The Rise of Financial Fraud
Individuals save for decades to ensure that they will have financial security in retirement. That security can be threatened or eliminated virtually overnight if an individual who is in or near retirement becomes the victim of a financial fraud, such as a Ponzi scheme or sham investment in high-yield securities.
Fueled by the Internet, the incidence of financial fraud is on the rise. Law enforcement officials and fraud experts expect the trend to continue or accelerate as aging baby boomers increasingly become targets. According to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), Americans in 2010 submitted more than 1 million complaints about financial and other fraud – up 35 percent in just three years. But these data do not fully represent fraud’s pervasiveness, because researchers say that it often goes unreported to the authorities...