Since the later part of 2008 millions of people around the world have be effectively robbed of millions of dollars. And it has often been from greedy institutions, banks and brokers who simply took advantage of mums and dads around the world who have been many cases naive and greedy themselves.

So how do you avoid the scams and greedy brokers and advisers so you don’t become another statistic? There are a number of things you can do but here are the basic rules I believe you should follow.

1) Do you understand the investment you are about to make? A large section of those who lost collectively billions of dollars were unfortunately naive about what they were doing. They trusted someone else and they were living in hope their investment would increase in value. Have you heard the saying, “live in hope, die in desperation”? Now I am not suggesting you shouldn’t seek professional advice, you should. However you have to ask the right questions about your investment, know specifically what it is you are getting into and question the complete control you have of that investment. If you don’t have control, if you don’t know the risk, if you can’t exit the position quickly and you can’t track the progress daily yourself then I would question whether or not you should be considering that investment.