Investment fraud is big business in Florida. There are millions of people who retire in the state for health reasons because they need warm weather. The retirement funds come with the seniors who move down and fall prey to the scam artists who through a wide array of financial schemes go after life savings and assets.
Winter Park, Florida, law firm Lanigan and Lanigan, P.L., has been providing legal guidance to recover investment losses and pursue charges against those responsible for the many securities crimes that take from people of all ages. Eric Lanigan and Roddy Lanigan work with clients to bring the investment and securities criminals to justice by uncovering the fraud committed against unknowing, innocent individuals.
Seniors aren’t the only group with investment funds. People of all ages retire early and move to Florida for a life near the ocean and are often taken advantage of through elaborate investment and pyramid schemes with the promise of quickly doubling their savings or investments.
Common Florida Investment Schemes and Fraud:
- Commodities Fraud – Commodities are valuable products or materials of uniform quality–precious metals, coffee, crude oil–scam artists use fake sales practices to solicit victims’ funds for commodities transactions that either never occur or are inconsistent and short of the original sales pitch.
- High yield investment frauds known as Ponzi or pyramid schemes – These promise high rates of return with little or no risk. If it sounds too good to be true, it is. A Ponzi scheme uses money collected from new investors to pay returns promised to first investors. Success stories in the first group gives the impression of a legitimate, financial enterprise behind the ripoff artists’ story. In a Pyramid scheme, investors are given a payment by the ringleader to recruit new investors with no legitimate underlying investment.
- Market Manipulation – Known as pump and dumps create artificial buying pressure using false or deceptive sales practices for a targeted security, typically a penny stock to artificially increase trading volume and drive up the price which brings illegal earnings to the perpetrators and losses to innocent investors.
- Property inflation: Flipping property starts with ring leaders who buy property, work with appraisers and false buyers to artificially inflate property values. They lie to banks in order to get mortgages.
The problems surrounding investment fraud in Florida and losses can devastate the future of any individual no matter what occurs when it takes a life savings or an asset. For help in finding out how to recover a loss that was taken through a scheme by a scam artist, contact securities and investment losses attorney Eric Lanigan or Roddy Lanigan.
