How to Know if Your Stockbroker Is Ripping You Off: And What You Can Do About It

By Brian Lowe

The author of this book went to war against the Wolf of Wall Street--and won.

You opened your account to make you money. Your broker opened your account to make himself money. Has he promised more than he delivered? Has she guaranteed you a profit on a trade? Has he bought or sold stocks without telling you? Has she tried to talk you into day trading? If the answer to any of these questions is yes, you need to read this book.

Here, a veteran of four decades in the securities industry explains in plain, non-lawyer English how to recognize and prevent the most common kinds of stockbroker abuse, and how you can protect your rights in arbitration if your account is abused.

Brian Lowe has worked in brokerage houses and for consumers on 2,000 arbitrations. He spent five years as a non-attorney arbitration representative, recovering millions of dollars. He has seen brokers churn, lie to, and steal from their friends, their relatives, even their own spouses. He obtained the first judgment ever against Jordan Belfort, “the Wolf of Wall Street,” and his $2,000,000 in awards helped put the legendary fraud firm, Stratton Oakmont, Inc., out of business. Lowe has worked alongside the FBI, consulted with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, and continues to work as Senior Legal Assistant at a Los Angeles-area law firm.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Brian K. Lowe
• Release date: Dec 2, 2015
• ISBN: 9781310680793

Book preview

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HOW TO KNOW IF YOUR STOCKBROKER

IS RIPPING YOU OFF

And What You Can Do About It

BRIAN LOWE

How to Know if Your Stockbroker is Ripping You Off–and What You Can Do About It © 2021 by Brian Lowe.

www.brianklowe.wordpress.com

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This book may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return it and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Table of Contents

I. Introduction

II. How Do You Know if You Have a Problem?

III. What Do You Do if You Think You Have a Problem?

IV. How to Handle an Arbitration

V. Calculating Damages

VI. How To Avoid Getting Taken

VII. List of Arbitration Forums

About the Author

I. Introduction

If you are reading this booklet, you probably think your stockbroker has ripped you off. You may be wrong, but then again--

--you may be right.

A man who used to work for brokers, and who now stands on the other side of the fence with a plaintiff’s law firm, has a sign in his office: The only difference between stockbrokers and hookers is their office hours.

Obviously, this is a terrible generalization. The great majority of stockbrokers are hard-working, honest, family-raising men and women who want no more than to earn a day's wage by helping you to earn a day-and-a-half's. But not all of them.

The intent of this booklet is to help you decide, then, if you may have been taken by one of the unscrupulous few, and if so, some ways to go about setting matters right. It is not a complete primer on securities law or securities fraud (far from it!), but it does contain some of the most basic information on these subjects, information that the average person (including the average investor) doesn't know.

What this book contains: Information on common broker-customer problems and how to recognize them; who you should go to if you think you are being cheated; an outline of the arbitration process; a list of people you might get to handle an arbitration; and some tips on how to avoid having to go to all this trouble if you're not one of those who have already lost money.

What this book does not contain: Legal advice. Neither the author nor the publisher of this book is an attorney. If you're looking for legal advice, call a lawyer. If you don't know one, call your local bar association, or go to http://www.piaba.com, the website of the Public Investors Advocate Bar Association (PIABA). We will be hearing about them throughout this book.

Now that you know what you're in for, read on. Perhaps you'll be one of the lucky ones, and discover that what you think is a problem is simply a misunderstanding. Maybe not. Either way, if this booklet can help you, it will be worth the time it took to put it together.

You might also want to check out my blog, Fraud on the Market (https://fraudonthemarket.wordpress.com). In addition to some of the subjects covered here, it will discuss new trends in securities law and new scams that come to our attention.

One more note before we go on, though. In 25 years of helping to represent brokerage customers, literally every client I've ever spoken to has, at some point, said words to this effect: I feel so stupid. Every client. It never fails. I can set my watch by it.

Well, take the advice of a guy who has dealt with far more brokers and far more scam artists and far more rip-offs than you will