Scam Bilked Calif. Seniors Out of $190M

[flashl]

Source: NY Times (AP)

LA HABRA, Calif. (AP) -- William Miller dreamed of traveling to Italy with his wife and fixing up their modest house with the money he saved while working for 36 years for Chevron Corp ... Instead, he lost $450,000 -- half his retirement nest egg -- after investing with a company that authorities later said netted more than $190 million in a huge Ponzi scheme targeting seniors.

...

The company promised clients their money would go into fixed investments with little or no risk. Instead, it went to money-losing real estate and small business projects controlled by Daniel W. Heath & Associates, prosecutors said.

Some victims sold their homes and rented apartments on the advice of the company so they could invest even more, prosecutor Mike Silverman said. Some individual investments surpassed $1 million.

''These guys were phenomenal marketers and spun things to keep their victims distracted,'' Silverman said. ''If I hadn't seen it, I wouldn't have believed people were this evil.''

NY Times

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Investment-Fraud.html

---

The essence of American life, predator and prey, and avoid being the last one in the ponzi scheme.

[acmavm]

1. See this quote:

<snip>
''These guys were phenomenal marketers and spun things to keep their victims distracted,'' Silverman said. ''If I hadn't seen it, I wouldn't have believed people were this evil.''
<sniP>

Silverman sure has a short memory. California is the home to the scammers and theives who thought it was hilarious to take all the 'Grandman Millie's' out there during the Enron energy scam:

Consumers like Grandma Millie, mentioned in one exchange recorded between two Enron employees.

Employee 1: "All the money you guys stole from those poor grandmothers in California?

Employee 2: "Yeah, Grandma Millie man.

Employee 1: "Yeah, now she wants her f-----g money back for all the power you've charged right up, jammed right up her a—for f-----g $250 a megawatt hour."

It's clear from the tapes that Enron employees knew what they were doing was wrong, and now lawmakers are responding.

[flashl]

2. Not only did they take Grandma Millie to the cleaners ...

shut-offs at homes with medical equip was common.

[acmavm]

3. Very true. Which is why when people say they are surprised that people

can be so evil does it show that no one is learning anything at all from the past. The RECENT past. We're not talking the 19th century and before. We're talking the 1990s. And that's frightening. It just shows that there have been no safeguards put in place to protect people.

Now an investment scheme does mean that these people voluntarily handed over their money. But that's because they aren't as jaded and suspicious as they need to be to survive in today's corrupt climate. A lot of these fools probably thought (because they were led to believe) that this was all on the up-and-up, that it couldn't possibly be a scam because they wouldn't be allowed to stay in business. But in a way, that's their fault. They haven't been paying attention.

IF IT'S TOO GOOD TO BE TRUE, THEN IT'S PROBABLY A LIE.

[Jackpine Radical]

4. 'If I hadn't seen it, I wouldn't have believed people were this evil.''

And that, my friends, is the very essence and core of Republican success. Be it Swiftboating, waterboarding, Diebolding, Baxterizing or any of those things we didn't even have common-parlance terms for before Bush came to town, the Republicans keep betting away with them because no normal person can accept the notion that they'd be that evil.

[bermudat]

6. Couldn't believe people were this evil?

This prosecutor needs to read "The Sociopath next door." Evil is with us always, it prevails only because good people do nothing or couldn't believe people were this evil. Every democrat needs to read this book to understand the repugnantcan psyche.

[heliarc]

9. If I had a buck for every time I pointed out...

That Bush and Cheney's investments in United Defense and Halliburton implied that they were willing to start a war just to see the profits roll in... and then had someone say "No one can be that evil" I would be a rich man.

[pattmarty]

5. This shit is going to continue until they start putting these assholes in JAIL.

[Robbien]

7. 'The air just goes out of you,' said Risse, 63 'There's nothing you can do.'

So the son ran the company and his father worked for him. The father (81) says he was also a victim because he also plowed his money back into the company based on his son's word.

"Company president Daniel W. Heath, 51, was convicted of nearly 400 counts and could face as many as 100 years in prison. His 81-year-old father, John, who worked for his son, and former business associate Denis O'Brien, 53, could each face up to 30 years in prison."

1,800 people in 25 states lost money in the scam dating back to 1990's

Investors will receive 22 cents on the dollar.


Scary stuff.

[cliss]

8. I know someone who got involved in something similar.

This was a few months ago, my friend is also retired.

He decided he needed extra money, and he decided to sell some kind of insurance. I think it was variable annuities.
It was supposed to be a way to make an enormous amount of money.
Supposedly tax free. You had to pay around $50,000 and then you would get tax free annuities for life (I think) it was complicated.

He would sell to other seniors. He said it seemed crooked to him. I urged him to abandon the plans AND RUN away fast.

Retirees = fat sheep, ready for fleecing.