Yesterday in the mail I received a letter from Steve Sitkowski. The letter said that Steve is a former host of a nationally syndicated radio talk show and that he is an internationally known and trusted financial expert. It also said that he has been a Certified Financial Planner, Registered Investment Advisor, ran a two billion dollar stock brokerage, and was President of two financial planning organizations. Quite impressive.

And yet, I had never heard of Steve Sitkowski before.

Right when I began reading the letter, I knew something was wrong. Steve started off by saying, "I'm genuinely concerned about your financial best interests . . . "

How strange. Steve doesn't know me, and I don't know him, so why is he concerned about me?

The letter goes on: "If you invest in mutual funds on your own or through an insurance agent, that's usually another losing bet . . and you've likely seen it in your own account statements."

How would he know how my mutual fund has performed? Actually, I'm very satisfied with the performance of my mutual fund . . . its gone up almost 40% over the past one year. I haven't lost any money.

At the end of the letter, Steve invites me to attend an "unbiased" investor workshop that's being held in my city next month, which is being presented by Pro Trader Institute, LLC. If I attend, I'll receive a free meal for two, and a free book called, "30-Day Money Makeover."

Also included in the letter are testimonials from people, including one from a retired federal judge named Ronald R. from the state of Nevada. Ronald says, "I have achieved results that far exceed my old style of investing. I am very impressed and I only wish I had known about Steven's strategies years ago."

I wondered what Ronald was talking about, so I went to my computer and typed in Pro Trader Institute. I went to the website and found out that this is all about options trading. Which is something that I'm not interested in.

But I did want to know more about Ronald, the retired federal judge. The letter included a photo of him, but I didn't recognize his face. I did find a video of him on YouTube, however:




There are several things here that don't make sense:

1.) Why is Ronald trading options? And why is he listening to Steve? As a former judge, he should be wealthy by now and he should be able to pay for good investment advice. Options are extremely risky, and I know that they can become worthless. I just find it hard to believe that a retired federal judge would be involved in options when there are safer alternatives when it comes to investing.

2.) People who are retired should never be involved in options trading. And if Steve was "genuinely" concerned about Ronald, he would have told him to stay away from this.

3.) Why does Ronald R. not give us his full name? I tried to look him up, but I can't find any information about him on the internet. And this guy used to be a federal judge. Hmmm . . .

I also can't find any information about that two billion dollar stock brokerage that Steve claims he ran. Why is he no longer in charge? Does it still exist? Did it ever exist?

I don't trust Steve Sitkowski, so I think I'll pass on his investor workshop next month. I know that I'll miss out on a free meal, but that's okay . . . I'll be happier just eating popcorn and watching a good movie that night.