Protect retirement investments from fraud

GILBERT, Ariz. – It can take decades to save the amount of money needed for a happy and secure retirement. It takes a lot less time – maybe just minutes – for con artists to rob people of that security.

“When you’ve reached retirement, your goal should be to protect what you’ve saved because it needs to last you the rest of your life,” Charisse Mackenzie, a financial planner with Saturn Wealth, said. “Unfortunately, there are plenty of scams out there designed to separate people from their money – and sometimes specifically older people.”

For baby boomers who have recently retired or will soon retire, they want to be aware of such schemes especially, she said. Elderly parents could be susceptible, too, so their adult children will want to help protect them as well.

Mackenzie said there are plenty of things of which to be wary.

First, beware of “can’t miss” investments. Perhaps people have heard the radio commercials or online advertisements with tempting claims about “can’t miss” investments that will give extraordinary returns. Be skeptical, Mackenzie said.

“You need to keep in mind the old wisdom that if something sounds too good to be true, it probably is,” she said.

Yet often, retirees let themselves be lured into these investments, Mackenzie said, and soon find that the return in no way matches what was promised, or worse, it could be a Ponzi scheme of some sort and they lose everything.

Also, be sure to use a licensed financial professional. It’s always a good idea to get help from a professional when investing money. But it’s equally important to make sure that person is properly licensed and registered, Mackenzie said. The Securities and Exchange Commission said that people can check a financial professional’s background through its database at https://adviserinfo.sec.gov.

Beware of “pump and dump” schemes. If an email pops into the home inbox touting a great stock opportunity, but insists that the reader needs to move quickly or they’ll miss out, they could be the target of a “pump and dump” scheme. What’s that? According to the SEC, in a “pump and dump” promoters try to boost the price of a stock with false or misleading statements about the company. Once the stock price has been pumped up, the fraudsters seek to profit by selling their own holdings of the stock, dumping shares into the market. They win, small investors lose.

“A little healthy skepticism never hurts,” Mackenzie said. “If someone is pressuring you, or insisting that you must act quickly or you’ll miss out on some great investment, alarms should go off.

“You should always take time to weigh financial decisions, especially when they could affect your retirement. You want to protect that money in every way you can,” Mackenzie said.

Charisse Mackenzie is president of Saturn Wealth, http://www.saturnwealth.com. She spent time in the health care industry, developing budgets and running statewide programs until joining a Scottsdale, Arizona-based financial firm in 2009. In 2015, she earned the Accredited Investment Fiduciary designation from the Center for Fiduciary Studies, which certifies that she has specialized knowledge of fiduciary standards of care and their application to the investment management process.