Investor Complaints and Questions

FY 2010 Annual Complaint Data

SEC completes over 87,000 investor assistance activities

During FY 2010 (ended September 30, 2010), the SEC's Office of Investor Education and Advocacy (OIEA) performed 87,222 activities related to complaints, questions, and other contacts received from investors.

 * During FY 2010, OIEA implemented a new case management tracking system that employs a different reporting methodology than used in prior years. OIEA previously reported the annual number of investor contacts received, but now reports the annual number of investor assistance activities performed by staff.

Complaint Trends

The volume of complaints concerning problems with advance fee fraud ranked first among all complaint categories in FY 2010. OIEA also received a combined total of 1,437 complaints concerning account administration issues (ranking third and fourth on the list).

TEN MOST COMMON COMPLAINTS RECEIVED DURING FY 2010**

 **During FY 2010, OIEA implemented a new case management tracking system that employs a different reporting methodology than used in prior years. As a result, an exact comparison with all prior year complaint data is not feasible.

http://www.sec.gov/news/data.htm