You open your retirement statement and stop at the balance. A private placement has been marked down, a non-traded REIT won't let you withdraw, or a stock you never expected to dominate the account has collapsed. Maybe you're helping a parent make sense of the paperwork, and the adviser's explanation doesn't match what your parent remembers being promised.

Don't assume the loss is due to the market. Don't assume it's automatically a lawsuit, either. Investment loss recovery starts with identifying who caused the harm, what they did, and whether there's a viable way to collect.

When an Account Loss Can Be Recovered

A retiree can lose money in a suitable investment without anyone violating a duty. The same retiree can also suffer a loss because an adviser recommended an unsuitable annuity, concentrated the account in speculative products, or concealed restrictions on withdrawals. The statement may look similar in both situations. The underlying conduct isn't.

A falling balance is evidence of financial harm, not proof of legal liability. Your first task is to distinguish ordinary investment risk from a recommendation, transaction, or omission that supports a claim.

Identify Which Story Fits

Consider these hypothetical situations. They're different problems requiring different responses:

• Broker or adviser misconduct. You asked for accessible retirement income, but the adviser concentrated your savings in illiquid private placements. Alternatively, you find unauthorized trades or frequent transactions that generated commissions without serving your objectives.
• A third-party scam. An impersonator or social-media promoter persuaded you to wire money to a supposed investment platform. The platform now demands another payment before permitting a withdrawal, or the contact has disappeared.
• Possible financial elder abuse. A parent made unusual transfers while showing signs of incapacity or undue influence. A lawyer needs to examine who knew what, who owed a duty, and whether a bank, custodian, adviser, or other participant bears responsibility.

Don't confuse the identity on a website with the identity of the person who received your money. Likewise, don't assume that a legitimate brokerage relationship rules out misconduct. Follow the recommendation, the transaction, and the recipient.

Why Silence Is the Wrong Response

Consumers reported $5.7 billion in investment-scam losses in 2024, up 24% from 2023, more than any other fraud category; 79% of investment-scam reporters reported losing money, with a $9,196 median loss, according to the FTC's investment-fraud findings.

Those voluntary reports don't capture every victim. Embarrassment, uncertainty about remedies, and reluctance to confront a financial professional can keep investors silent. None of those feelings should decide whether you investigate.

Practical rule: Describe what happened before deciding what to call it. The facts determine the recovery path, not the label on the account.

Save the File Before You Call the Firm

Preserve your records before asking anyone to correct the account. You want an intact record of what the firm originally reported, what you were told, and what changed afterward. Don't rely on continued access to an online portal.

Save original electronic files where possible, along with readable copies. Keep messages in context rather than saving only the sentence that looks damaging. A recommendation followed by your questions and the adviser's reassurances can be more useful than an isolated screenshot.

Build a File That Explains the Relationship

Gather the documents that show both the transactions and the promises:

• Account history. Monthly statements, trade confirmations, account-opening materials, advisory or customer agreements, and tax records.
• Recommendations and disclosures. Emails, texts, prospectuses, offering documents, suitability questionnaires, and notes describing your objectives and need for liquidity.
• Scam and transfer evidence. Wire instructions, payment confirmations, platform communications, wallet addresses, and records identifying the receiving account.
• Capacity and influence evidence. Relevant records of incapacity, unusual instructions, caregiver involvement, and communications showing pressure on an older investor.

If the statement itself is confusing, use this explanation of what a broker statement shows to organize your questions. Don't discard a statement because you don't understand a valuation, transaction code, or fee entry.

Create a chronological log alongside the documents. Identify the security, transaction date, person who recommended it, explanation you received, and each later contact about the loss. Separate what you remember from what a document proves, and mark uncertain dates.

Reconstruct Damages Without Inflating Them

A useful damages analysis works transaction by transaction. It separates principal loss, fees, commissions, dividends or interest forgone, withdrawals, and market-performance offsets rather than treating the difference between account balances as the claim.

That distinction matters when the market also declined. An expert must isolate losses attributable to unsuitable concentration, unauthorized trading, churning, misrepresentation, negligence, or fiduciary breach. Withdrawals for living expenses aren't investment losses, and a defensible comparison can't assume every suitable alternative would have performed perfectly.

Calendar Deadlines Before Negotiating

Under FINRA Rule 12206, claims generally aren't eligible for arbitration when submitted more than six years after the occurrence or event giving rise to the claim, and that rule expressly doesn't extend other statutes of limitation. Shorter state or federal deadlines may apply.

Have counsel identify every potentially applicable deadline rather than counting from the day you finally became alarmed. Don't assume an ongoing complaint, reassuring phone call, or promised correction gives you more time.

Missing statements can undermine both proof of misconduct and the damages calculation. Preserve first, then ask for explanations.

Choosing Arbitration Court or a Fair Fund

Choose the recovery path by the responsible party, not by which process sounds toughest. A brokerage dispute, an impersonation scam, and a government distribution program don't belong in the same procedural bucket.

If money has just left your account, contact the sending bank or wire provider immediately to request a recall and notify the receiving platform where appropriate. Preserve evidence while making those requests. Don't postpone an urgent transfer inquiry until someone finishes drafting a legal claim.

Match the Forum to the Respondent

FINRA arbitration is generally the private forum to examine when the dispute involves a registered brokerage firm or associated person and the applicable agreement or arbitration requirements place the claim there. Review the actual agreement and relationship. An investment adviser isn't automatically a FINRA respondent merely because the person gave investment advice.

Court proceedings may be appropriate for claims involving an unregistered promoter, a non-FINRA respondent, or circumstances suited to a class or other civil action. Counsel must evaluate contractual arbitration provisions, jurisdiction, available claims, and whether the defendant has reachable assets. The practical differences between arbitration and litigation matter more than the assumption that court always offers greater negotiating power.

A Fair Fund follows a different model. Under the SEC's guidance on recovering money through enforcement distributions, a monetary penalty reaches injured investors through a Fair Fund only when a court or the SEC orders it into that fund, with eligibility and payment governed by the approved distribution process.

Coordinate Separate Problems

A regulatory report can run alongside a private claim, but don't treat reporting as a substitute for pursuing compensation. Ask separately whether an insurance claim is available and what notice requirements apply. Neither a report nor an insurance inquiry establishes that someone will repay you.

Where trust assets are involved, trust administration may create another dispute distinct from the investment claim. The Law Office of Bryan Fagan insights from Law Office of Bryan Fagan, PLLC offer a related resource on Texas trust disputes, not a substitute for evaluating the securities forum.

Kons Law is a Connecticut-based, nationwide securities and investment litigation practice representing investors in FINRA arbitration and court actions against brokerage firms, advisers, and other financial firms. Clients work directly with a securities attorney from intake through resolution.

Its practice includes these overlapping areas:

• Conduct claims. Fiduciary breach, unsuitable recommendations, churning, unauthorized trading, broker theft, wire and check fraud, and financial elder abuse.
• Investment disputes. Ponzi schemes, unregistered securities, private placements, non-traded REITs, BDCs, options, structured products, annuities, oil and gas partnerships, conservation easements, and precious metals.

The useful initial assessment identifies the likely respondent, the available forum, and the source of payment. A claim against someone who participated in the misconduct requires its own evidence, not just proof that the primary wrongdoer disappeared.

What Timelines Fees and Outcomes Look Like

Your claim amount affects procedure and filing costs. It shouldn't be inflated to gain an advantage or reduced casually to reach a preferred process.

The SEC's broker-dealer arbitration bulletin explains that claims of $50,000 or less generally use simplified arbitration with one arbitrator, claims above that threshold through $100,000 generally use one arbitrator unless the parties agree in writing to three, and larger, unspecified, or nonmonetary claims generally use three unless the parties agree otherwise.

Filing Costs and Procedure

The FINRA claim-filing guide identifies $50,000, excluding interest and expenses, as the simplified-arbitration threshold, generally using a written procedure rather than a full hearing.

FINRA Customer Filing Fees by Claim Amount

The amounts below come from FINRA's customer filing-fee schedule, which excludes interest and expenses when calculating claim size and permits full or partial fee deferral for financial hardship.

These are the listed fee bands, not every intermediate bracket. Filing fees also aren't the entire case budget. Ask about expert work, document reconstruction, hearing expenses, and who pays for early casework before signing an engagement agreement; the Attorney Assistant resource is a discussion prompt, not a statement of your lawyer's terms.

Read Outcomes Without Inventing Odds

FINRA's published dispute-resolution statistics report that in 2024, customers filed 1,594 cases, 65% of new filings, and 3,108 total cases closed; among 232 decided customer-claimant cases, damages were awarded in 61, or 26%. The same published data report 1,302 settlements, 70% of the 1,852 closures in the unpaid-award dataset, approximately $59 million awarded, approximately $22 million unpaid, or 37%, and 15 unpaid customer awards, 25% of the 61 damages-award cases; for 2025, they report 1,643 customer filings, 2,567 total closures, about 13.4 months overall turnaround, damages in 67 decided customer matters, or 28%, and 1,118 direct settlements, or 44%.

Those award percentages aren't your probability of success. They don't capture settlements as claimant wins, and the decided-case figures include procedural outcomes rather than only contested merits hearings. The unpaid-award figures answer another question entirely: whether an investor received the awarded money.

Prepare for settlement and hearing together:

• Support the demand. Build the damages spreadsheet and obtain account-level trading data.
• Test the comparison. Identify appropriate alternative products and relevant performance benchmarks.
• Investigate payment. Evaluate collectability and proposed release terms before accepting an offer.

The published turnaround isn't a filing deadline or a promise about your case. Have counsel evaluate the statute of limitations on securities fraud independently of projected arbitration duration.

Tips for Hiring a Contingency Securities Lawyer

Bring your records, a short timeline, and an honest account of what you understood. Tell the lawyer about warnings you received, documents you signed, withdrawals you made, and any investment experience the firm will point to. Uncomfortable facts belong in the initial assessment, not in a surprise document production.

Ask for a case explanation, not reassurance. A useful lawyer should be able to identify the suspected misconduct, the missing evidence, the likely defense, and the reason the proposed respondent may be able to pay.

Understand What Contingency Actually Means

Under a contingency arrangement, you typically don't pay hourly attorney fees up front. The lawyer receives an agreed share of a recovery. Expenses are a separate question, so the written agreement should explain who advances them, how they're deducted, and what happens if there's no recovery.

The publisher offers free consultations and typically uses contingency representation; its stated history includes more than 18 years of experience and over $50 million recovered across 700-plus matters, including class action and arbitration settlements in multiple states, with its contingency-fee arrangements providing a starting point for discussing engagement terms. Those historical results aren't a promise about your claim.

Case selection should address liability, causation, damages, and collectability. A lawyer declining a contingency engagement doesn't necessarily mean nothing improper happened. Ask whether the obstacle is evidence, legal liability, economics, or an inability to collect.

Ask Questions That Expose the Working Plan

• Who handles the matter? Identify the attorney responsible for strategy, communication, and appearances.
• Which forums do you use? Ask whether counsel handles both FINRA arbitration and court proceedings, and why the proposed forum fits.
• How will you calculate damages? Expect an explanation that distinguishes misconduct-related harm from ordinary investment performance.
• What would change your assessment? Find out which missing documents or adverse facts could materially affect the claim.

For precious-metals investments, the Gold IRA Association's gold IRA scam warning signs can help frame questions for counsel. A warning sign isn't, by itself, proof of a securities claim.

Don't let a friendly adviser rewrite events before you've preserved copies. Don't convert a published award percentage into personal odds, and don't sign a quick settlement release without identifying the claims, respondents, and collection rights you're surrendering.

The useful question isn't whether your account went down. It's whether someone who owed you a duty caused a measurable loss that can realistically be collected.

Your Next Step After the Loss

You don't need to decide whether to file a case before making the initial call. You need enough information to explain who recommended the investment, where the money went, and what made you question the transaction. A clear factual account is more valuable than arriving with a legal conclusion.

For a third-party scam without a brokerage relationship, make urgent transfer and platform inquiries while preserving the communications. For a broker or adviser dispute, bring the account relationship and recommendations to a securities lawyer for a deadline and claim review. When the facts overlap, ask counsel to separate the immediate asset-preservation work from the longer compensation claim.

Make the Initial Conversation Useful

You may be holding an unsuitable annuity, a private placement with suspended distributions, or a non-traded REIT you can't sell. You may instead be looking at unauthorized trading or a portfolio that wasn't diversified as you expected. Name the product or conduct plainly, and explain what you needed the money to do.

Don't wait until you've reconstructed everything perfectly. Bring what you have and identify what's missing. The initial conversation should help determine whether further investigation is justified, which documents matter most, and whether any urgent action is needed.

A worthwhile assessment can produce an answer you don't want to hear. The evidence may support a loss but not misconduct, or misconduct but no practical source of payment. Getting that answer early is better than spending time and money on a demand that can't be supported.

Decide What You Need Before Agreeing to a Resolution

Your objective isn't merely to obtain an apology or a corrected statement. It's to understand whether compensation is available and what pursuing it would require. Before agreeing to a resolution, make sure you understand the proposed payment, the obligations on each side, and the rights you would give up.

Take the next practical step: get the facts reviewed. If you would like a free consultation to discuss the investment loss recovery process in more detail, call Kons Law Firm at (860) 920-5181 for a FREE, NO OBLIGATION consultation.

Kons Law offers nationwide representation for investors pursuing recovery through FINRA arbitration and securities litigation, with contingency arrangements typically available for qualifying matters. Visit Kons Law to discuss your loss, the responsible parties, and whether a recovery claim makes practical sense.