Woman loses $145K in fake investment scheme

Channel 2 has learned warning letters are going out from the FBI to seniors across the United States.

The letters deliver the news that a brokerage firm offering a large return is a fraud and that the money is gone.

One of those letters went to an Alpharetta widow who lost $145,000.

"I don't want to see anyone else hurt and deprived like I've been," June Miller, 70, said in explaining to Channel 2's Jim Strickland why she called him to tell her story.

Miller believes perpetrators of the ruse got her name from her husband's obituary last April.

"It's the scumbag of the earth that would do that," Miller said.

Miller admits being taken in by a cold call from a salesman for Heritage Deposit Brokers. The brochure identifies him as senior adviser Jim Miller.

She bought a CD paying 4.2 percent supposedly held at Bank of America, designed to raise capital for heavy equipment maker Caterpillar.

The FBI said that claim was false and the company sold bogus CD's in a national fraud scheme.

"There is no operating business. Caterpillar has never heard of these things, so they can call them whatever they want to," former federal securities regulator Pat Huddleston said.

Huddleston authored a book on avoiding investment fraud. He has the key to disarming a slick cold caller.

"We could wipe out 20 percent of fraud claims if we could get people to call the state security regulators and see if that person selling that security has a license," Huddleston said.

State regulators confirm neither the firm nor June Miller's financial adviser is registered in the state.

California issued an order in November banning the company from selling there. The phone number has since been disconnected.