Taking Legal Action: How to Seek Justice for Investment Fraud
Investment fraud is something no one wants to encounter, especially if you have spent your life saving up your hard-earned money, just to see it disappear. Being a victim of investment fraud can lead to large financial losses and even circumstances that could lead you to lose valuable assets like your home or vehicles. However, if you catch the fraud quickly and seek legal help, you may be able to recover your finances and receive appropriate compensation for your troubles. The guide below walks you through the steps you need to take in the wake of investment fraud and how to move forward.
Document Everything
When building a case against the party who wronged you, you need to gather as much evidence as possible to prove that they have taken your money. This is the first step in any investigation, even before you hire a lawyer or report a crime.
Types of Evidence to Gather
There is a lot of different evidence that can be used to prove that you are a victim of insurance fraud, but the main components to look for are investment contracts, account statements, all forms of communication, and marketing materials.
Investment contracts are one of the main pieces of evidence because they can show in the fine print different loopholes that the fraudsters use to scam you out of your money. If you and a lawyer can sit down and comb through the contracts that you signed when you first started investing with the guilty party, then you can start gathering information about the fraudulent activity that the company is not only committing with your money but probably the money of many others as well.
Going through your account statements is another quick way to see if investment companies have been sneakily funneling money out of your bank accounts. If investment firms have access to all of your bank accounts, then they have the power to take when they please if you do not pay close enough attention. Reading through and printing out all of the account statements from the past several months or even years can create a trail leading back to when the investment fraud started.
Another useful way to gather evidence to pin the crime on a suspicious investment firm is to go back and find all of how you communicated with the investors. This may include email correspondence as well as messaging through their website or over the phone. If you have any recorded conversations between you and the investor you believe has wronged you, that should be submitted to a trusted law firm like Erez Law PLLC, where they can read through all of the correspondence and look for signs of fraudulent activity. Experienced lawyers who work with investment fraud a lot are good at spotting inconsistencies in conversations and can use what they find to build a case against the guilty party.
One other form of evidence that can help you build a good case against an investment firm is marketing material. If the investment company has any brochures, fliers, online advertisements, or any other kind of marketing material that was used to solicit your investment without your consent, these can be very valuable in court.
Create a Timeline
With all of the evidence collected, make sure to file it in order by date so that you have a solid timeline of events that can be traced back to the initial fraudulent activity. This can help lawyers lay out a sequence of events that build up to the big crime.
Report to the Appropriate Authorities
After the painstaking process of gathering as much evidence as you can to prove that you have fallen victim to investment fraud, it is time to report the crime to the authorities. There are a few different organizations to which you can report in order to make sure that your case is heard.
File a Complaint with the SEC
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, or SEC, is in charge of protecting investors in the U.S. by regulating securities markets and monitoring investment activity across the country. To file a complaint with them, you must present all of the evidence in an online complaint form.
Contact the FINRA
The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) should be contacted if the fraud is believed to involve a broker or brokerage firm. Once they are contacted, the broker will be flagged and an investigation will begin.
Alert Local Law Enforcement
Because investment fraud is a crime, local law enforcement should be notified as well so that they can open their own investigation into the situation. Special detectives who work in financial crimes can help aid you and your lawyer in the fight to get your money back.
Consult a Lawyer
Once the authorities are contacted, the next step is to find yourself a good attorney. You should find a specialized lawyer who works mostly in financial crimes because they will have a lot of experience working with investors who have been wronged. They will be able to work with you and ask you the right questions to get to the bottom of how the fraud occurred and what you can do to get your money back.
File a Civil Lawsuit
With your lawyer, you can file a civil lawsuit to seek compensation for your losses. To do this you must file a complaint and the defendant will be notified of the lawsuit being put up against them. Once all parties are aware of the lawsuit, it will either go to settlement or go to trial. In the case of a settlement, you and your lawyer will talk to the broker and their lawyer to negotiate fair compensation. If these negotiations go wrong, then the case will move to court. Cases can also be solved through arbitration where a third party hears both sides and decides on a fair result, or by mediation where both parties discuss the fraud with a mediator present.
Recovery and Future Prevention
After an investment fraud case is settled, the best thing you can do is try to get your life back on track and be cautious in your next investment endeavors. Educate yourself about investment so that you are more aware of what is happening with your hard-earned money and make sure that you have more control of your funds and what is happening with them.
Taking legal action against investment fraud can be a long and tedious task, but it is worth it if it means that you will be getting your money back. By following this guide, you will be able to find a good lawyer who will help you sort through all of your evidence and get you justice.