FBI Exposes Financial Fraud Scheme: 6 Arrested in $50M Scam

Posted by jeremy

Federal agents arrested and accused six individuals of operating a $50 million financial fraud scam. According to the FBI, the scam operators convinced investors to purchase shares of a government-backed Federal Reserve investment fund. However, the fund didn’t exist. Undercover FBI Agents Posed as Investors FBI agents went undercover to gather evidence against the alleged fraudsters. The undercover agents pretended to be investors while they collected emails and recording phone calls. In addition, the brokers allegedly […]

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Checklist to Prevent Oil and Gas Securities Fraud

Posted by jeremy

American consumers are getting duped into making bad investments in highly speculative oil and gas drilling projects. Not only are these investments risky, but many are examples of oil and gas securities fraud. Unscrupulous salespeople are skilled at fraudulently misrepresenting oil and gas investments to make them appear safe and secure when in fact, they are not. The more inexperienced an investor is, the more likely he or she will fall prey to one of […]

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Imposter FINRA Arbitrator Exposed: Plaintiff Wins Appeal

Posted by jeremy

Fake Arbitrator’s $131 Million Decision “Unfair,” Appeals Court Says. FINRA arbitration is virtually the only way to recoup financial damages caused by a negligent stockbroker. That’s why recent news about an “imposter” arbitrator (which led to a successful FINRA arbitration appeal) is extremely distressing. The “imposter” was chairman of a three-person panel of arbitrators that denied a $100 million-plus stock fraud arbitration seven years ago. Fortunately, after a rare victory in appeal, the plaintiff may have […]

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Cross-Selling Fraud: Broker Sold Branded Investments

Posted by jeremy

The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority has announced a wide-sweeping investigation of brokerage firms to evaluate whether they committed cross-selling fraud. FINRA suspects that numerous investment firms are incentivizing stockbrokers to push in-house, branded investment products onto retail customers. FINRA suspects that member firms are also pushing proprietary credit cards, new bank accounts, and other in-house services onto customers. These incentives are causing stockbrokers to sell their client’s bad investments, resulting in significant and completely unnecessary […]

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Unit Investment Trust (UIT)

Posted by robyn

A unit investment trust (UIT) is a company that sells unit shares of itself to investors. Essentially, when an investor buys a unit share of an UIT, he or she is buying into a basket of securities. This contains a mix of bonds, stocks or other kinds of investments. Since UITs are “redeemable,” the investor can liquidate units at any time. Depending on the market value of the UITs, the investor could suffer gains or […]

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