{"id":3117,"date":"2008-05-19T15:08:50","date_gmt":"2008-05-19T15:08:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nclnet.org\/free_lunches_nope_still_don_t_exist\/"},"modified":"2021-03-01T07:37:14","modified_gmt":"2021-03-01T07:37:14","slug":"free_lunches_nope_still_don_t_exist","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nclnet.org\/free_lunches_nope_still_don_t_exist\/","title":{"rendered":"Free Lunches? Nope, Still Don&#8217;t Exist &#8211; National Consumers League"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><!-- content_before_flip_start --><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">Ever been invited to one of those investment seminars, followed by a fancy free lunch? It&#8217;s a popular tactic that so-called \u201cexperts\u201d use to lure consumers to hours-long pitches for their investments or insurance products. They try to persuade potential suckers with impressive charts and handouts or glowing testimonials from other consumers who were &#8220;smart&#8221; enough to invest early. If that\u2019s not enough, they resort to false promises of \u201cyour profit is guaranteed\u201d and pressure tactics like \u201cthis offer is only available today\u201d to bully consumers into paying.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">Here\u2019s some advice that you can count on:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Visit the <a title=\"https:\/\/www.finra.org\/index.htm\" href=\"https:\/\/www.finra.org\/index.htm\">Financial Industry Regulatory Authority\u2019s Web site<\/a> to learn more about the \u201csenior experts\u201d and whether the fancy letters that follow their name actually amount to relevant credentials.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>Check their licenses with your state insurance or securities regulators or the <a title=\"https:\/\/www.sec.gov\/\" href=\"https:\/\/www.sec.gov\/\">U.S. Securities Exchange Commission<\/a>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>Learn more! Sponsored by <a title=\"https:\/\/www.aarp.org\/finance\" href=\"https:\/\/www.aarp.org\/finance\">AARP<\/a> and the AARP Foundation, to help consumers learn about safe investing.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><!-- content_before_flip_end --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Ever been invited to one of those investment seminars, followed by a fancy free lunch? It&#8217;s a popular tactic that so-called \u201cexperts\u201d use to lure consumers to hours-long pitches for [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"_price":"","_stock":"","_tribe_ticket_header":"","_tribe_default_ticket_provider":"","_tribe_ticket_capacity":"0","_ticket_start_date":"","_ticket_end_date":"","_tribe_ticket_show_description":"","_tribe_ticket_show_not_going":false,"_tribe_ticket_use_global_stock":"","_tribe_ticket_global_stock_level":"","_global_stock_mode":"","_global_stock_cap":"","_tribe_rsvp_for_event":"","_tribe_ticket_going_count":"","_tribe_ticket_not_going_count":"","_tribe_tickets_list":"[]","_tribe_ticket_has_attendee_info_fields":false},"categories":[25],"tags":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nclnet.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3117"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nclnet.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nclnet.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nclnet.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nclnet.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3117"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/nclnet.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3117\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17621,"href":"https:\/\/nclnet.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3117\/revisions\/17621"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nclnet.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3117"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nclnet.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3117"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nclnet.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3117"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}