Investor Protection and Fraud
10 articles
Who regulates what, how to check a firm or a person before sending money, the recognisable shapes fraud takes, and what recourse exists afterwards.
Foundations
Start here if the subject is new.Who Regulates What
Several bodies oversee different parts of the market, and knowing which one covers a firm determines both what rules apply and where a complaint goes.
Checking a Firm or an Individual
Registration status, employment history and disciplinary record are public and free. The check takes a few minutes and is the single highest-value habit in this subject.
The Recurring Warning Signs
Investment fraud is not endlessly creative. The same small set of features appears across cases separated by decades, which is what makes a checklist useful.
Ponzi Structures
A structure that pays existing participants from incoming money rather than from returns. It has a fixed arithmetic and a fixed ending, and both are visible from outside.
Affinity Fraud
Fraud that spreads through a community rather than through advertising. The shared affiliation does the work that due diligence would otherwise do.
Unsolicited Offers and Cold Approaches
An approach you did not initiate is a category with its own base rate. The forms change constantly and the structure underneath does not.
Elder Financial Exploitation
A category with its own rules, its own reporting channels and its own protective mechanisms, including the ability for a firm to place a temporary hold.
Intermediate
Assumes the foundations above.Pump and Dump Schemes
Promotion of a thinly traded security by holders who intend to sell into the demand they create. The structural features are visible before the promotion arrives.
Promotion and Disclosure Rules
Anyone paid to promote a security must disclose it. The rule is old, it applies on social platforms, and the disclosure is usually present and unread.
Complaints, Arbitration and Recourse
Most brokerage disputes go to arbitration rather than to court, because the account agreement said so. Knowing the process before it is needed changes what evidence exists.