Investment Fraud Targets Older Americans

Last year, there were 1,241 criminal complaints, cease-and-desist orders and other regulatory actions launched at the state level involving investors age 50 or older, according to the North American Securities Administrators Association, a group of state regulators. That was more than double the 506 cases in 2009.

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The typical person's ability to make effective financial decisions peaks at age 53.3 and goes downhill after that, according to a Boston College Center for Retirement Research study last year.

Exotic unregistered securities such as promissory notes, private placements and investment contracts have emerged as the main vehicles for fraud involving older investors. Of the enforcements in 2010 involving investors age 50 or older, cases involving unregistered securities outnumbered those related to ordinary stocks and bonds by a ratio of five to one, according to the securities administrators' association.

Older investors often buy such securities through self-directed individual retirement accounts, which allow people to plow their money into investments beyond traditional stocks, bonds and mutual funds, such as real estate, gold and oil wells.

More here: http://finance.yahoo.com/news/boomers-wearing-bull-s-eyes.html