The fact that 99% of brokers would not sell these bonds shows the highly speculative nature of this type of investment. They had a high commission attached to them, yet the over whelming majority of brokers wanted nothing to do with them. Using free dinners, they marketed them to unsuspecting investors. Many of these people were very conservative, they may have held the majority of their retirement savings in money markets or very low interest bearing CD’s and were sold the concept that these were conservative investments that would get them higher rates of return. Unbeknown to them was the fact that these bonds were pure junk bonds and were much riskier than the stock market so many of them were afraid of. It is disappointing that these types of dinner programs are not more closely investigated by the state and federal government. We have a 140,000 older Americans living in the Villages and more monitoring of these activities is needed in order to safeguard our elderly.
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