The bear market on Wall Street and interest rates that are at 40-year lows have left investors shell-shocked, scared and especially vulnerable to con artists who promise safe and high yielding havens for their money, state and provincial securities regulators warned today.

The North American Securities Administrators Association, which represents state and provincial securities regulators in the U.S., Canada and Mexico, cautioned investors to be wary of anyone promoting investments that yield “safe” or “guaranteed” returns that are above prevailing market levels.

“We’re in a bear market on Wall Street, but there’s a bull market in fraud on Main Street,” said Joseph Borg, NASAA’s president and director of the Alabama Securities Commission. Borg said con artists always prey on investor fear and greed and seek to capitalize on the latest news in the headlines “From seniors to Boomers to Gen X-ers — we’re all concerned about what’s happening on Wall Street and what it means for our financial security. But when evaluating any investment, you have to remember that the higher the reward the higher the risk. If someone’s promising you a high yield and a low risk, don’t believe it.”

Borg warned investors to be wary of cold-callers, pitches on the Internet, investment seminars or ads in the newspaper or on the radio. “It’s an old saying but it’s true: if something sounds too good to be true, it is.”

The volatile stock market and corporate scandals have shaken investors’ faith in the markets. Record amounts of money are pouring into savings accounts, which in some cases are yielding returns actually below the inflation rate. Low interest rates are particularly hard on seniors or retirees, who depend on interest income, NASAA noted. Con artists know investors dependent on income are looking for alternatives, so they pitch returns on their investments as “safe and guaranteed.”

NASAA singled out short-term promissory notes in little known-companies, callable CDs, bogus prime bank schemes and viatical settlements as potentially very risky or fraudulent.