Scam Alert: Free Lunches for the Elderly
20 July 2006It’s the newest twist on the old time-share conference scam, only this time they’re targeting the elderly. A number of different investment firms with products of questionable value have set up shop in retirement communities, offering seniors a free lunch in exchange for listening to a pitch on investment products. The scams often involve a bait and switch, drawing in seniors with offers of relatively stable investments and getting them to leave with high risk, often fraudulent ones.
http://money.cnn.com/2006/07/17/pf/free_lunch_scams/index.htm
The main way the con artists work is by taking advantage of the lack of financial knowledge among many elderly Americans, pushing them towards “investments” they really should be avoiding. If you’re retired yourself, or have parents who are, the best advice is just not to go to the conferences in the first place - and keep in mind the age-old advice that there really is no such thing as a free lunch.
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One Response to “Scam Alert: Free Lunches for the Elderly”
July 24th, 2006 at 8:45 am
[...] Like most people, we are interested in making money work for us. So we thought, “What about large caps?” The problem is, there is no free lunch. We can’t help wonder what is the best day to trade stocks? And worst of all, we are worried about rogue waves and the stock market. If our plan became siriusly flawed it would be a FrightFest. Then there’s commodities. We are hearing some interesting stuff about peak oil. But what if water turns out to be more precious than oil? If only we knew the basics of precious and base metals investing we might have an idea where to start. As it is, the choices make us dizzy. [...]