By now,  everyone knows that Wall Street went through a terrible couple of years because of all of the problems in the economy and a lot of people lost money – in some cases, an awful lot of money.                If you’re reading this, chances are that you’re one of them.                Maybe you think – or maybe you’ve been told, by “someone”  – that there are “no guarantees” on most investments, especially when it comes to stocks. Hey, if you lose money “playing the market,, well, you’re just out of luck and there’s nothing you can do about it, right?                You’ll never see any of that money again in this lifetime, RIGHT?                Wrong.                WRONG, WRONG, WRONG!                There are stock losses . . . and there are stock losses.                There are some stock losses that you probably never will get back. But  in a large number of cases, you CAN get money back – and sometimes, it’s  a surprisingly large amount of money.                Your first step in figuring out which kind of loss is which is to call 1-800-STOCK-LOSS, a proven winner at getting investors’  money back from stock losses since 2003.  As the name implies,1-800-STOCK LOSS is an investment recovery service with tons of experience in aggressively advocating  on behalf of investors just like you  to get money back for them if their losses stem from improper actions by their brokers – or even just from “errors of omission” – things the brokers should have done to protect you, but DIDN’T.                You’d be surprised how often that is the case.                And you’d be surprised to find that the victim’s “station in life” doesn’t really matter. Sometimes, the victim is not a financial professional by any means , says 1-800-STOCK-LOSS  co-founder  and lead negotiator Mitch Markowitz, but “just about the average American worker” who decides to go into investing to enhance his or her retirement savings or simply to improve their standard of living .                But other times it might be someone who would seem to be a more sophisticated investor – 1-800 stock loss has worked successfully on behalf of  individuals who have lost millions of dollars, and even for pension funds.                No matter. The stories are usually depressingly similar.  An investor, small or large, walks into a brokerage firm and effectively puts him or herself into the broker’s hands, trusting the “investment professional” to always do the right thing and look out for the investors’ interest.                Sometimes it happens – and sometimes, it DOESN’T.  Many brokers are ethical, honest and competent  – but others are not above steering the frequently unsuspecting investor – who thinks he or she has  got someone “watching my back” – into particular stocks or kinds of investment vehicles simply because that’s what the company is pushing that month because it is good for the company. Some do numerous unnecessary trades just to churn up commissions. And even when an investor has been put into a good stock or other investment, in most cases, the broker is NOT LEGALLY OBLIGATED TO KEEP AN EYE ON THE ACCOUNT going forward!                Markowitz notes that unless an account is specifically labeled a “discretionary account,” giving the broker discretion to oversee the account and buy and sell what he or she feels is best for the account – and most accounts aren’t – the investor is on his or her own. The brokerage, in effect, washes its hands of any further  responsibility for the behavior of that particular stock, mutual fund or other investment.                 This is almost never explained to the investor up front in clear, simple language, Markowitz warns – because if it were “who would agree to that?”  Despite investment firms’ grandiose claims of past results – with the legal disclaimer, in tiny print, that past performance is no guarantee of future gains – the investor is almost never warned that the investment could go sour if the market goes south and “if you’re taking on risk, you could be sitting here in a couple of years without a dime to your name. That’s what should happen, technically, but it doesn’t happen” – for the simple reason that if it did, the investor “would just push the chair back, pick him or herself up and leave.”                Investment firms cover themselves legally by “fully disclosing” the risks the investor runs, usually in dense paragraphs of legalistic jargon in small print, buried deep within the investment documents, knowing full well that few, if any investors will ever actually read it. The bottom line, Markowitz says,  is that too many small investors “are definitely not going in with their eyes wide  open about the possibility of losses and being left high and dry by their brokers – “which is where we at 1-800-STOCK LOSS come in!”                1-800-STOCK LOSS, founded by Markowitz and veteran market professional Ben Lapin, has been butting heads with the brokers and their high-powered white-shoe lawyers and aggressively and successfully going to the mat for its hoodwinked clients to get their money back for nearly a decade.  1-800-STOCK LOSS, over the years, has engaged in arbitration proceedings on behalf of hundreds of clients,  from small investors to larger ones, most of the time doggedly forcing the opposition to come to the bargaining table and settle the investor claims rather than risk going all the way to the arbitrators, which Markowitz says  is “a crapshoot” for them.  “If there’s really a good chance of them losing, they’ll probably come up with enough money that it makes sense to resolve it.                Getting  money back from a stock loss starts with the easy-to-remember phone number:    1-800-STOCK LOSS. Then, Markowitz vows, “we will look at everything. We demand no money up front.  There is NO OBLIGATION. We’ll tell you what we think we can get you, and our fee structure is negotiable, depending on the percentage of the expected recovery. YOU CAN’T LOSE BY CALLING US.                 Not all cases of investors losing money in the market necessarily involve broker incompetence, deception or malfeasance – but a surprisingly large number do, and in those cases Markowitz – who stresses his roots as a scrappy “blue collar guy” –  will fight like a pit bull on behalf of his investor client who has lost all of his investment because a broker for some big Wall Street firm did not tell him the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.                 “I’m going to do what I need to do properly,”  he promises,  “and my cause dwarfs their cause.” While Markowitz’s cause is trying to make whole a client’s shattered finances, “their cause is to keep big corporate America alive. Do they care if they pay $1 million or $5 million? They’re getting their money regardless. So my cause” – and the cause of 1-800-STOCK LOSS  “probably is the reason for me to say ‘I can get the better of them’.”