Montreal investment adviser vanishes…
Brook Hamilton said his mother, who lives in Beaconsfield, west of Montreal, has invested about $350,000 and even refinanced her home after Jones persuaded her to do so.
Montreal investment adviser vanishes…
Brook Hamilton said his mother, who lives in Beaconsfield, west of Montreal, has invested about $350,000 and even refinanced her home after Jones persuaded her to do so.
too soon old, too late smart; more money than brains; they got greedy . . . . yawn.
next !!!
It just goes to show you: no amount of regulations can prevent a fraudster from getting in. As I said in an earlier comment, relating to the Madoff Ponzi scheme, con men just add the regulators to their ‘sucker’ list.
Still, it’s sad that these people prey on the elderly, who, not necessarily for greed, invest for their heirs.
“What goes on in their minds?… Kooks.”
– The police chief, in Dirty Harry.
Betcha a $20 that some Blochead will be blaming les anglais and demand the Federal Government pay restitution to Quebec citizens.
And Iggy & Laydown will take up their cry.
As stated time and again in these debacles. Is your financial advisor registed with the investment and securities regulators or is he an independent as Earl Jones was and self-employed? These are basic questions that you should ask and he is a family friend and nice guy is not a basis for a financialy secure future. Once again if it seems to good to be true, it probably is.
I feel real empathy for those who followed the rules and invested with a viable investor who then moved the funds to people like Madoff.
Impoverished his own mother? Can you say sociopath?
This is Canada, when Jones is caught, unlike Bernie Madoff who got 150 years and his family’s wealth confiscated, he will get 150 days and probable get to keep whatever he wants.
In Canada crime pays because the deterrents are a joke.
And for the unaware, you never ever borrow money to invest in the stock market. EVER! And contrary to what the shysters tell you, there is no such thing as GOOD DEBT. Debt is debt and it is soul destroying …. makes you want to steal other people’s money after awhile. Just like they do on wall street and other places where the professional money scummers work.
Financial advisers should be viewed the same way as used car salesmen and lawyers. They are money pimps and nothing more. Try to learn enough about money to do your own investing. I know that involves and anti-Canadian trait known as ‘self-reliance’, but you can do it if you try, but don’t tell anyone.
Do it yourself investing ?!! You have to know a he!! of a lot about it or you will loose your shirt. Guaranteed.
“There’s only 2 kinds of money, mine and everybody else’s”
Who said that?
First clue ?
If a financial adviser says “I can make you lots”(anything more than 8%), head for the door.
It is all so easy to be critical of con victims unless you have been conned.
Cons take many different forms….
Chartered banks which take $27,000 for a “mutual fund” and express the result as “points”. The points accumulate indicating growth while the net value of the account shrinks….it’s call “churning”….fees are charged for transactions but fail to met the profits obtained. Tehn the banks agent just cannot grasp why you would abandon such a profitable investment…..”just look at the growth!!!…”
And it’s perfectly legal….
Then there is the business that sells goods to municipalities and passes the Dun and Brad test. Because this company farms out fabrication to small businesses on a “slow pay–no pay” basis….small orders grow to larger orders while the payments get slower and slower–then cease….while they are repeating the process with another small supplier. The small business is so levered that they lack the resources and the resolve to litigate and the Dun and Brad rating is secure.
The net result despite the quantum…it is legal.
There seems to be a lot of this type of stuff happening around Montreal. Seems to me that there was an organization with ties to the Gambino crime family that made off with millions (some say billions)not too long ago in Montreal with many of the principals of the scheme walking around freer than a bird. I understand a former Capo of this organization has been given an honorarium by the Queen. The Capo de Tuti Capo is still in China, last I heard.
“”There’s only 2 kinds of money, mine and everybody else’s”
Who said that?
Jack Layton ?
My employer has a simple rule, if a guy comes to our little town, way out of the beaten path looking for money. He desperate, stay away.
“Marks are like sheep. They need a good fleecing every now and then. It keeps them healthy and productive.”
Unfortunately,Posted by: Fred at July 13, 2009 8:15 AM, Fred is right on the subject of the “demand”.
Nice to see that there are shysters and con artists spread equally across this great country. White collar crime destroys the working mans faith in the system when the Ian Thow,s the Bernie Madof’s and the Earl Jones’ are caught they should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law. Unfortunately that amounts to only a slap on the wrist in this country. These guys should be making postal bags, licence plates or working on a chain gang from now till hell freezes over. But as mentioned above it’s two years less a day, minus time served and then down to Mexico or Bahamas for the good life.
I tried twice to make money in stocks.
first time was with the non-descript name e.a. manning. google it. they were fronting for themselves, i.e. there were NO buyers of the stocks they were handling, just themselves. which is why they pushed them so hard.
I called in the sell order and 3 weeks later enquired: where’s my cheque? A: what cheque? oh, *that* sell order. well. we didn’t actually *sell* the stock. don’t you want to keep it? bla bla bla. so I put in a sell order on all the holdings and threatened to contact the regulators.
fast forward about 2 or 3 years and what’s this? sumbuddy wrote a book about how they fleeced millions from investors and all got banned from any future involvement in the market.
but, true to form, did NOT have to pay any restitution whatsoever.
rule for cdn brokers: dont get caught. if you do, time to use that swiss bank acc’t and breathe a sigh of relief you put all your assets in a trust or something.
cdn stock regulators are a goddamn joke and always have been.
why are they called stock brookers?
because you have anything to do with them you’ll be broker than you ever imagined.
boiler room operations the lot of them.
next !!!
☻ ☻ ☻ ☺ ☺ ☻ ☺ ☻
Lot of this going on of late. Rats running before the shipwrech catches up to them.
It also shows these folks for the immoral evil slugs they are.
In Canada crimminals like this ( a certain ex PM crook)get Medals of Merit from a distant alien Queen.
This is a bit long but here me out.
First of all I want to point out that this guy was not a financial advisor. For the record: Earl Jones was not a financial advisor. Without membership in any provincial or federal organization, he is not allowed to use those words or equivalent. He held himself out as an ‘administrative consultant’. “Jones wasn’t registered as an investment adviser with either the AMF or Investment Dealers Association, which means there’s little likelihood of compensation for his clients.”Montreal Gazette. Calling this guy a Financial Advisor has as much credibility as calling him a canola grower.
That being said, there is much wrong with the current state of affairs when it comes to regulation of financial products and services. So where do I begin. As someone who was wrongly accused by a crazy person of a whole lot of regulatory wrong doing (http://www.canadianbusiness.com/managing/career/article.jsp?content=20061106_82155_82155), I have a perspective on what is wrong with financial regulation in this country. First of all, most regulators and, by extension, most politicians have a standpoint that consumers would not need advisors or advisory services if they were only educated. I would submit that most consumers do not want to be do it yourself financial advisors or planners. They intuitively recognize that this is a complex area that requires a combination of experience, education and integrity. They want to deal with someone who can help them. This person should be the one who is educated, has standards to which they must comply and is either free of conflicts or discloses any in plain English. Further, there must be a mechanism whereby consumers who are damaged either by the product or the advisory process can obtain financial compensation. So how does the regulator respond to this? By not responding to the needs but rather to their agenda.
Is there a requirement that individuals holding out as having specific expertise actually have education that validates this claim? The answer is no. To sell securities in Canada you need to have passed either the Canadian Securities course or the Investment Funds course. There is no requirement that the registrant update their education through mandatory continuing education. Once the license is granted it is good to go for life. The first check point for consumers is to make sure that the individual is educated. The regulatory requirements do not meet this criterion. I submit that requiring education would get in the way of selling product and that the product providers (read brokerages and mutual fund companies) have been unsupportive of this initiative. Regulators have insisted that any co-op marketing money used for client events must have an educational component for the consumer BUT NOT THE ADVISOR. Well, at least there’s no “disconnect” here. (/sarc off)
Do regulations insist that advisors and product providers contribute to a fund that will assist investors who are damaged by either the product or the advice? The simple answer is no. There are insurance schemes that will indemnify in the event of a dealer failure (receivership, bankruptcy, etc.) but there is nothing that will provide financial compensation when a product fails as in the Portus situation. There is nothing that will compensate in the event that a person is conned out of their life savings through a Ponzi scheme or straight out fraud. Some responsible advisors do carry individual Errors and Omissions coverage but this will only indemnify if a mistake is made not fraud. Ironically, when the Investment Dealers Association (now IIROC) or the Mutual Fund Dealers Association fines an advisor or dealer for bad acts, the fine monies (if collected) do not go to assist the damaged consumer but rather to fund the operations of the IDA or MFDA, something I find reprehensible. How is either of these two organizations as damaged as the consumer? They are not yet they have no problems accepting monies as a result of fraud. When an advisor or corporation commits a bad act there needs to be significant punishment for both optics and justice. This means jail time and fines that are meaningful and collected. The reason that I say collected is that for the most part fines are levied as part of the optics but are very seldom collected. When collected, they should form part of the restitution of the financial damages to the consumer.
Generally regulation that is rules based tends to be overly prescriptive and ineffective. It also puts a burden of compliance on those that are already compliant and fails to put in place a process that will identify those most likely to engage in illegal or fraudulent activity. As a generalization, most individuals who commit a fraud are in financial difficulty. A simple credit check and disclosure of assets and liabilities would provide an early warning of individuals who pose a threat. Done annually, this would allow dealers and regulators to place those individuals on closer supervision. No doubt closer supervision would limit their ability to engage in “nefarious” activities. Combine this with appropriate educational requirement, operating standards, mandatory Errors and Omissions coverage and a fund to reimburse aggrieved consumers identified through a consumer dispute process and you have a better regulatory environment; one that would actually work and not just pretend to.