Utah promoters accused of scamming investors from Boston to Sacramento
Two Utah promoters were accused Tuesday of duping investors from Sacramento to Boston by peddling stock-trading courses under false pretenses. Customers paid up to $40,000 apiece for the courses.
In a criminal indictment and civil lawsuit, federal officials said Linda Woolf and David Gengler promoted their "Teach Me to Trade" courses by hitting the free seminar circuit at hotel conference rooms, appearing in televised infomercials and sending out direct mail....
...The lawsuit and the criminal indictment say essentially the same thing: Woolf, 48, of Sandy, Utah, and Gengler, 33, of Draper, Utah, lied to customers about their credentials. The two depicted themselves as experienced stock traders when they were nothing of the sort, officials said.
Though Gengler is a former stockbroker and claimed to be an expert in short-term trading strategies, his tax returns consistently reveal more short-term capital losses than capital gains, the SEC said.
