Guys - my investigation is actually showing some pretty bad stuff. It's amazing what you can discover on the 'net: the owner of the shop no longer has a current firm registration that is reguired according to NASD rules...i.e. it lapsed on 12/20/2005. Interestly, the last registration shown was with a company from California and he has been trading actively in New York for at least 2 years....hmmmm. There is another entity registered with the NASD that has the SAME EXACT ADDRESS as the prop shop with of course a different name. The owner has not updated his NASD credentials with that firm's name for whatever reason....probably to avoid "discovery" ... I dunno. The guy apparently is a staunch republican having contributed $1000 to George Bush's campaign. Also, he must be a helluva golfer (or even a pro) as his past employment history shows him working at all of these country clubs !
Speaking as someone who has had to unfortunately sue a few deadbeat business frauds that attempted to do business with our companies ........ If you have any real money in this equation ..IMMEDIATELY retain an attorney.... A good one would look at this and file suit immediately and attempt to get judgements liens against any property etc. This sounds like a fraud: let em know you are coming after them BIG TIME and that you intend to come after their assets to recover your funds and attorney costs. ... hopefully you did'nt sign a binding arbitration clause but even if you did a good attorney may still attack and claim that there is evidence of fraud that negates any arbitration clause. Get an attorney right away ....
Start a fraud investigation with the appropriate police agency then you have some real leverage to use to collect the debt.
I've had a fraudulent investment before (I won't say exactly what it was). Contact the SEC immediately. You may be hoping to get out with something, and not alert everyone else to the trouble. In a scenario where a guy is offering to "talk about" returning your own money, the situation "on the ground" is very likely that the money is dwindling by the day and by the hour. It was like that in my situation - I don't know who your situation is with. Later I discovered all investors smelled trouble about the same time, and tried to sneak out the back door by withdrawing their money the first day after their lock-up expired. Bad move. All of us should have tried to freeze the money quickly - much more money was wasted away. Contact the SEC immediately.
Guys - thanks all for the advice.... what's happened is this recently: that "large brokerage firm" has now gotten wind of the potential NASD violation and (I think) they are going to bat for me on this one now. We'll see soon. I've got a Monday deadline set to get my check. However, this is the SECOND deadline as the first was "blown-off"....never a good sign. Good one....and you are right....more checking up-front should have been done. But upon further reflection, I think they only started to drift down-hill this past 6 months...as some key people left, they stopped answering their phones, etc. (shades of Navillus/Worldco ?) How's this for a walk down "memory lane": http://elitetrader.com/vb/printthread.php?threadid=22169 Depending on how this turns-out will determine my decision on divulging the firms and/or individuals involved. Right now I've sworn to secrecy if all goes "well".