The Securities and Exchange Commission today unveiled a “Never Stop Learning” TV ad campaign—part of the agency’s push to encourage older investors to educate themselves about their investments to protect their money and preserve quality of life in retirement.
“I encourage all investors, including older investors, to take advantage of our resources on Investor.gov,” said SEC Chair Gary Gensler. “To be an informed investor is to be a more effective investor, whether you are growing a nest egg, in retirement or preparing for the inevitable bumps along the way.”
The TV spot, which features older adults surfing, sightseeing and playing with a grandchild, encourages seniors to keep learning, especially when it comes to investing. Available in both English and Spanish, the PSA promotes the SEC’s website Investor.gov, which provides product tutorials, primers on how to spot fraud and investment scams and an online search engine investors can use to do background checks on investment professionals.
“Older investors have years of life experience, and we want to encourage them to build on their experiences and knowledge to never stop learning about investing and fraud protection,” said Lori Schock, director of the SEC’s Office of Investor Education and Advocacy. “This year’s campaign, along with our new Never Stop Learning resource pages, provides vital information so that older investors have the tools and resources to safeguard their hard-earned money from fraud and abuse.”
The agency is also featuring four informational videos in Investor.gov to help senior investors protect their money.
They are the following:
• "Caregivers: Financial Warning Signs You Should Know" educates caregivers about the warning signs of investment fraud so they can be on the lookout with those they look after for sudden missing cash, and unusual account withdrawals or wire transfers or even new “friends” they may have met online.
• "Red Flags of Fraud" encourages older investors to watch out for common scams, including romance scams, imposter scams and crypto scams. The video also warns investors “to beware of people pitching time-sensitive offers, high-pressure sales tactics, deals that seem too-good-to-be-true, and promises of high-guaranteed returns. It also stresses the importance of conducting their own independent research and to avoid feeling rushed into making an investment decision,” the SEC said.
• "Protect Your Retirement Money" is a tutorial to help older investors conduct a background check on their investment professionals, create strong cybersecurity to protect their accounts and avoid impulse investing.
• "Trusted Contact" explains the importance of designating a trusted contact to serve as a backup contact for a person’s brokerage account in case the account holder cannot be reached, becomes sick, or suffers diminished capacity.
More than 60 million users have accessed Investor.gov since it launched in October 2009, the SEC said.
As part of its push to protect older investors, the agency will join regulators from the North American Securities Administrators Association (NASAA) and Fina on a senior fraud seminat entitled "Identifying and Reporting Suspected Exploitation" on Thursday from 4 p.m. to 5 p.m. ET.
Registration is free and can be accessed here.
Firms can use the webinar to help train associated persons on how to identify and report financial exploitation of senior and vulnerable adult investors, Finra said on its website.
“FINRA continues to build upon our commitment to protecting senior investors by delivering important training opportunities and resources to help prevent financial exploitation,” FINRA Foundation President Gerri Walsh said in a statement.