Investment Scams Quotes

I agree that there are some bad apples on Wall Street. I spent about ten years exposing corporate and financial fraud for 'Barron's' magazine and I found a lot to write about.

The Attorney General must identify threats to Illinoisans' financial security and take action to protect people.

You probably will always believe there should be a law against [financial market] fraud, and I don’t think there is any need for a law against fraud.

Normally I would not recommend a book that tells you how to make money in the stock market. Most of these books are aimed at gullible folk, and they usually make much more money for their authors than they do for the investing public.

We're constantly having to go head-to-head with the Bernie Madoffs of the world who just want more and more money.

The funniest thing is that now I know what reverse spam is. You know you get spam from people saying, 'Can you invest in this or that?' People are now e-mailing me saying, 'Oh my God, can I invest in your company?' It's a reverse solicitation of money.

The best way to make money on Wall Street is to sell the most sophisticated [and complex] products to the most unsophisticated clients.

Any time an investment company has to spend heavily on advertising, it's probably a bad business in which to invest.

First, many in Wall Street - a community in which quality control is not prized - will sell investors anything they will buy.

I know some people whose father has basically spent their whole inheritance on scammers. He's old; he wants to feel important, like he's doing business, so he goes to his bank and pays out - it's terrifying.

There was a time when a fool and his money were soon parted, but now it happens to everybody.

Money management has been a profession involving a lot of fakery - people saying they can beat the market, and they really can't.

On Wall Street, fraudulent schemes tend to thrive during economic booms, and to blow up when times turn tough.

Surely I'm not the only person to ask the obvious question: How different, really, is Mr. Madoff's tale from the story of the investment industry as a whole?

Get-educated-quick schemes are usually about as sound as subprime mortgage-backed securities: Enticing but basically fraudulent.

We did not investigate Wall Street because we were troubled by large institutions making a lot of money; we took action to stop a blatant fraud that was ripping of small investors.

Fraud will always exist. Enforcement of anti-fraud laws is a useful deterrent, but in the end there's no substitute for investor vigilance. Government regulations provide a false sense of security - and that's worth less than no sense of security at all.

Only Ponzi schemes should depend on confidence. Governments should never need to “restore confidence.” Cascading rumors are a product of complex systems. Governments cannot stop the rumors. Simply, we need to be in a position to shrug off rumors, be robust in the face of them.

Robert M. Morgenthau, the Manhattan district attorney, has seen a few financial schemes in his time. As the lead local prosecutor in the world's financial capital, he has battled frauds like the Bank of Credit and Commerce International, which stole billions of dollars from investors worldwide.

As with the Pacific Gateway, Canadians were similarly hoodwinked by the Immigrant Investor Program (IIP).

… a federal industrial commission comparable to the Interstate Commerce Commission and the protection of the people from concerns offering worthless investments under highly colored and specious appearances

Ponzi and all of his successors tap into a fundamental part of human nature. One part of our brain tells us this is too good to be true. The other side tells us this is too good to miss. The key to any con is getting a mark to tip to the too-good-to-miss side.