PODCAST
Protecting Yourself from Financial Fraud: Navigating an Evolving Landscape
As we observe National Consumer Protection Week amid a growing and changing financial fraud landscape, the time is ripe to talk about the ways in which investors can protect themselves from financial scams.
On this episode, we sit down with Rob Mascio, Director of the FINRA Investor Education Foundation, to talk about the latest fraud trends, common red flags to watch out for and practical steps investors can take to safeguard investments.
Resources mentioned in this episode:
2025 Annual Regulatory Oversight Report
Investor Alert: Social Media ‘Investment Group’ Imposter Scams on the Rise Romance Scams
FINRA Securities Helpline for Seniors
FINRA Investor Education Foundation
Protecting Consumers from Fraud
Ep. 168: Investing Wisely in 2025: Avoiding Scams and Achieving Your Financial Goals
Ep. 162: The Victim Experience: When Romance Leads to Crypto Scam
Ep. 169: Unpacking the 2025 Regulatory Oversight Report
Listen and subscribe to our podcast on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you listen to your podcasts. Below is a transcript of the episode. Transcripts are generated using a combination of speech recognition software and human editors and may contain errors. Please check the corresponding audio before quoting in print.
FULL TRANSCRIPT
00:00 - 00:23
Margherita Beale: Amid a growing and changing financial fraud landscape, and as we celebrate National Consumer Protection Week, the time is ripe to talk about the ways in which investors can protect themselves from financial scams. On this episode, a member of the FINRA Investor Education Foundation joins us to talk about how we can all become more informed and vigilant consumers in today's complex financial world.
00:32 - 00:51
Margherita Beale: Welcome to FINRA Unscripted. I'm one of your co-hosts, Margherita Beale. Joining us today to talk about the latest fraud trends, common red flags to watch out for and practical steps investors can take to safeguard investments. Is Rob Mascio, Director of the FINRA Investor Education Foundation. Rob, welcome back to the show.
00:51 - 00:53
Rob Mascio: Hi. Thanks. Happy to be here.
00:53 - 00:57
Margherita Beale: To start us off, can you introduce yourself and share a little bit about your background?
00:58 - 02:14
Rob Mascio: Absolutely. So, Rob Mascio, I'm a director with FINRA's Office of Investor Education and the FINRA Foundation, and I have been with FINRA FINRA for over 19 years. During that course of my time with FINRA, I've had the pleasure of working in a lot of different departments, which has really been able to shape the way that I approach the program that I'm responsible for within the foundation. So, I started my career in Market Regulation, focusing on fixed income and derivative products, did that for several years, and then had the opportunity to work within Member Supervision in the examination program. I was an examiner. Then I was an examination manager for a period of time. And then in 2015, FINRA launched the Securities Helpline for Seniors, and I was able to come on board as the manager of that program, led that program for several years. And then in 2020, I had the opportunity to join the FINRA Foundation, and I was able to take a lot of the investigative work that I've done throughout the majority of my career and bring that over to the foundation, where I was able to take more of a proactive approach to financial fraud, financial exploitation, and really try to make an impact on investors before they were targeted, before they potentially became victims of financial fraud. And I was really excited about that kind of an opportunity.
02:15 - 02:21
Margherita Beale: As a plug, I think that this year is the 10-year anniversary of the helpline. Is that right?
02:21 - 02:28
Rob Mascio: It sure is. Absolutely. We launched on April 20 of 2015. So we're coming up on that 10-year anniversary.
02:28 - 02:39
Margherita Beale: I know it's a very valuable resource. So also speaking of the FINRA Investor Education Foundation, for those who may not be familiar, can you just tell us a bit more about what that is?
02:39 - 03:30
Rob Mascio: The FINRA Foundation, it's a subsidiary of FINRA. We have our own board that we ultimately report to. And the goal of the foundation is to improve financial capabilities for all Americans. And the way that we do that is, if you think about the program, we're separated really into two separate kind of groups. One focuses on that building wealth component. So what individuals can do throughout their community to become knowledgeable about finance to help build that initial wealth. Then on the other side, we've got the protecting wealth side of the foundation, and that's where I spend the majority of my time focusing on that, protecting wealth. And that's working with a variety of different organizations to come up with a plan to help protect consumers from financial fraud and financial exploitation. And when individuals become targeted and victimized, what kind of support mechanisms can we put in place to assist those individuals?
03:30 - 03:47
Margherita Beale: That's perfect timing because this week is National Consumer Protection Week. So, as we think about that, can you give us an overview of the current landscape of financial fraud and maybe give us some real-world examples of fraudulent schemes that have targeted investors recently?
03:48 - 04:29
Rob Mascio: The fraud landscape is constantly shifting, constantly changing. The thing that's interesting about fraud. And I like to use the analogy of ice cream. I think a lot of people can maybe relate with this. So, a lot of people like ice cream. But when you think about ice cream, there's really only a few ingredients to make ice cream. So, you've got milk, you've got sugar, you've got cream. Those are the core ingredients to make any kind of ice cream. Right now, there's a lot of different flavors of ice cream. And when you think about fraud, those tactics, those ingredients are often the same. It's the end product that might be different. And over time, we see fraudsters who have used those same tactics and just altered their mechanisms a little bit.
04:29 - 05:37
Rob Mascio: So, let me take a step back and talk a little bit about the fraud landscape. And this is information that we know from the Federal Trade Commission who has a reporting mechanism for consumers to report. And then from that we're able to extract a lot of really interesting data. But this is what we know. There was $10.3 billion lost to fraud in 2023. Now looking at the numbers for 2024, the data that is available, it looks like we're on track to unfortunately meet or exceed those numbers. So, $10.3 billion in losses. That's over 2.6 million fraud complaints to the Federal Trade Commission. And of that $10.3 billion, $4.6 billion was lost to investment-related fraud. Now, when we talk about investment-related fraud for purposes of this, it takes into account a variety of different types of frauds. So that could include your typical investment-related frauds that you might think about this Ponzi schemes, those types of things, but it also includes crypto-related investment fraud. So it's important to keep that in mind that this does include that crypto component, as well as that more traditional investment related fraud that we might think about.
05:37 - 06:20
Rob Mascio: Now, this is just the information that we know. This is based off of people that have come forward and reported their instances. This does not include all those individuals out there who have been victimized, who have been targeted, who have not reported. So when we think about these numbers, that $10.3 billion number, that's a huge number. It's even larger when you take into account those individuals who have not come forward and have not reported their instances. And there's a variety of reasons that people might not come forward. They might not know where to go. They might be embarrassed. They might be ashamed. They might be afraid to report. There's a variety of different scenarios, and there's even instances where individuals might not have realized that they've been victimized at this point yet.
06:20 - 07:45
Rob Mascio: With those statistics in mind, some of the fraud trends that we're seeing and again, frauds are sometimes based off of what's currently going on. So in the time that there maybe is a natural disaster, maybe it's fires or a hurricane or something like that, fraudsters often leverage those types of situations to find their targets. We're also seeing a rise in crypto. Related. I mentioned that that $4.6 million in investment related fraud does include crypto. Some of the frauds that we're seeing, they are in the crypto space, and we're seeing a confluence of romance-related, companionship-related scams and crypto related, and those we refer to as either investment-related or crypto-relationship type scams. It could be that text message that you get from somebody that you don't know, but asks the question like, "Are you available to golf on Tuesday?" or "It's been a long time since we've caught up, do you want to put a call together to chat?" something along those lines, something innocent. It's from a number you don't know. And a lot of people, because we're nice, good people, we might respond and say, "I'm sorry, I think you might have the wrong number." And that starts the conversation from there that opens up the door for that individual to communicate. Then the communication continues. You start to build up that friendship. And this is why these are not necessarily romantic types of relationships. These are relationships that are cultivated and built, possibly around a shared interest, and they're more geared towards friendships.
07:45 - 09:04
Rob Mascio: So that communication starts happening. You might be talking more and more frequently. There could be a romantic connection. There maybe isn't a romantic connection, but ultimately, at the end of the day, these conversations move over to some other platform. They move over to, you know, "I just want to let you know about this investment opportunity that I've been really successful at. If it's something you're interested, I'm happy to help you out. I'm happy to teach you." And those are often in the crypto space. And a lot of times these are fictitious platforms that are created and designed simply to extract money from individuals. So they might have you open up an account on a trading platform, and you open up the account, you put your information in, and maybe you just transfer in a little bit of money because, well, you've heard all the information about how you shouldn't be trusting people. You shouldn't just be dumping your entire life savings into a single product. So maybe you start small and you start investing and you start to see that this investment, this crypto-related investment is increasing in value. You might even try to take a little bit of money out and they might let you. So that kind of builds up your confidence. Then you deposit more money and ultimately the end of the day, when you try to get those funds out, you either can't or you're told you have to pay some kind of tax to withdraw those funds. And again, these are fake platforms that that are designed simply to steal your money. So that's one of the frauds that we're seeing on the rise.
09:04 - 10:09
Rob Mascio: We're also seeing a rise in investment club type of frauds. And again those could start off as an innocent message. Maybe a message you get through an encrypted message platform, something like WhatsApp, something along those lines. And you're invited to join this investment club where you're taught how to trade. Maybe it's low price securities, maybe it's cryptocurrency. And these are other networks that are designed to operate essentially a pump-and-dump type of scheme where they get a bunch of investors to invest, maybe in that low price security and they tell you exactly what to do. They tell you what price to get in at, how long you have to hold those positions, and they ultimately try to convince you that there's this certain exit strategy. So as individuals are starting to invest, they're starting to see that price go up and up and up. And those that are on the inside, they know that price is going up. They're also holding a large amount of this underlying security, and then they liquidate once it hits a certain point. Those that are not on the inside end up losing a lot of money. So these are investment club scams. They're significantly on the rise.
10:09 - 10:49
Rob Mascio: The thing that a lot of these have in common is that they're all forms of impersonations. And going back to the Federal Trade Commission information that I talked about a little bit earlier, impersonation scams, that's the top fraud that is being reported. So whether it's impersonating an individual that's trying to be your friend, impersonating a financial professional, trying to give you advice, impersonating maybe a government agency, whether it's an IRS agent, whether it's somebody at the Securities and Exchange Commission, maybe it's even claiming to be somebody that works for FINRA. Those are all forms of impersonation. And those are absolutely the the highest reported frauds that we're seeing out there today.
10:51 - 11:09
Margherita Beale: As investors are faced with this changing and evolving landscape of financial fraud, what are some of the common red flags that they should be on the lookout for when evaluating investment opportunities? And what are some of the tactics that are used by fraudsters that they should be on the lookout for?
00:11:10:00 - 00:12:02:00
Rob Mascio: So fraudsters leverage emotion. That's one of their main tactics that are used. And our emotions are such an important role of us as human beings, as individuals and fraudsters look for ways that they can manipulate our emotions, and they might use things like fear. They might use fear to manipulate your emotions to make somebody react quickly. They might use opportunity. So maybe it's the opportunity to possibly make a lot of money to change the course of your financial future. They might use a variety of different tactics, and the things that are interesting is these are essentially marketing tactics that have been used by marketers and been used by individuals looking to deceive people for years and years and years. And some of those tactics might come across as things like phantom riches.
12:02 - 13:49
Rob Mascio: So phantom riches is a persuasion tactic where you're essentially dangling that prospect of wealth in front of somebody. So talking about painting that picture of what your life might look like if you had that sudden windfall of money, they might use terms like "it's risk-free" or "guaranteed returns" or "high returns." Those are some of those terms that are thrown out there to get people excited again, playing with the emotion, getting them excited, wanting to move forward. They might use other tactics like scarcity. So scarcity is a play where maybe it's a limited time opportunity or it's only open to a certain number of people, and you're one of those selected individuals. That makes people feel special, feel excited. They don't want to miss out on that opportunity. They don't want to miss out on something that's going fast or it's exclusive. So it might prompt them to react in a way that they might not under normal circumstances. Again, it's that play on emotion. They might use tactics such as social consensus, and that's one where you're essentially saying that, listen, there's a lot of other people that are doing this. It's safe. You should do it too. It might be a tactic that's used when you're targeting an affinity group or a group of like-minded individuals. So social consensus is one of that plays that makes people feel comfortable that, "Oh, well, there's other people that are doing it. It's OK for me to do it too." It helps drop that person's guard down again, playing with that emotion. There's reciprocity, which is that concept of I'm going to do something small for you in hopes that you'll do something in return. And fraudsters know that that messes with our emotion and that that can cause people to sometimes act in ways, again, that they wouldn't normally do under normal circumstances.
13:49 - 15:28
Rob Mascio: Source credibility is the last one that I'll touch on on these tactics. And there was a reason that at the beginning of this podcast, you had me talk about my experience with FINRA, how long I've been with the organization. That's to build up credibility. That's so everybody that's listening can say, OK, well, this individual who's talking, maybe he has some experience. Maybe I should continue to listen. It helps build up that trust. It helps you all feel comfortable with that. What I'm saying might actually hold some weight and it keeps you interested. That's how source credibility works. And fraudsters leverage that. It might look like somebody that's dressed nice. Maybe they're wearing a nice suit or driving a nice car, or they have a really great corner office overlooking the water, whatever it may be. These are different plays to add potential credibility to that individual. Now credibility, it's that shortcut to trust, but it can easily be faked. Anybody can print up a business card that says whatever title they want, or put some initials after their name to show what kind of accreditations they might hold themselves out to having. So it's a really powerful emotional tactic that is used. And again, the presence of these doesn't necessarily mean something is a fraud. These are marketing tactics. Anybody who's watched any home shopping type of show and infomercial, these tactics are in play constantly. You've got a countdown clock that says how long you have to purchase that Tupperware or whatever the product is that they're selling. It talks about the number of people that have bought it. Again, these are marketing tactics, and marketers use them because they work. And individuals that are looking to deceive people use them because unfortunately they do work. They toy with our emotions.
15:29 - 16:19
Rob Mascio: With that being said, there are of course certain red flags that are associated when presented with a potential opportunity. So leveraging some of these tactics when you have to make a decision quick, that could potentially be a red flag because that individual was trying to have you respond quickly without you thinking. So at that time, scarcity piece, that can be a red flag. Of course, whenever we hear guaranteed returns when it comes to the securities industry, that's a red flag. So we've got limited opportunity. We have guarantees. Those are red flags. Another red flag could be if somebody tells you not to tell somebody else about this opportunity. That's a play on scarcity where it's a limited opportunity. But individuals who are trying to deceive you might say, well, you can't talk about this to anybody else. You're on the inside, don't share it with anybody else. And that's the red flag.
16:21 - 16:34
Margherita Beale: Research is definitely one way that investors can safeguard against fraud. So what are some steps that one can take to look into an investment or financial professional before committing their money?
16:34 - 17:35:17
Rob Mascio: I will say that through some of the research that the FINRA Foundation has done and the FINRA Foundation, we conduct a lot of research, which is really interesting about our group, and we use that research to really implement different types of strategies for consumers. And one of the items that we found through research about what separates victims from non-victims when it comes to financial fraud and scams, is this concept of knowledge. So the more that we know, the better protected we are, the more we know about the frauds that are out there, the scams that are out there, how they work, how they operate, what some of these tactics are. That type of knowledge causes individuals to more easily be able to identify potentially fraudulent opportunities. And if they do end up engaging with somebody, it still can serve as a protective measure. We see that individuals are less likely to lose money or share personal information if they know about the scam tactics that are out there. So knowledge is really such a key component to protecting consumers.
17:35 - 18:30
Rob Mascio: Now, there's a lot of other resources out there. If it is a specific product or a specific opportunity that you want to be able to vet, and you want to be able to look into, research is really an important tool to take as an investor, as an individual. So you always want to be able to try and verify information to an independent source. So if somebody is pitching you some kind of an opportunity, you can use a search engine, use a basic search to look for what other people are saying about that opportunity. And one of the tips when you're doing that search, when you're going to whatever search engine you choose, if you just type "fraud" or "scam" or "complaint" after that opportunity or that investment, whatever it is, you're going to see potentially different results. What other people might have reported. This all comes into that total decision making process. So using that information to better inform you about what other people are saying, it's ultimately help drive your final decision.
18:31 - 19:17
Rob Mascio: Of course, whenever it's something that's in the securities world. We want to check to make sure that the individual that's offering this is licensed to be selling securities. So BrokerCheck, of course, is a wonderful tool to be able to research if an individual is actually licensed to be transacting within the securities industry. It's also a great tool to look up a firm to see if the firm that this individual is working for is a licensed firm to be transacting in the securities industry. The Securities and Exchange Commission has their EDGAR filings to be able to look more into certain companies a little bit deeper, to find more filed information about those companies. So you're going to a lot of different sources to try and compile this information on your own, not just taking the word of that individual that is pitching you this opportunity.
19:18 - 19:26
Margherita Beale: When engaging with a financial professional, what types of questions should investors ask to properly vet them?
19:27 - 20:21
Rob Mascio: One, you want to definitely be able to verify that they are licensed. You always want to make sure that the person that you're dealing with in the securities industry is licensed, and you can ask that individual about their employment history. You can also verify that information through BrokerCheck. So how long they've been in the industry. Maybe you can ask them about certain products that they might potentially specialize in. So there's questions along that. It's also OK to ask the individual if it's a certain product, how they're going to be compensated. I know it's often uncomfortable to ask somebody how they're getting paid, but that is information, as an investor that you should know, how is that person going to be compensated. When it comes to specific investments, making sure that you're understanding the liquidity of that product. If you do need to get money out at a certain point in time, what's the process for getting money out for maybe liquidating a position. So asking questions around liquidity, those are all great questions to be able to ask somebody.
20:22 - 20:30
Margherita Beale: In a more proactive sense, can you share some practical strategies that investors can use to help safeguard their savings from fraud?
20:31 - 21:34
Rob Mascio: The thing that's interesting about fraud as it comes at us from a lot of different sources. So there's the one side of fraud where somebody's pitching you that opportunity. So knowing about those red flags, asking questions, maybe even leveraging somebody else, that trusted individual that you might feel comfortable talking to, using them as a sounding board to be able to bounce the opportunity off of them. Sometimes just having a second person to talk to and explain that opportunity might help you sort through some of the things. We've talked about how fraud comes from a lot of different angles, making sure that your accounts are protected so you've got the pitched frauds, but then you also have the frauds and the scams that are coming at us from different angles, whether it's an individual trying to do an account takeover of our email, of our brokerage accounts. So we always want to make sure that we're checking our financial statements, whether it's your financial institution, whether it's your credit card company, whatever it may be, checking our statements to make sure that we recognize what's happening in those accounts, that's an important measure.
21:34 - 22:28
Rob Mascio: Having good cyber hygiene, which essentially means not reusing passwords, having different passwords for different accounts. We shouldn't have an email account that has the same username and password as our financial institution accounts, because if one of those accounts gets compromised, that individual who has taken over that account, they're going to use that username and password for any account that they can think of to see whether or not there's a hit. So, making sure that we have different usernames, different passwords for our different accounts. Leveraging things like multi-factor authentication. If somebody is trying to get into one of your accounts, it has to get authenticated through a different way. Maybe it's a text message coming to your phone. Something along those lines. Maybe it's the facial recognition, something like that, to verify that you are who you say you are in two different ways. So multi-factor authentication is a great step to take.
22:29 - 22:34
Margherita Beale: If someone suspects that they have been a victim of financial fraud, what should they do?
22:35 - 24:23
Rob Mascio: If somebody has been unfortunately victimized, the one thing that you're definitely going to want to make sure that you do is encourage that individual to report. So, the more information that we can have reported, the more that the community knows about the different frauds, the different trends, the different things that are happening within the fraud space. So encouraging someone to report is definitely an important tactic. Now, one thing that's really important to keep in mind is, an individual who has been victimized, they are going through likely a significantly traumatic event, and that's going to show up in a lot of different ways, and it's going to be different for everybody. So everybody has their own mechanism in which they can withstand different types of trauma. And if you are in a position to work with somebody or assist somebody who has been victimized, it's so important to recognize that there is that underlying trauma. We know that people who have reported being victimized have experienced different emotional impacts to a severe extent, and that's things like difficulty sleeping, anxiety, emotional impacts such as those. So looking for ways to make that individual feel comfortable is really important. Looking for strategies to help them regain some control. Maybe it's something as simple as filing that report, telling them to go file a police report, report it to FINRA, maybe to the FBI, whatever the appropriate reporting mechanism is for that specific type of fraud. But it's so important to remember that the words that we use, they are really impactful. And by using words like, "Oh, well, you fell for it," or "I can't believe you gave money to that individual." Those are words that have a really significant impact on an individual going through that traumatic fraud event.
24:23 - 25:39
Rob Mascio: So we want to make sure that we're approaching this with compassion. We're looking for words that don't place blame on the victim, because the blame really needs to be on that perpetrator, on that individual that is deceiving and defrauding the person. So our words really need to match up with that. We need to make sure that we're checking our language. And if you're in a position that you're maybe investigating a situation, the questions that we ask play a significant role in building that comfort level and having that individual open up. So by asking more open ended questions and letting that person talk on their own terms, maybe it's not going to be a linear path to getting that information, but if that's the way that that victim or that person has to talk about the situation, let them talk about it. So asking questions like, "Are you able to tell me more?" we're letting them start where they want to start. Those are easy ways that we can make someone feel a little bit more comfortable as they're going through that traumatic experience. So making sure that we're checking our words is so important. Recognizing that people react differently to this type of a trauma. We know that people, they might isolate themselves, they might feel anxiety, might feel loneliness. So again, looking for ways to help them overcome that.
25:39 - 26:55
Rob Mascio: There are a variety of different resources out there that can help individuals overcome that emotional impact. So one of the partners that the FINRA Foundation works with is an organization called Give an Hour and Give an Hour has a peer support program for victims and survivors of financial fraud. Their website that's giveanhour.org/financial fraud that'll take you to their financial fraud-specific content. On their web page, you'll be able to find information about peer support groups, where you can connect with other individuals who have been through that same kind of a trauma. There's a lot of different resources that they have on their website. Another organization that we work with is the Cybercrime Support Network and their website fightcybercrime.org. They run a peer support program for survivors and victims of romance related frauds and scams. So that's another great resource. If somebody has been victimized through a romance or companionship related scam or fraud, the BBB, the Better Business Bureau, they have a lot of great resources. Other organizations like AARP, they have their Fraud Watch Network, which allows you to talk to AARP volunteers about things that individual has been going through.
26:55 - 28:46
Rob Mascio: Of course, we've got our FINRA Securities Helpline for Seniors, which is a fantastic resource. And for those that don't know that number, it's available on our website, but that number is (844) 574-3577. You'll be able to talk to a live individual within FINRA and share some of the different things that you're experiencing. So that's a great resource. Some of the other things on our FINRA website. So investor specific content. We've got a lot of really great content on FINRA.org/investors. And you'll find information for investors about different things that we're seeing out in the investment community, whether it's product specific, whether it's fraud specific. Those are our insight articles. So our investor insight articles, they're written in plain language for consumers. And they talk about a lot of different topics. Some are product specific. Some are fraud specific. So there's a lot of really great content there. I'll also mention our FINRA Foundation website. We have a lot of information. So if you are associated with a firm or you're in a position where you're working with individuals who might have been victimized. FINRA Foundation Mortgage Fraud Fighter, you'll find all of our fraud specific content there. So that's a great resource. And I'll also say every year FINRA comes out with our Annual Regulatory Oversight Report. So our 2025 Annual Regulatory Oversight Report has recently been released, and in that report, you'll be able to see some of the different areas of focus and different trends that FINRA is aware of and things that might be helpful for you all if you are working at a firm or something along those lines. Really great resource to keep in mind. So there's a variety of different resources out there. And if you are working with somebody who has been victimized, that compassion piece is so, so important as you're working with that individual.
28:47 - 28:56
Margherita Beale: Thank you, Rob. To wrap us up today, if listeners could take away just one piece of advice from today's discussion, what would you want it to be?
28:56 - 30:15
Rob Mascio: I'm going to go back to the topic of using appropriate words. So this is so important. We talked about the volume of fraud that's occurring out there. And we've talked about the number of instances that are likely not reported. Part of that again is people are embarrassed or afraid. They don't want to come forward. They don't want to mention that they were victimized. They might be embarrassed. And part of that has to do with the language that we use. Whether it's in the media, whether it's in a conversation, whether it's online, where somebody has gotten the courage to say, "Oh, I was victimized here," or tell their story, the comments are often very negative. That has a significant impact to not only the person that's been through that trauma, but other individuals that are sitting on the sidelines afraid to report or looking at reading that story, whatever it may be, and saying, "That happened to me too, but I'm not going to come forward because look how this person was attacked." So using the right words, whether it's interacting with a client who's been victimized, a customer, a friend, a family member, whoever it may be, checking our words and approaching it with compassion. Because again, these frauds, they are perpetrated by individuals looking to deceive people, to exploit people. We should be putting the blame on those individuals, not on the person that's been targeted.
30:15 - 30:37
Margherita Beale: Thank you so much, Rob. That's it for today's episode of FINRA Unscripted. Rob, thanks again for joining me today. Listeners, if you don't already, be sure to subscribe to FINRA Unscripted wherever you listen to podcasts. We are now even available on YouTube. Today's episode was produced by me, Margherita Beale, and edited and engineered by John Williams. Until next time
30:37 – 30:42
Outro Music
30:42 - 31:05
Disclosure
Please note FINRA podcasts are the sole property of FINRA, and the information provided is for informational and educational purposes only. The content of the podcast does not constitute any FINRA Rule or amendment or interpretation to such rules. Compliance with any recommended conduct presented does not mean that a firm or person has complied with the full extent of their obligations under FINRA Rules, the rules of any other SRO or securities laws. This podcast is provided as is. FINRA and its affiliates are not responsible for any human or mechanical errors or omissions. Parties may not reproduce these podcasts in any form without the express written consent of FINRA.