With the economy on a rocky footing, the climate is right for investment scams. These scams can impact investors of all ages, but those hit hardest are the seniors. Often isolated and suffering a diminishing capacity to discern truth from lies, elderly investors are particularly vulnerable to clever investment scams that promise high returns for low or no risk.
FINRA Recruits More Female Arbitrators
FINRA Report Exposes Investors Oblivious to Fees
Majority of Investors Fail FINRA Investing Quiz
SEC Charges REIT with Fraud
The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on Friday, 13th December, 2019 charged the CEO and owner of a small nontraded real estate investment trust, First Capital Real Estate Trust Inc. (First Capital REIT), with fraud. Allegedly he lied about owning a dozen hotels and adding them to the REIT to close a deal.
FINRA Disciplinary Action Report: Dec 2019
Each month, the agency that regulates the financial industry, FINRA (Financial Industry Regulatory Authority), produces a detailed report that runs down all disciplinary actions recently taken against brokerage firms and brokers. We strongly encourage any investor who suspects their broker and/or broker-dealer of having lost them money on dubious terms to at least skim this report to see if you recognize any names, schemes, products, or securities.
Unpaid Arbitration Awards Plague Industry
The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority Inc (FINRA)., along with the rest of the securities industry, is staring at a fresh wave of unpaid and embarrassing arbitration awards against it. Arb awards go unpaid when investors win lawsuits against broker-dealers that sold them unsuitable, faulty or troubled products only to see the B-Ds go belly up and run out of money before they can pay investor damages.
FINRA Disciplinary Action Report: Nov 2019
Each month, the agency that regulates the financial industry, FINRA (Financial Industry Regulatory Authority), produces a detailed report that runs down all disciplinary actions recently taken against brokerage firms and brokers. We strongly encourage any investor who suspects their broker and/or broker-dealer of having lost them money on dubious terms to at least skim this report to see if you recognize any names, schemes, products, or securities.
Brokers Gaming Background Check System
Unfortunately for investors looking to background check their broker, financial advisors are appealing to FINRA for the purging of key information on these reports in record numbers. This is supposed to be a rare step. It completely erases any trace of misdoing that might have blighted an advisor’s permanent record.
FINRA Disciplinary Action Report: Oct 2019
Each month, the agency that regulates the financial industry, FINRA (Financial Industry Regulatory Authority), produces a detailed report that runs down all disciplinary actions recently taken against brokerage firms and brokers. We strongly encourage any investor who suspects their broker and/or broker-dealer of having lost them money on dubious terms to at least skim this report to see if you recognize any names, schemes, products, or securities.
FINRA Disciplinary Action Report: Sept 2019
Each month, the agency that regulates the financial industry, FINRA (Financial Industry Regulatory Authority), produces a detailed report that runs down all disciplinary actions recently taken against brokerage firms and brokers. We strongly encourage any investor who suspects their broker and/or broker-dealer of having lost them money on dubious terms to at least skim this report to see if you recognize any names, schemes, products, or securities.
Investment Scams Target Elderly Investors
With the economy on a rocky footing, the climate is right for investment scams. These scams can impact investors of all ages, but those hit hardest are the seniors. Often isolated and suffering a diminishing capacity to discern truth from lies, elderly investors are particularly vulnerable to clever investment scams that promise high returns for low or no risk.
FINRA Disciplinary Action Report: August 2019
Each month, the agency that regulates the financial industry, FINRA (Financial Industry Regulatory Authority), produces a detailed report that runs down all disciplinary actions recently taken against brokerage firms and brokers. We strongly encourage any investor who suspects their broker and/or broker-dealer of having lost them money on dubious terms to at least skim this report to see if you recognize any names, schemes, products, or securities.
Why Is Investor Fraud So Common?
There are different degrees of investor fraud, ranging from the lack of alignment between your interests and those of your stock broker to the notoriety of billion-dollar scam artists like Bernie Madoff. How do you calculate a figure like this? It’s difficult. But between structural problems like a lack of fiduciary duty between investors and advisors to criminal enterprises like Ponzi Schemes, the losses to investors are in the many billions.
Investors: Ask These Five Questions
We are often asked how investors can best protect themselves against unscrupulous financial advisors and toxic investments. The truth is, most investors simply don’t ask the right questions before they sign on with a broker or put their hard-earned money into the next hot complex investment product. These five questions will at least give you a measure of protection against the worse depredations of the securities industry.
Investors Awarded $1.16M for REIT Sales
In a case that points up many of the problems that have been plaguing the securities industry for years, a FINRA panel of arbitrators awarded six investors more than $1M in relief after they alleged that a financial advisor and three executives for Berthel Fisher & Co sold them unsuitable complex products.
FINRA Disciplinary Action Report: July 2019
Each month, the agency that regulates the financial industry, FINRA (Financial Industry Regulatory Authority), produces a detailed report that runs down all disciplinary actions recently taken against brokerage firms and brokers. We strongly encourage any investor who suspects their broker and/or broker-dealer of having lost them money on dubious terms to at least skim this report to see if you recognize any names, schemes, products, or securities.
Can I Trust My Broker?
Three Most Common Types of Financial Professional Malpractice
Interestingly, comparatively few Americans realize that, under certain circumstances, they can sue their stock broker and his or her brokerage firm in the even that something goes wrong in the account. The most important part of that sentence is really “under certain circumstances.” While those circumstances are certainly not unlimited, there are a number of issues related to financial professional malpractice that come up again and again.
Wall Street Advocate Applauds Proposal for Investor Compensation Fund
The Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association, or SIFMA, has long advocated free and efficient capital markets in the United States. Recently, the organization came out in favor of a proposal by the securities industry self-regulator, FINRA, to force registered brokerage firms to contribute to an investor compensation fund. The fund would be earmarked for investors who have been injured by broker misconduct and investment fraud, and it would allow them to recover even when a brokerage company has gone bankrupt or out of business.