The new generation of scam artist knows that promises of ridiculous returns are a mark of an amateur scam artist. Scam artists who want to stay in business will promise returns only high enough to draw the interest of his victims.
Are you surprised? If so, you have yet to grasp that the securities industry is irretrievably broken, tilted so far in favor of institutional investors that individual investors could be forgiven for choosing to bury their money in coffee cans in the back yard rather than risk playing the dupe to a hedge fund that is trading on inside information.
The only way to make any hedge fund investment a tolerable risk is to get a professional investigation on the fund and the manager.
Only amateurs pitch investments that sound too good to be true. The most dangerous scamsters pitch scams that seem ordinary.
A]midst rumors that Microsoft would miss its earnings estimates for the quarter that had ended on March 31, Samberg emailed David Zilkha, seeking information about whether Microsoft would meet its earnings estimates. At the time, Zilkha was a Microsoft employee who had accepted an offer of employment from Pequot.
The good news for celebrities and the rest of us is that we need never again suffer the devastation that the Any Friend of Bob’s syndrome leaves in its wake
If Goldman Sachs were a character in a movie, it would be Eric (“Otter”) Stratton from Animal House.
This case teaches two lessons. First, the securities industry observes no human morality. For players in the market, the only moral code is “‘good’ means more money for me. ‘Bad’ equals less money for me.”
Scam Spotting 301 – Class #4
An RIA who announces to the world that he manages the finances of a certain celebrity client shows more concern for his own pocketbook than for the reasonable sensibilities of his clients.