trusts because he is such a nice guy, is not necessarily equal to the trust. Unless you’ve done in-depth due diligence on the broker, you know absolutely nothing worth knowing about him.
The gang of senior citizens ambushed him outside his home. One of them hit him over the head with a walker. They bound him with tape, bundled him into a cardboard box which they put into the trunk of an Audi, and set off for a large house on the shores of Lake Chiemsee in Bavaria.
What makes Anitques Roadshow such a popular show on both sides of the pond? It is the idea that people may be holding onto seemingly worthless items of personal property that are really worth a fortune. If you have ever seen the show, you know that people come on the show to have their items appraised by [...]
Registered investment advisers (RIAs) are different from stockbrokers; at least they are supposed to be. RIAs owe you a fiduciary duty, which means that they are supposed to put your interests first and disclose any possible conflicts of interest. But many investment advisers do not live up to that duty. The U.S. Securities and [...]
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has charged Summit Advisory Partners and its managing partner, Robert Feeback with directing an illegal pump and dump scheme. According to the SEC, the scheme allowed three stock promoters, Ryan Reynolds, Jason Wynn and Carlton Fleming, to make millions by purchasing shares cheap, hyping the companies with false press releases, and then selling [...]
What do stockbrokers do when a regulator kicks them out of the securities industry? Oftentimes, they keep right on selling. The SEC has charged Bernard Daniel Braver with working for an unregistered investment company, Rabinovich & Associates, LP, operated by Alex Rabinovich, who the NASD tossed out of the industry years ago. The firm operated out [...]
The island of Majorca is off the Mediteranean Coast of Spain. For many years it has been a favorite vacation spot for Brittons seeking sunshine and retirement. The UK’s Serious Fraud office has launched an investigation into a possible 20 million pound fraud that targeted British retirees living on the island. Specifically, the SFO believes [...]
When I was in high school, I took a class called “On Death and Dying,” in which we studied Dr. Elizabeth Kubler-Ross’s book of the same name. Dr. Ross identified five distinct stages through which people pass after learning that their death is imminent. The first, and most stubborn, of those stages is Denial.Through 20 years of representing investors [...]
Study Reveals the Pain of Investment Fraud
What keeps many from protecting themselves from this pain is the persistent, hardwired belief that such tragedy will never happen to them.