The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has recently settled its lawsuit against Raging Bull.  Raging Bull tricked people into paying for their bogus investment strategies and recommendations and then locked their victims into costly subscription plans that were very difficult to cancel.  Raging Bull falsely claimed that its strategies and recommendations would consistently beat the stock market, all of which was false.

As a part of the settlement, Raging Bull paid 2.4 million dollars to the FTC which is refunding the money by PayPal to victims of the scam.  For more information about the refund program go to the “FTC Scam Refunds” section in the middle of the opening page of http://www.scamicide.com.

TIPS

Never rush into any investment until you have carefully investigated the people selling their investment or system as well as the investment or system itself.  Always be a bit skeptical as to testimonials which should also be carefully investigated before being relied upon.  Before investing with anyone, you should investigate the person offering to sell you the investment with the Securities and Exchange Commission’s Central Registration Depository.  This will tell you if the broker is licensed and if there have been disciplinary procedures against him or her.

Remember my motto, “BS – Be skeptical.”  Take with a grain of salt any testimonials and success stories touted by investment promotors.  Scammers often create phony websites with glowing videos and reviews that are totally bogus.

Do a search engine search of the company’s name with the word “scam” or “complaint” and see what comes up.

It is also important to remember that you should never  invest in something that you do not completely understand.  This was a mistake that many of Bernie Madoff’s victims made.    You also may want to check out the SEC’s investor education website at www.investor.gov.  Scammers can be very convincing and it may sound like there is a great opportunity for someone to make some money, but you must be careful that the person making money is not the scam artist taking yours.

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