LIHU‘E — State officials are working on development of a “front” Web site that will promise investors 100 percent to 200 percent return on their investments. However, when Internet surfers go to click on the button that unlocks their wallets,
LIHU‘E — State officials are working on development of a “front” Web site that will promise investors 100 percent to 200 percent return on their investments.
However, when Internet surfers go to click on the button that unlocks their wallets, a warning will go off, indicating that they’ve been hooked in a scam.
It’s a way for officials in the state Department of Commerce and Consumer Affairs’ Office of the Commissioner of Securities to alert people to the potential dangers of investing over the Internet, said Alton Isa, a DCCA securities education specialist.
Young people, especially college-aged students, are vulnerable to Internet fraud, Isa noted.
Hopefully, Isa said, the new Web site will get them to check out further details the agency has to offer that may lead them to wiser investing choices.
With more companies turning to the ease of investing through the Internet, there are also more risks of consumers being fraudulently duped out of their money, in some cases their entire life savings, Isa said.
When investors are victims of fraud, he said they now have someone to turn to for some help in trying to recover their investments.
The new program Isa was pitching to folks at Kukui Grove Center last weekend was a bit of a hard sell, he said.
There were not many takers at a table exhibit being manned by Isa on Friday evening.
But that was to be expected, the former Maui boy said when asked about the crowd that hesitantly peered from a distance to see what kind of literature the exhibit had to offer.
Isa said that as a boy who grew up on one of the Outer Islands, he is happy to see the state get involved in a pilot project designed to help Neighbor-Island residents deal with some of life’s more contemporary problems.
The Securities Education Program for which Isa serves as a securities education specialist started up only last month.
Friday night marked the program’s first visit to Kaua‘i, where Isa and an assistant manned the exhibit on both Friday afternoon as well as all day Saturday before returning to O‘ahu.
Isa pointed out that the program’s aim is three-fold:
- To provide information on how to invest wisely;
- To stress the importance of saving for the future;
- Most importantly, according to Isa, is the agency’s task to provide protection for consumers against fraud.
Isa also provides consumers who have never invested before with some basic information on how to invest wisely, noting, too, some of the risks involved in investing in stocks and mutual funds.
The program, Isa said, is the state’s way of being proactive by providing potential investors with information that will make them better investors.
That, in turn, should arm them with better chances of getting some returns on their investments.
Officials with the Securities Education Program will be back on Kaua‘i on a regular basis through the outreach program through the end of the year, as the program’s officers have no regular office here, Isa explained.
Isa is hopeful that the agency will expand, so on future trips he will have other people manning the booth while he devotes some of his time on Kaua‘i to investigating matters relating to securities compliance.
The next visits by officials from the Securities Education Program will be Aug. 20 and 21, Sept. 10 and 11, Nov. 12 and 13, and Dec. 10 and 11.
For more information, people may call the state Department of Commerce and Consumer Affairs, Office of the Commissioner of Securities, toll-free at 274-3141, then dialing 7-7400# after the recorded message.
Dennis Fujimoto, staff writer and photographer, may be reached at 245-3681 (ext. 253) or mailto:dfujimoto@pulitzer.net.
