{"id":21766,"date":"2014-08-14T00:17:33","date_gmt":"2014-08-13T16:17:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=21766"},"modified":"2014-08-14T00:17:33","modified_gmt":"2014-08-13T16:17:33","slug":"b-c-regulator-says-man-used-infomercials-to-defraud-484-clients-out-of-65m","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2014\/08\/14\/b-c-regulator-says-man-used-infomercials-to-defraud-484-clients-out-of-65m\/","title":{"rendered":"B.C. regulator says man used infomercials to defraud 484 clients out of $65M"},"content":{"rendered":"

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VANCOUVER — The British Columbia Securities Commission has ruled that 484 people were defrauded of $65 million over a 3 1\/2-year period by a former mutual fund salesman who promoted investments through a weekly radio infomercial broadcast in Victoria.<\/p>\n

A BCSC panel said David Michaels was paid $5.8 million in fees and commissions for sales of exempt market securities — a legal type of investment — to clients through deception and without advising them of the risks involved.<\/p>\n

The panel said Michaels denied that he advised clients on the purchase or sales of securities, or committed fraud, and said he characterized his business as a successful sales operation.<\/p>\n

But the panel concluded that Michaels preyed on clients by frightening them and misleading them to invest in the exempt market, which was more risky than conventional investments.<\/p>\n

“In fact. . . what Michaels was running was not a legitimate sales business but a massive fraud,” the panel said in a ruling dated Aug. 6 and released on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

“Through dishonesty and misrepresentation, he put his clients’ money at risk. As a result, they have lost millions of dollars.”<\/p>\n

The panel said that Michaels lured clients with a the weekly informercial called “Creating Wealth with David Michaels” broadcast on radio station C-FAX 1070, and by seminars in Victoria and Vancouver as well as meetings at his offices.<\/p>\n

It said Michaels paid C-FAX about $2,000 for each weekly taped program, which was broadcast on Saturdays.<\/p>\n

The panel will decide penalties after conducting a separate process.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

VANCOUVER — The British Columbia Securities Commission has ruled that 484 people were defrauded of $65 million over a 3 …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":18814,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1482,18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21766","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-breaking","category-news-ca","mauthors-the-canadian-press"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21766","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21766"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21766\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18814"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21766"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21766"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21766"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}