(NAPSA)—While an investment tip from someone you know can be tempting, you should always research an investmentyourself. That's the word from experts whosay there’s nothing wrong with getting investment ideas from friends and acquaintances, but believe you oweit to yourself, to investigate any opportunity that comes your way. Before hand- ing over any money, you need to check out the investment and the personsellingit. This is a lesson that cost Car- olyn and Ray Thompson of Brewer, Maine, $30,000. Friends told them about a new There's nothing wrong with getting investment ideas from friends. However, you owe it to yourself to investigate the opportunity that has come your way before you invest. TheBasis Of Affinity Fraud Cons regularly rely on word of and exciting green energy opportunity involving windmills small mouth to bring in new victims. Or Their investment would get them sure brings in more money. enoughto install on rooftops. exclusive territories where the Thompsons could lease windmills to homeowners and businesses. Too Good To Be True It sounded like a good idea to they maketheir pitches to groups, knowing that subtle social presPsychologistscall it “social con- sensus,” and it’s the foundation of affinity fraud. The thinking goes thatif everyoneis doingit, it must be okay. But the problem is that no onelooks behindthecurtain to ques$30,000. They expected to receive tion the person workingthelevers. shares in the windmill company, In the Thompsons’ case, they threeterritories where they could heard about the investment through the Thompsons, so they invested launch their business and three free windmills of their own. Butafter traveling to Las Vegas for the initial shareholder meeting in 2008, the Thompsons realized they had been scammed—there were no innovative new windmills. The Thompsons and about 200 friends at church, and didn’t look into the investmentor seller them- selves. Ifthey had, they would have foundthat he hada longhistory of alleged scams—and they might have been able to avoid this loss. “What we really feel bad about,” other investors were shown a full- said Ray Thompson,“is that we talked to other people and got them the middle of the Nevada desert. Mylosses are my fault, but when I size windmill, still being set up in intoit, too. They lost $10,000 each. said Carolyn Thompson,‘I could- bringother people into it, I'm really sorry about that.” down my cheeks. It was nothing like what they weretellingus.” AndInvest.org/LearnMore. “When I saw that windmill,” n’t stop the tears from rolling To learn more, visit the FINRA Foundation’s website at www.Save
