RIP-OFF ALERT: In the latest scam-a-day, there's now a report that nearly half a billion dollars was allegedly stolen by two men operating a hedge fund that was actually a classic Ponzi scheme. Paul Greenwood and Steven Walsh have been charged with conspiracy, securities fraud and wire fraud.

Hedge funds are for the wealthy -- institutions, universities, non-profits, etc. Greenwood and Walsh posed as hedge fund managers and targeted respected universities like Carnegie Mellon and government bodies like the San Diego County Employees Retirement Association, to name just two. They reportedly netted $553 million in their scheme.

$553 million! These are real dollars they took from sophisticated organizations that had investment managers who are supposed to vet this kind of stuff out of the system.

Anyone with rudimentary computer skills can create a spoof website, right? Well, Greenwood and Walsh would create official looking statements and mail them to their clients. But Clark's 9 year old could do the same with a little guidance using Open Office or Microsoft Word.

An official looking balance statement does not a legit investment make.

It's true that a complete regulatory failure allows people like Madoff, Standford and others to slip through the cracks. But the responsibility ultimately falls to us. If you are paying an individual investment manager to handle money for you, the money should go through a recognized financial operation. It should not be handled by somebody who spits out statements using a word processing program and mails them to you each month.