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[quote=Anonymous]Ive been watching episodes of American Greed, and its really sobering.

Much like watching ID and stories of crime, you end up feeling like "that could have been me/could be me someday".

Right now I have no savings for anyone to steal, but I want to guard against being in anywhere near the position any of these people end up when I start building a savings and investments.

Specifically I watched the episode about Alan Stanford, who was an unbelievable con man turned banking mogul who masterminded an impressive and devastating ponzi scheme. Two brokers who had worked there a month saw what he had been doing and turned him in. People lost EVERYTHING. And these were people whose brokers, often brokers who were their brokers for years before said brokers got lured in by Stanford and his bogus bank, assured them that Certificates of Deposit were as safe as it gets. Stanfords bank offered a percentage point or two above industry average for CD's on the claim that they could do this because they "ran lean",  and had "not much cement on the ground". Well nothing could have been further from the truth and he spent millions upon millions of other peoples money on homes, boats, you name it. At one point he had an estimated net worth in the billions.

How can any of us protect ourselves and/or our trusted brokers from not being tricked? There must be SOME way to at least tip the odds in our favor that we wont end up like these poor victims.

My guess is: deal with brokers that only deal with established institutions?

Remain super conservative in your decisions?

But these people did that, for the most part.

Would a broker that moves from place to place be a red flag?

Anyone have any expertise to add to this?

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