Classic Cons: 10 Financial Scams Fair-Minded Investors Should Avoid

When Peter Allen and Carole Bayer Sager wrote the tune "Everything Old Is New Again," they were probably hoping for no more than a Top 40 hit. Instead, the song became an oft-recorded classic, mostly because the title proved a truism in so many areas - especially in the seamy world of financial fraud. Indeed, over the past 40 years, only one new entry has been added to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) roster of "Top 10" investment scams - the very broad category of " Internet fraud ." The other financial rip-offs listed are merely new versions of tried and true swindles that have been around for decades or more - from Ponzi schemes and pyramid systems to phony stock offerings and commodity cons. The big difference is that the one new category - Internet fraud (and the computers on which the Internet operates) - has greatly increased the frequency, speed and effectiveness of the other types of financial fraud, as well as exponentially increasing the scammers' take.