January 20, 2009

I lost about 70 percent of my retirement funds to Bernard Madoff's ponzi scheme and I blame an organization called Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, or FINRA. I was a broker in Cleveland, where I also read your column, for 32 years and retired here three years ago.

Two years ago, I invested with Madoff because I believed his claims and corporate books had been given a clean bill of health by FINRA, the regulatory police at NASDAQ and the New York Stock Exchange. I had a run-in with two FINRA guys because I sent the same Forbes Magazine article to 23 clients.