Ruthless (PDF)

Ruthless is a candid exploration of the criminal subculture
of Wall Street, and one of the first books to speak for the victims
of the financial meltdown. On February 14, 2008, author Phil Trupp
received a call from one of his brokers telling him a large portion
of his investments were frozen--on ice--turning his life
and plans for retirement upside down. When the fog started to
clear, Trupp realized he was one of many investors caught up in
what experts called the greatest attempted securities fraud in
modern Wall Street history--a $336 billion scam which made the
savings and loan scandal of the 1980s look like a simple street
mugging.

The path to destruction, financial or otherwise, often begins
with a simple proposition. For author Phil Trupp it came from one
of his stock brokers: "Take it, Phil. It's free money." This
free money came from auction-rate securities (ARS). Auction-Rate
Securities are corporate or municipal bonds with a long-term
maturity for which the interest rate is reset at frequent auctions.
ARS interest rates were higher than money markets and were sold as
completely safe, liquid, Triple-A rated "cash equivalents," a
deceptive sales pitch that lured hundreds of thousands of investors
to buy the securities. Since 2008, most auctions have failed
leaving the market largely frozen. The victims ranged from
individual investors to the Joffee Foundation, a nonprofit that can
no longer fund programs that help prevent AIDS in Africa, to the
Port Authority of New York.

While this is a classic 21st century tale of Wall
Street greed and betrayal, it is also a story of redemption and the
life-altering struggle of American investors and others around the
world who, in the end, beat the Wall Street fraud-masters. Ruthless
is a story of how individual investors became mad as hell and
joined together to reclaim their cash investments. So far
they've reclaimed more than $200 billion and continue
fighting for the rest. A lively, page-turning guide for any
investor with a stunning lesson on how to fight back and win.