Investor's Watchdog.com: Stock, finance and investment protection for investors

In the summer of 2009, two members of Investor’s Watchdog’s investigative team noticed an ad in the Atlanta Journal Constitution, offering to turn $250,000 into $1 million in a matter of months, “guaranteed.”  We forwarded the ad to the Atlanta office of the SEC, which passed it along to the Tennessee Securities Division.  Yesterday we learned that our tip had resulted in a cease-and-desist order against the promoter of those schemes. It turns out that the promoter, Mr. Jerald G. Follis, offered prospective investors two separate programs, one a scam involving the “cleaning” of currency in China, and the other a Congolese version of the Nigerian scam.  Through quick action, the Tennessee regulators shut down these scams before they could claim their first victim.This case underlines the importance of the SEC and state regulators.  Their cooperation in cases like this allows them to cover many more scams than the SEC can possibly cover alone.  This case also points out the importance of investor protection companies like Investor’s Watchdog, dedicated to stopping fraud before it happens.