If, despite taking all precautions, you believe you have been a victim of investment fraud, then as with any other sort of potential crime, make sure that you report it to authorities as soon as possible.

Abbe Tiger of the New Jersey Bureau of Securities says that “if it turns out that it is not a scam, that is fine, but if it is a scam, the earlier the authorities can get in, the better chance we have of at least finding some assets that we can make restitution to people with.”

Gerri Walsh, vice president of Investor Education at the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, sayd that “the most important thing that investors should do is to complain immediately to a regulator. We have an office of the whistle-blower, which is dedicated to handling high-risk tips like Ponzi schemes.”

There are quite a few ways to report potential fraud. You can either submit a tip directly to the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority by going to their website finra.org, or emailing them at whistleblower@finra.org, or by calling them at 866-963-4672. In addition, you can also contact local authorities, who can provide instructions as to where your state securities regulator can be contacted.

Keeping track of documentation is even more important when it comes to investing money. Whether it is at some small company that promises good financial returns, or a low-interest checking account at a bank, you need to hold onto all documentation. One reason this is done is so that in case you become the victim of theft or fraud, you have some hard documentation that police can use to prosecute criminals.

This doesn’t really apply to banks very much, except for cases where you notice strange purchases on your account. If you keep documented track of all your purchases, fraudulent ones are much easier to identify, and it will be easier to prove to your bank that someone got hold of your credit card number and made fraudulent purchases.

When you are making any investments, be sure you get plenty of documentation directly stating the amount of your investment, and who it was with (including names and addresses). Also, make sure you avoid paying in cash. Cash is notoriously hard to track, and any business that requires dealings in cash should send up warning flags.

Thankfully, almost everyone had heard the saying “if it seems too good to be true, it probably is,” and can instantly recognize those opportunities as scams.

It is not always as easy to recognize fraudulent investment opportunities, though there are a few signs that help make it slightly more apparent to those looking to invest their life savings. In the previous entry, we covered warning signs associated with guaranteed returns, and in this entry we will cover more of a basic tip when it comes to any sort of investing:

Never invest more than you can stand to lose.

This may seem like an absolutely common sense tip, but authories see it entirely too often.

According to Abbe Tiger of the New Jersey Bureau of Securities, “it’s very difficult once you have lost your retirement money. Unfortunately, we see a lot of victims of these scams who have had to come back out of retirement and take jobs because they no longer can afford to be retired. Do not give up your entire life savings because it is not worth it.”

This advice can be applied to many other aspects of life, from gambling at a casino, to putting a down payment on a house. In the case of investments, when an individual is presented with a fantastic investment opportunity, they often feel that to get the best possible return, they ought to invest everything.

Unfortunately, when it comes to money that was being saved for retirement, losing everything can make it so that retirement isn’t even an option any more.

It is important that for any investments, you research them extremely thoroughly, and never invest more in one opportunity than you can afford to lose.

Investing money is always a risky endeavor, especially when it’s with a smaller company. That is not to say that you should avoid small companies, though. At one point, Microsoft and Google were small companies, and there were undoubtedly many people who were skeptical about betting on their future.

However, when it comes to investing, it is always good to remember that, even with legitimate investing firms, there are never guarantees. If you are investing your life savings or any significant amount of money in a plan where you were guaranteed or promised a certain return, you might want to reconsider. While some companies are very confident in their ability to make your money grow, if someone flat out promises you returns, it is generally a red flag warning you about a scam.

Abbe Tiger, Bureau Chief of the New Jersey Bureau of Securities says “when you’re hearing ‘guaranteed,’ when you’re hearing ‘high interest rates,’ chances are pretty good that that is not a legitimate investment, and if it is, it is still a very risky investment. Risk and reward go together; the higher the reward, the higher the risk.”

Unfortunately, realizing that an investment could be a scam is not the end of the potential trouble. Many scammers are experts at making a too-good-to-be-true investment seem very possible.

According to Gerri Walsh, vice president of Investor Education at the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, “it is really hard for anyone to tell what is too good to be true because a good con will make an incredible scam look completely good and completely true.”

She goes on to say that for any potential investment, you need to ask a lot of very specific questions.

“We’ve interviewed some former cons to find out how it is that they are able to carry out their schemes. The one thing they will tell you is that if somebody is asking a lot of questions they will stop trying to sell the person on the opportunity,” she says.

This could either mean that the number of crimes committed in those fields has increased by 50% (or more), prompting the additional investigations, or it could mean that they are being taken more seriously, and the increase in investigations has outpaced the crimes frequency.

Either way, securities and commodities fraud are both extremely common. Those 2 types of fraud include a broad range of scams. One of the more common is affinity fraud, so-called because it relies on the victims trusting their money to an individual because of some ethnicity or religious tie to that person. Prime bank investment fraud is also common, where investors gain access to a “secret” trading market, which never existed. When talking about fraud, we can’t forget Ponzi and pyramid schemes either.

Since the financial market started having difficulties recently, the FBI is reporting that fraud of these types is increasing in frequency due to investors looking to get a higher return than regular sources offer. Case in point, the FBI is currently investigating 1,846 of these types of cases, a much higher number than a decade earlier.

According to Abbe Tiger, Bureau Chief of the New Jersey Bureau of Securities, “the interest rates are very, very low, unfortunately, that people can get on conservative investments and everybody is looking to bring a higher yield. But, you must really be careful because instead of bringing a higher yield, you could lose everything.”

Please stay tuned to future entries for tips on how to ensure that your investments are sound.

Yet others, like many law enforcement members/teams, agree that education is by far the greatest anti-theft defense.

According to the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Internet Crimes Complaint Center, on the list of complaints made to the FBI, non-delivery of payment/merchandise, scams impersonating FBI, and identity theft were at the top.

Many agencies are attempting to roll out education programs that can help people avoid problems like these in the future.

For example, if someone is looking for a new laptop, and after searching, sees a website that has the laptop for $100 cheaper than anywhere else, do a quick search for the name of the company, and see if they have any reviews. If you are unable to find any information on that vendor, or you see individuals on forums complaining about not receiving products they ordered, then do not do business with that vendor.

Obviously, it is impossible to completely and utterly protect yourself from all forms of fraud and identity theft, but if you are secure enough that a thief doesn’t want to spend the time it would take, then you are safe as anyone.

While some think that prosecutors are seeking to make an example out of Cohen, and punishing him far more strongly than he deserves, others say that the damage he has caused calls for a longer sentence, and that if anything, prosecutors are just getting more aggressive about white collar crime.

Cohen, convicted of defrauding famous persons such as Danny Glover and Harry Belafonte, has done damage to the tune of $35 million, and was called a “congenital liar and a serial fraudster” by federal prosecutors.

The fraud is the primary cause of the collapse of the Vanguard Public Foundation, which was a nonprofit formed in 1972 which funded social causes. Most of Cohen’s victims were a part of that foundation, which was known for its support of liberal standpoints and freedom.

When prosecutors initially made their statement asking Cohen’s sentence to be extended to 30 years, they said “this unrepentant con man with a militant lack of responsibility has blamed everyone—the victims, the Court, his attorneys, the government, the Probation Officer, and the Court reporter—for his actions and their consequences except the person responsible for it.”

53-year-old Cohen is even accused of emptying his father-in-law’s retirement account, leaving him with hardly anything.

Cohen’s attorney referenced Cohen’s charitable ways when he argued strongly against increased sentencing, saying “a 30 year sentence is excessive for a 53-year old first-time-offender, who has a long history of selfless acts and entrepreneurial innovation.”

Allegedly, Mix had tried to delete over 300 text messages that had been sent concerning the blow-out. Reports from officials state that Mix was one of a few who were fully aware that after the accident in April 2010, the well was dumping a lot more oil into Gulf waters than anyone had publicly acknowledged.

Some are saying that he was merely doing as he was told and is a scapegoat for higher-ups, but others agree that he actively played a role in the cover-up, and should be charged accordingly.

The charges that have been brought against Mix are 2 counts of obstruction of justice. No word yet on a scheduled court date, or expected sentencing.

BP has found itself on the business end of a lot of bad publicity recently. Back in 2005, their Texas City refinery had a large explosion which injured 80 and killed 15 people, an accident which is blamed on improperly implemented safety procedures. One year later in 2006, a pipeline in Alaska that had been corroded over time burst, spewing over 200,000 gallons of oil into the ocean. In the earlier 2000s, there were a string of accidents at a petrochemical plant in Scotland.

BP pled guilty and was fined for felony violations of the Clean Water Act and Clean Air Act for both the Alaska and Texas incidents.

In the previous entry, we covered a few quick tips to help you avoid any trouble with identity theft. There are many different ways that identity thieves can obtain your information, so we will now cover a few more ways to protect yourself:

• Make sure your computer is secure. Virus protection is the first and foremost thing. It is cheap, and easy to obtain and install. It doesn’t matter what type of computer you are running, the reality is that there are people out there with the knowledge and the desire to crack into your computer and take everything they find. Aside from viruses, there are many common issues with passwords as well, especially in work environments. When you set your password, make sure it is completely unique from all your other passwords, and something that is complex yet easy to remember. Then make sure you change it often, and never give it to anyone, ever. It doesn’t matter if it’s a one-time thing to let a co-worker use your computer, don’t do it. Type the password in yourself, or tell them sorry.
• Do regular searches for yourself online. You can either search for just your full name (if it is fairly unique), or search for your full name and the last 4 digits of your Social Security Number. You might be surprised what results show up.

For anyone who hasn’t experienced it firsthand, identity theft may certainly seem like a scary concept, but the reality is often far worse. Not only can someone gain control of your finances and max out your credit cards, but they can also receive auto loans, and even claim to be you on police reports.

The damage from such events can, and will, follow you around for years. If, for example, a future employer does a background check and finds that information, they may not tell you about what they found, and simply hire someone else.

For this reason, it is extremely important to take all possible steps to prevent someone stealing your identity. Here are a few:

• Careful of unknown phone callers. With the advent of the no-call list and cell phones, this one may not be so common, but it does still happen. A caller will either not identify themselves clearly, or will make up some bogus company that you’ve never heard of (or even pretend to be a legitimate one), and ask you for personal information. Sometimes they will promise vacations and other things as part of a contest, and sometimes they will pretend that your bank account is in jeopardy and they need your information immediately to fix it.
• Shred your mail. Many people don’t realize just how little information is required for someone to steal your identity, but it can often be gleaned from just a few pieces of mail, such as bank statements or credit card bills. A basic rule of thumb is that if there is any personal information on a document, shred it. Even if it is just your name and address.