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The SEC does indeed get involved with recovering money for victims of investment fraud. Source: me. The SEC recovered about a third of the money I unwittingl

The SEC does indeed get involved with recovering money for victims of investment fraud. Source: me. The SEC recovered about a third of the money I unwittingly invested in a Ponzi scheme.

arlcode 3y ago
If you are willing to share: How did you end up getting tricked and how can other people avoid the same.
- jnwatson 3y ago
  It was a pretty good scam. The scammer had a company that sold fractional profit shares in oil wells. Without getting too deep in the weeds, he sold the equivalent of more than 100%. He invested the proceeds of new investment in paying out old investors and buying new oil wells. Eventually he ran out of new investor money and the scheme unraveled. I don’t know how I would have caught it. The regulatory oversight in oil well finances is poor. The guy was on the lam for a few months, then sentenced to 10 years in Federal prison. He then escaped and hasn’t been found.
  - arlcode 3y ago
    Thank you. :)
  - DANmode 3y ago
    > He then escaped Is this...common?
    - harambae 3y ago
      Matt Cox talked his way out of imminent arrest, went on the run for 3 years, and was only discovered after his girlfriend slipped up and told something to the wrong person. So yeah it happens https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matthew_Cox https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matthew_Cox
gamblor956 3y ago
So...the SEC didn't try to make you whole...it recovered about a third of the money you lost to the Ponzi scheme through a disgorgement order. The SEC can order disgorgement of profits from an investment scam (which are then returned to victims to the extent such profits are recoverable), but making victims whole for their losses is a very different thing.
- jnwatson 3y ago
  No, the SEC put the org in receivership and then appointed a receiver to find where the money went.
  - fsckboy 3y ago
    i'm not expert, but that's the court appointing the receiver, and a receiver takes over a company but looks out for creditor's interests.
  - gamblor956 3y ago
    The point of the receivership was to recover the money for creditors, not investors. Investors are quite literally the last people who get a recovery from a receivership. I'm not going to keep arguing with a non-lawyer about something I've been involved with as a lawyer, so this will be my last comment on the matter.
    - jnwatson 3y ago
      While you are correct in the general sense, court-ordered receiverships due to SEC enforcement action are very much about recovering investor money in a fraud situation. https://www.sec.gov/oiea/investor-alerts-bulletins/ib_receivers https://www.sec.gov/oiea/investor-alerts-bulletins/ib_receiv...

The SEC does indeed get involved with recovering money for victims of investment fraud. Source: me. The SEC recovered about a third of the money I unwittingly invested in a Ponzi scheme.

arlcode 3y ago

If you are willing to share: How did you end up getting tricked and how can other people avoid the same.

jnwatson 3y ago
It was a pretty good scam. The scammer had a company that sold fractional profit shares in oil wells. Without getting too deep in the weeds, he sold the equivalent of more than 100%. He invested the proceeds of new investment in paying out old investors and buying new oil wells. Eventually he ran out of new investor money and the scheme unraveled. I don’t know how I would have caught it. The regulatory oversight in oil well finances is poor. The guy was on the lam for a few months, then sentenced to 10 years in Federal prison. He then escaped and hasn’t been found.
- arlcode 3y ago
  Thank you. :)
- DANmode 3y ago
  > He then escaped Is this...common?
  - harambae 3y ago
    Matt Cox talked his way out of imminent arrest, went on the run for 3 years, and was only discovered after his girlfriend slipped up and told something to the wrong person. So yeah it happens https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matthew_Cox https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matthew_Cox

gamblor956 3y ago

So...the SEC didn't try to make you whole...it recovered about a third of the money you lost to the Ponzi scheme through a disgorgement order. The SEC can order disgorgement of profits from an investment scam (which are then returned to victims to the extent such profits are recoverable), but making victims whole for their losses is a very different thing.

jnwatson 3y ago
No, the SEC put the org in receivership and then appointed a receiver to find where the money went.
- fsckboy 3y ago
  i'm not expert, but that's the court appointing the receiver, and a receiver takes over a company but looks out for creditor's interests.
- gamblor956 3y ago
  The point of the receivership was to recover the money for creditors, not investors. Investors are quite literally the last people who get a recovery from a receivership. I'm not going to keep arguing with a non-lawyer about something I've been involved with as a lawyer, so this will be my last comment on the matter.
  - jnwatson 3y ago
    While you are correct in the general sense, court-ordered receiverships due to SEC enforcement action are very much about recovering investor money in a fraud situation. https://www.sec.gov/oiea/investor-alerts-bulletins/ib_receivers https://www.sec.gov/oiea/investor-alerts-bulletins/ib_receiv...