Investor Protection Association For America

[mickeyd]

I recently received a letter from the above organization along with a "Survey to Congress" that I was to complete and mail back. I noticed that the envelope's return address was Baltimore, MD 21230-9962 but the physicxal address on the letterhead was 5505 Connecticut AV in Washington, DC. Included in the 10 question survey was a request my my "age range" ((RED ALERT)) in addition to a place to enter my day phone and home phone (((RED RED ALERT))). Evidently these guys hve been around awhile as I located this Jun 2008 post.

Who else has been contacted by these guys?

Sadly, though the concept is noble, I suspect that the Investor Protection Association for America is nothing more that a lead generation business. It collects phone numbers it matches to addresses and then sells them for a profit.

My guess is it works this way. The freshest of its 138,640 names are sold at a very expensive rate to people who sell stuff like oil and gas opportunities via the telephone. They probably have exclusive rights to those names for a month or so.

Then the names are marketed to people who do direct mail. Somewhere in between $135 and $150 buys you 1,000 names, but there is a 5,000-name minimum. One website lists the IPAA responders as having:

“[T]he discretionary income to invest in stocks, bonds, annuities, commodities, mutual funds, oil and gas, and hedge funds as well as subscribe to publications, books and fundraising offers.”
In fact, the Investor Protection Association for America’s list broker reports that in March 2008 the following groups rented those names:

• Financial Institution
• Intelligent Investor Report
• Vector Vest

- The Investor Protection Association for America

 

[M Paquette]

Oy. "I has a bukkit shop..."

"Winter is coming! Get in on the ground floor in Heating Oil Futures!" Yeah, because the commodity floor traders have no idea that winter might be coming.

The letter is an ideal size and shape for lighting the BBQ, though, so there's that.