Catching a Con Part 1

          This is a story that took place just this summer. If I haven't mentioned it already, I am an investor and am always looking for new ways to expaned my knowledge of the investment world. So one day I was doing some announcing work at a town fair, when I got bored and started roaming the grounds. I came upon a table that was promoting an investment firm. I am not going to give the name of the firm because I don't want them coming after me after I get done bashing them.
          Any way, I noticed that they had some material on their table that they were giving away for free and decided to take a look at what they had. I figured I could read some of their brochures to pass the time until I was needed again. So I walked up to the table and started picking up a few things. As I did, one of the guys behind the table aproached me and introduced himself. He than started questioning me about my knowledge of investing and what investments I was in.
          After giving my answer he started talking to me briefly about his firm and what they do. He than suggested that I leave my contact information with him so that he could send me more information about them. He also wanted to see if we could set up another time that we could meet one on one and talk more. Figuring I had nothing to lose I left him my information and walked off.
          About a week or so later I got a package in the mail that contained more information about the firm. I also got a phone call from the same guy, asking if there was a time and a place that he could meet with me personaly. I ended up deciding to meet with him the following week on my college campus. I started reading the information in the package I had gotten so that I could get a sense of what the firm had to offer.
          I won't lie, alot of what it said fell right in line with my investment goals and beliefs. My only concern was that they were in direct violation of one of my personal investing rules. My rule is that I am the one that manages and chooses my investments. While I am open to advice, I am the one who makes the decisions for what to do with my investments. They wanted me to hand my money over to them, so that they could invest it for me. I still went ahead with the meeting though, because I wanted to see what he had to say.
          The day of the meeting I got out of class and gave the guy a call. He told me that he was on his way and would arrive in about a twenty minutes. I decided to go on one of the college computers to see if I could find any current information about the firm. After a quick google search I found out that they were being sued by there investors for fraud. This story will be concluded in the next post.