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The address belongs to Fiserv Inc., which served as middleman for Madoff and scores of regular Joe-and-Jill investors: dentists and doctors, insurance salesmen and builders who trusted Madoff to manage specialized individual retirement accounts.
Their losses with Madoff, together with earlier cases, raise questions about Fiserv and the risks inherent in what are known as self-directed IRAs. These financial products are an increasingly popular way of letting people invest in real estate or small businesses and other less-traditional investments.
Fiserv was the conduit for investors who trusted their retirement savings to Madoff, the money manager who told authorities in December he was behind a $50 billion scam. Fiserv's role was to send investors their balance statements and dispense checks to them. In return, Fiserv charged the investors a fee.
Much of the money trusted to Madoff through Fiserv reflects decades-long relationships.
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Some investors say they opened self-directed IRAs as far back as the 1970s with a Florida company, Retirement Accounts Inc. Over time Fiserv acquired Retirement Accounts and several of its competitors, merging them in 2004. Today the merged business manages about 135,000 IRA accounts.
Columbus Lawyers , Las Vegas Lawyers
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