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

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has charged Paul G. Bultmeyer, Arthur J. Piacentini, Sherbourne Capital Management, Ltd. and Sherbourne Financial, Ltd. with securities fraud in connection with an alleged scheme involving the sale of “Prime Certificates of Participation.” (more…)

Harvy Lipman, a staff writer for NorthJersey.com, wrote a fantastic article about an investment scheme that preyed on church members.  David A. Talbot is best known for being Michael Vick’s financial advisor before being removed by a Virginia bankruptcy court for misappropriating Vick’s assets.  But now, according to the state attorney general, Talbot is at it again. (more…)

Yesterday it was Orthodox Jews.  Today its members of the Family Federation for World Peace (FFWP) - formerly known as the Unification Church.  The SEC has charged Kay Services, LLC, and its sole owner and officer, Marcia Sladich, with orchestrating a Ponzi scheme that bilked at least 1,000 investor of more than $10 million.  (more…)

Some financial frauds are so intricately planned and flawlessly executed that we could call them “impressive” if not for their criminal design and horrendous aftermath.  Those scams often have more than ten cooperating participants, some of whom make the sale, others who pose as employees - or even officers - of a well-known financial company (e.g., Citigroup, Credit Suisse) which is supposedly involved in the scam, and still others who pose as satisfied investors who have reaped the rewards of the investment being offered.  These scams bring to mind movies like The Sting and The Spanish Prisoner.  (more…)

Glenn Frey had a hit in the 80’s called “Smuggler’s Blues.”  The song includes the lyric “it’s the lure of easy money, it’s got a very strong appeal.”  That line speaks as much to financial criminals as it does to drug smugglers. 

Robert E. Kessler of Newsday reports: (more…)

Registered Broker-Dealer.  Member of the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA).  Securities Investor Protection Corporation (SIPC).   Every brokerage firm you’ve ever done business with touts those three things.  Let’s admit it-unless you work in the industry, those claims make the firm sound stable, solid, and safe.  They give it an aura of legitimacy.  A case the SEC is investigating should cure us all of that misunderstanding. (more…)

Greg Saitz of the Newark Star-Ledger  is reporting:

that the largest number of investor complaints to the SEC’s office of investor education and advocacy deal with “solicitations of investors by unregistered entities that appear to be involved in boiler room and secondary advance fee schemes.”

In an article run this morning, Saitz gives a list of New Jersey-based companies that have been the subject of alerts by securities regulators in other countries, including:   (more…)

The Securities and Exchange Commission today filed charges against Detroit-area resident Edward May and his company E-M Management Co. LLC alleging that they ran a $250 million fraud for nine years between 1998 and July 2007. According to the SEC, May and E-M defrauded 1,200 investors, many of them senior citizens by falsely representing that they had contracts to provide telecommunications services to several Las Vegas hotels.  May and E-M used “investment seminars” to attract potential investors, touting deals with such major hotel chains and casinos as Hilton, MGM Grand, Motel 6, Tropicana and Sheraton.  The SEC claims that no such deals or contracts ever existed.

The alleged scheme took in investors from several states, including Michigan, California, Florida, Illinois, New York, Ohio and New Jersey.  The case is pending in the U.S. District (more…)