Avoid swindles on the information highway.

The growing popularity of online investment bulletin boards has opened a rich vein of opportunity for financial scams, cautions the Institute of Certified Financial Planners. Here are a few recent cases: * A Michigan man on Prodigy's investment bulletin board, Money Talk, touted a hedge mutual fund he supposedly managed. Two investors sent him a total of $101,000, only to learn no such fund existed and the man was not a licensed broker. * A message on an Internet bulletin board promised people an easy $50,000 in 60 days. It turned out to be a cyberspace chain letter. * More than 20.000 investors laid out nearly $200 each to get in on the ground floor of a worldwide telephone lottery pitched on America Online s Investor Network. Respondents supposedly would make even more money by signing on other investors. The Securities and Exchange Commission stepped in, calling the operation a pyramid scheme. * Several messages on Prodigy's Money Talk urged subscribers to buy into a nutrition company with a hot new body-building product. As it turned out, the messages were being orchestrated by a convicted swindier who owned penny stock in a business with ties to the nutrition company. Over a five-month period. the price of the stock shot up from 38 cents to $7.50. He eventually was caught and convicted.

Bulletin boards present rich opportunities for swindlers because they can contact more people more quickly and less expensively than by the traditional calling method. The North American...