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NEWS RELEASE
AT TIME OF LOW INTEREST RATES, CURRAN WARNS INVESTORS TO BE WARY OF SCAMS AND "PIE IN THE SKY" PROMISES Attorney General J. Joseph Curran, Jr., announced today a list of investments that Maryland investors should be wary about, in light of recent interest rate cuts by the Federal Reserve, pushing yields on fixed investments such as certificates of deposit and bonds to their lowest levels in years. With many investors, particularly those who are dependent on interest income, worried by volatile stock markets and the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center buildings and the Pentagon, Curran's Securities Division warned against investing in bogus promissory notes, viaticals, exotic offshore investments and other high-risk or fraudulent investments promising high returns. "When evaluating an investment, you should remember that risk and reward go together," Curran said. "If someone is promising you high returns with no risk, be very, very skeptical, ask lots of questions and get it in writing." Here is a list of the five investments, ranked roughly in order of concern or prevalence: 1. Promissory notes. Promissory notes are short-term debt instruments. Investors should stay away from notes promising high returns - upwards of 12 percent monthly - from little-known companies. Many of these high risk notes are sold by independent insurance agents. 2. "Callable" CDs. Older investors beware: these higher-yielding certificates of deposit, while appropriate for some, won't mature for 10- to 30-years, unless the bank, not the investor, "calls," or redeems, them. Redeeming the CD early may result in a substantial loss - upwards of 25 percent of the principal. Sellers don't always disclose the risks and restrictions of callable CDs. 3. Internet stock pitches. Con artists frequently use the wide reach and relative anonymity of the Internet to "pump and dump" stocks in little-known companies, often claiming tragic events such as last month's terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center buildings and the Pentagon will push up the stock price. Investors are urged to ignore anonymous financial advice on the Internet and in chat rooms. 4. Prime bank schemes. Scam artists, often operating over the internet, promise investors returns as high as 300 percent through access to the investment portfolios of the world's elite banks. Purveyors of these schemes often target conspiracy theorists, promising access to the "secret" investments used by the world's wealthiest families. 5. Viatical settlements. Originated as a way to help the gravely ill pay their bills, these interests in the death benefits of terminally ill patients are always high risk and sometimes fraudulent. It works like this: a gravely ill person sells his or her life insurance policy to a viatical broker for between 40 percent and 80 percent of the face value. The broker then sells the policy to a pool of investors, with an estimate of when the insured will die. Investors' profits quickly dwindle if the insured fails to die "on time." In a new twist, "senior settlements" - interests in the death benefits of healthy older people - are now being offered to investors as "safe and guaranteed" alternatives to CDs and other fixed investments. Curran reminds investors to call his Securities Division at (410) 576-6360 to find out whether their investment adviser or broker is registered and whether they have any disciplinary history and further urges investors to ask the following questions:
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