Tuesday, October 24, 2006

Investers beware

Washington Post--

E*TRADE financial Corp., the nation's fourth-largest online broker and TD Ameritrade, the largest online broker, both have suffered from losses from customer account fraud due to unauthorized trades worth millions of dollars as part of a fast-growing new form of online fraud under investigation by federal authorities.
" Federal regulators cited recent cases in which hackers gained access to customer accounts at several large online brokers and used the customers' funds to buy certain stocks. The hackers appeared to be trying to drive up share prices so they could sell those stocks at a profit, regulators said. "

The securities and exchange commission and the FBI are looking into the E*TRADE cases. Spokesmen for the SEC and the FBI declined to discuss details on those cases.

Both E*TRADE and TD Ameritrade have guaranteed that they will cover other class losses even though they are not required to do so by law.
I also use one of these brokerages... and one thing I strongly recommend is the use of strong passwords to reduce unauthorized access to your account.
E.g. passwords with a mixture of numbers, symbols, in both upper and lowercase letters, as well as names that are not commonly found in a dictionary.


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