If you have your investments with a financial advisor or a brokerage you don’t like, there’s some good news: It’s pretty easy to initiate a transfer of your assets by going to your NEW brokerage of choice. It’s called an an ACAT transfer (Automated Customer Account Transfer) and it’s an established way for brokerages to move your investments with pretty little friction.

The bad news is that if a bad guy tries to initiate one of these ACAT transfers from your real account to their account, it’s possibly a vulnerability to steal your life savings!

The story of being scammed is real. My wife clicked an invite on her phone and unknowingly shared her email password with a fake site (this is called a “phishing” attack). The scammers then tried to login to her email, but luckily Google blocked that login attempt and we don’t believe her email was compromised.

I did go in and turn on these transfer locks on both Fidelity and Vanguard! But the real lesson is that we need to be vigilant. Anyone can be scammed. The moment you believe that you can’t be scammed is when you become blind to a weakness.

Stay safe out there!

As always, reminding you to build wealth by following the two PFC rules: 1.) Live below your means and 2.) Invest early and often.

-Jeremy