The financial news that actually matters
The phone rings during dinner, and the voice on the line has urgent news: a little-known company is about to explode, the tip is nearly inside information, and there is only a short window to get in before the price runs away. That call is the opening move of a boiler-room operation, and its target…
Charles Ponzi has been dead for more than seventy years, but the scheme that carries his name still runs on the same fuel it always did: a promise that sounds too good to refuse and a payout that never comes from where the pitch claims. The single most reliable warning sign is not hidden in…
The free meal is the least expensive part of the evening. Retirees across the country receive glossy invitations to complimentary steak-and-seafood dinners billed as educational workshops on protecting a nest egg, and securities regulators who have studied these events say the dinner is bait, not generosity. When state and federal examiners actually sat through the…
The sales pitch is built on fear. The dollar is doomed, the banks are fragile, and only hard metal will keep a nest egg safe. It is aimed squarely at people who have spent a lifetime saving for retirement, and it has proven lucrative enough that federal regulators have spent years chasing the dealers behind…
Tens of billions of dollars in forgotten money sit in state government accounts across the country, waiting for the rightful owners to claim it. That pool includes dormant bank accounts, uncashed paychecks, old insurance payouts, utility deposits, and the contents of abandoned safe deposit boxes. Businesses are legally required to turn these assets over to…
The Federal Trade Commission is putting checks in the mail to thousands of consumers who paid an online marketer for facemasks and other protective gear during the pandemic and, in many cases, got nothing close to what they ordered. The company, Trend Deploy, promised fast shipment of N95 masks and other personal protective equipment at…
A cannabis company the Securities and Exchange Commission accused of raising about $30 million from investors on false promises has now reached the end of the road in court. On July 10, 2026, a federal judge in California entered a final judgment against American Patriot Brands, its subsidiaries, and its two top executives, ordering millions…
Federal prosecutors have charged three men in a scheme that allegedly stole the identities of real property owners, forged the paperwork to sell land those owners never agreed to part with, and laundered roughly $1.5 million in proceeds. The Justice Department says the group hunted for vacant parcels across four states, then used counterfeit identification…
Three Texas tax preparers are heading to federal prison for building fake deductions into clients’ returns to wipe out taxable income and trigger refunds nobody had earned. On July 8, 2026, a federal court sentenced the owner of a North Austin tax preparation business and two of his employees for a multi-year conspiracy that the…
A newly filed class-action complaint accuses several of the country’s largest reverse-mortgage servicers of charging older homeowners fees that federal rules and the loan contract prohibit. The suit, which the AARP Foundation has joined, alleges the companies routinely added charges that quietly stripped equity from borrowers already living on fixed incomes. None of the allegations…