According to Investopedia, affinity fraud is a type of investment fraud in which a con artist targets members of an identifiable group based on things such as race, age, religion, etc. The fraudster either is or pretends to be, a member of the group. These schemes work because the victims are more likely to trust […]
Bad Day for Wedbush Securities – Stockbroker Fraud Post
We first began writing about Wedbush Securities in 2011. Back then, a headline indicating that Wedbush was ordered to pay $3.5 million to one of its own former employees. The amount alone was enough to warrant some investigation. It turns out that Wedbush has a long and sordid history with regulators. One that continues through […]
Wells Fargo Pays Millions To Settle Elder Fraud Allegations
Wells Fargo Advisors has repeatedly been caught pushing unsuitable investments on their clients. One would think that after all the scandals that have engulfed the beleaguered bank, senior management would start taking their customers more seriously. Our first post on Wells Fargo selling unsuitable investments was in 2011. It’s now 2021 and we are still […]
JPMorgan Securities Fined for Unsuitable Investments, Misconduct
JP Morgan Securities – Big Doesn’t Mean Better JPMorgan Chase is the largest bank in the United States and the 7th largest in the world. With assets of $2.86 trillion, it certainly is big. It also claims to be one of the oldest financial institutions in the country. But that doesn’t mean its brokerage arm […]
Precious Metals Scams on the Rise – Gold, Silver or Rusty Scrap?
[Updated through 2020] Recently there has been a glut of advertisements promoting investment in precious metals. Internet websites, infomercials, radio ads, cold calls and TV ads – many promise quick riches through the investment of gold, silver and platinum. It’s no wonder that with COVID-19 worries roiling the market, many believe that gold and silver […]
Can David Lerner Associates Survive?
My first encounter with David Lerner Associates came in July 2011. That month I spoke with a pleasant woman who had invested heavily with a David Lerner Associates broker in an Apple REIT (real estate investment trust). She was calling for advice on whether she accept their offer to buy back her REIT investment. “At […]
SEC Slams Ex LPL Broker for Elder Financial Abuse
A stockbroker who delivers medication to a terminal cancer patient in a snowstorm… sounds like a great guy, right? In most situations it would be wonderful. In this case, the man wearing the hero’s disguise was nothing more than a common thief and villain. Last week the SEC obtained a $1.8 million judgment against former […]
Alliance & Nikolai Battoo – “Figment of Criminal Imagination”
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has charged yet another player in the massive Ponzi scheme orchestrated by Nikolai Battoo. Marketed as PIWM, Maven Assurance or Maven Life, the Ponzi scheme is estimated to have raked in over $150 million dollars. Already the principals, Nikolai Battoo and his chief marketer Tracy Sunderlage, have been charged […]
States Crack Down on Investment Fraud
There is an old adage that says, “The grass is always greener on the other side.” Don’t tell that to the thousands of investment advisers who switched from SEC regulation to state regulation. The Dodd Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act allowed investment advisers with assets under management between $30 million and $100 […]
Nikolai Battoo and Tracy Sunderlage – "Sons of Madoff"?
It’s Halloween weekend and kids throughout the country are dressed in costume. (Same for a fair amount of adults in college towns too.) 75 years ago, the public was terrified when the hit movie Son of Frankenstein was released in theaters. Today it takes more than a movie to scare most adults. For this Halloween […]
- 1
- 2
- 3
- …
- 12
- Next Page »