FINRA

Biwako Bank Limited caught our attention yesterday after a boat-shark appeared on a Facebook Profitable Sunrise site to promote it while making this claim: “**THIS IS NOT AN HYIP , THIS IS A BANK**” The claim is at odds with a claim on the MoneyMakerGroup Ponzi forum that Biwako has a “GoldCoders’ HYIP Manager License.” […]

WordPress has booted a Blogger named in an April 2 order by CONSOB, the Italian securities regulator. The Blog of Daniele Verzari now carries this message: “vdprojectitaly.wordpress.com is no longer available. “This blog has been archived or suspended for a violation of our Terms of Service . . .” HYIP schemes spread in part through […]

“HYIPs use an array of websites and social media — including YouTube, Twitter and Facebook — to lure investors, fabricating a ‘buzz’ and creating the illusion of social consensus, which is a common persuasion tactic fraudsters use to suggest that ‘everyone is investing in HYIPs, so they must be legitimate.’” — The Financial Industry Regulatory […]

EDITOR’S NOTE: Thanks to PP Blog reader “Tony” for pointing us to the British Columbia Securities Commission (BCSC) warning against the Lucra Fund and Goldenarium HYIP schemes. Earlier this month, BCSC issued a warning on the Profitable Sunrise scheme. The British Columbia Securities Commission has issued warnings on HYIP “programs” known as Lucra Fund and […]

Dear Readers, The PP Blog’s choice for the “Most Important” story to appear on the Blog in 2012 is this one, dated July 28: “Site Critical Of Zeek Goes Missing After HubPages Receives Trademark ‘Infringement’ Complaint Attributed To Rex Venture Group LLC — But North Carolina-Based Rex Not Listed As Trademark Owner; Florida Firm That […]

What: Investor Fraud Summits. Where/When: Stamford, Conn. (today from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. EDT at the University of Connecticut – Stamford Campus); Nashville, Tenn. (Oct. 4 from 8:45 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. EDT at Vanderbilt University Law School’s Flynn Auditorium located at 131 21st Avenue South) ; San Francisco (Oct. 9, in Walnut Creek, […]

“Geringer painted the picture of a successful fund weathering America’s financial crisis through a diversified, conservative investment strategy. The reality, however, was the complete opposite. Geringer lost millions of dollars in the market, tied up remaining investor funds in a pair of illiquid private companies, and lied about it in phony account statements.” — Marc […]

BULLETIN: Arnett Lanse Waters, 62, of Milton, Mass., was “permanently barred” on March 9 “from association with any” Financial Industry Regulatory Authority member for failing to provide testimony” in a FINRA probe, the SEC said. This ban occurred after Waters — in 1993 — was “censured and barred for two years by the New York […]

This will be a familiar refrain to many readers of the PP Blog: In July 2010, the Blog reported that the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) had launched a public-awareness campaign about HYIP fraud. FINRA called the HYIP sphere a “bizarre substratum of the Internet.” Just a month earlier — in June 2010 — the […]

In a 29-page court order announced yesterday by the SEC, U.S. District Judge George Caram Steeh of the Eastern District of Michigan laid out the case of willful blindness against serial HYIP pitchman Matthew John Gagnon. That case now has resulted in court-ordered judgments of more than $4.2 million against Gagnon, who also was named […]

BULLETIN: The CFTC has gone to federal court in Texas, alleging that Christopher B. Cornett of the town of Buda was operating a Forex- pool fraud and misappropriation scheme that gathered more than $14 million in phases between June 2008 and October 2011. Cornett has been charged civilly with fraud, which allegedly operated through entities […]