International Law

Christian Affinity Fraud

Posted on January 30, 2009
Image via WikipediaFrom the FBI Press Release on Jeffrey McLainMARIETTA, GA - JEFFREY W. McLAIN, 52, of Marietta, Georgia, has been indicted by a federal grand jury on charges of mail fraud and wire fraud. McLAIN is expected to appear before a United States Magistrate Judge late this week or early next week...

What is an Illegal MLM or an Illegal Pyramid in Canada?

Posted on January 30, 2009
Image via WikipediaFrom the Competition Bureau's website:"A multi-level marketing company sought an opinion in April 2003 as to whether a proposed plan to sell memberships would raise concerns under the Competition Act.Under the plan, a membership costing $2,995 before taxes would give members the services and benefits of a traditional hotel concierge at preferred rates, from various vendors or suppliers...

Perfect4u Scam

Posted on January 30, 2009
Image via WikipediaFrom the UK's This Money on Perfect4u:Question: Have you come across a cashback scheme operated by a firm called Perfect4u? It appears to be connected to some big-name banks such as Alliance & Leicester and HSBC, but as it costs nothing to join I am wondering whether there is a catch? Answer: Well spotted...

How to Regain Confidence

Posted on January 29, 2009
Image via WikipediaDean Baker, who wrote Plunder and Blunder, has a couple of good ideas which ought to reduce fear and increase overall confidence."Many of the solutions are obvious, but the deciders are no more willing now to step outside the conventional wisdom and think for themselves than when they were busy ignoring an $8 trillion housing bubble two years ago...

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Cialdini Interview on The Wisdom of the Crowd

Posted on January 29, 2009
Image via WikipediaInteresting interview with Cialdini on persuasion techniques."In our hotel experiment, we considered the finding that the majority of hotel guests who encounter the towel reuse signs do actually recycle their towels at least some time during their stay...

Asset Recovery and Management Trust Prime Bank Fraud

Posted on January 29, 2009
Image via WikipediaFrom the SEC Press Release on Asset Recovery and Management TrustThe Securities and Exchange Commission announced today that it recently obtained judgments against three defendants in a previously filed case alleging that the defendants operated a prime bank fraud under the name Asset Recovery and Management Trust ("Armtrust") that defrauded hundreds of investors of more than $1...

Gordon B. Grigg and ProTrust Management TARP Fraud

Posted on January 29, 2009
Image via WikipediaFrom the SEC Press Release on ProTrust ManagementOn January 28, 2009, the Securities and Exchange Commission ("Commission") filed a Complaint for Emergency Injunctive and Other Relief ("Complaint") in the United States District Court for the Middle District of Tennessee, Nashville Division, against Gordon B...

White Collar Criminals are Criminals

Posted on January 28, 2009
Image via WikipediaDo you feel sorry for criminals that have used compliance techniques instead of force to you rob you?Are con criminals somehow less dangerous, not deserving of jail time?Well the famous author John Grisham apparently thinks that con criminals are not deserving of jail time...

Three Card Monte and the Banks

Posted on January 28, 2009
Image via WikipediaOne of theoretical stances this blog takes is to analyze ordinary decision making behaviour by understanding how clearly fraudulent schemes work by identifying which compliance tricks are in play. When we can see the mechanisms at work in a deliberate fraud, identify the parts, and are confident about the psychology of compliance tools, we are better prepared to understand frauds cloaked in the forms of normality and social convention...

Judge bans Allphones from threatening Franchisees?

Posted on January 28, 2009
Image by lexell via FlickrWe need better reporting about legal issues as they relate to franchises.  Here is a story from Australia, apparently about a Franchisor threatening its franchisees."ALLPHONES has been banned from telling franchisees they will be given preferential treatment if they enter into a new agreement with the company...

Selling Franchises to the Recently Laid Off

Posted on January 27, 2009
Image via WikipediaSeveral weeks ago, I was interviewed at the prestigious franchise news site, Blue Mau Mau about fraud. One of my concerns in this economic environment was with how the newly laid off would react, what they would do, and how they would make decisions...

Thank-you to our readers - we are number 25!

Posted on January 27, 2009
Image via CrunchBaseFrom the Avolaw Blog, who ranks lawyers."Ever wonder what exactly goes into those top legal blog (blawg) lists floating around? We have, so in line with Avvo's commitment to transparency, we threw together this auto-updating list of over 300 legal blogs ordered by their Alexa traffic ranking...

Dale Graybill sentenced for Ponzi Fraud

Posted on January 27, 2009
Image via WikipediaFrom the Connecticut FBI Press Release on Dale Graybill:Nora R. Dannehy, Acting United States Attorney for the District of Connecticut, announced that DALE L. GRAYBILL, 64, of North Haven, was sentenced today by Senior United States District Judge Peter C...

Satyam auditors arrested and PWC denies wrong doing.

Posted on January 26, 2009
Image via WikipediaThis just in from the department of highly unusual news.  PWC, the auditor of Satyam, who allowed the company to mislay over a $1 Billion in cash is:"under intense pressure since Mr Raju admitted in a statement to the Bombay Stock Exchange earlier this month that the company's accounts had been inflated over several years...

How Expensive is Proper Franchise Due Diligence?

Posted on January 26, 2009
Image via WikipediaRichard A. Solomon, Paul Steinberg, and I have often talked about getting proper pre purchase advice before buying a franchise, over at the Blue Mau Mau site for franchise news. We note it generally should cost between $3,000 - $5,000 and between four to six months learn about a franchise...

Castaldi Ponzi Scheme Alleged

Posted on January 26, 2009
Image via Wikipedia From the US Illinois FBI Press Release: A suburban businessman who promised hundreds of investors between 10 and 15 percent annual interest rates on promissory notes he sold them was charged today with operating a so-called "Ponzi" scheme for more than 20 years, resulting in losses estimated in tens of millions of dollars...

Fraudsters Abusing do-not-call list - What a Surprise!

Posted on January 26, 2009
Image via WikipediaThe story that the Canadian do-not-call registry is being sold to scam artists should be a non story. The Consumers' Association of Canada says it has been inundated with complaints from people who have been called by scam artists after placing their telephone numbers on the registry, which went into effect last September...

Brixon Group Ponzi Guilty Plea

Posted on January 22, 2009
Image via WikipediaFrom the FBI Press Release about the Brixon Group ponzi.United States Attorney Karen P. Hewitt announced that Donald Manning pled guilty today to conspiracy and wire fraud charges in U.S. District Court in San Diego before the Honorable Barry Ted Moskowitz...

Scoop Capital Fraud

Posted on January 22, 2009
Image via WikipediaFrom the SEC Press Release on the aptly named "Scoop Capital" fraud:The Securities and Exchange Commission today filed a civil injunctive action in the United States District Court for the Middle District of Florida charging Arthur Nadel with fraud in connection with six hedge funds (the "Funds") for which he acted as the principal investment advisor...

Assigning Blame after Magic Fails

Posted on January 22, 2009
Vikas Bajaj writing at the New York Times has a story about something for nothing."Like so many investments that Wall Street concocted in recent years, Gemstone was fashioned from subprime dross. The M&T Bank Corporation, which got the sales talk and subsequently bought into the investment, lost $80 million...

Organised Crime Risk

Posted on January 21, 2009
Image via WikipediaInteresting story about fraud out of Scotland, which has things backwards."Detective Chief Superintendent Alan Moffat, of the Scottish Crime and Drug Enforcement Agency, told the Sunday Herald that the financial services sector in particular was "coming under greater threat" than before, not least because the lack of easily available credit made businesses more likely to turn to organised criminals for funding to tide them over through difficult periods...

Mediation Trainer Training

Posted on January 21, 2009
Image via WikipediaThought I would just past this along, from Diane Levin's Mediation Blog.If you're an experienced mediator who wants to master the essentials of effective mediation training, please join me in Boston for the Mediation Works Incorporated Train the Trainer Institute, on Thursday, February 26 and Friday, February 27, 2009...

Killer Due Diligence for Prospective Franchisees

Posted on January 21, 2009
Image via WikipediaRichard Solomon has an instructive view about franchising history, and concludes:"There is only one way to avoid investing in this kind of abusive franchise system. Pre investment killer due diligence by experienced franchise lawyers who are not afraid to vet the deal from a business as well as a legal perspective is simply indispensible...

How Did Madoff Calculate?

Posted on January 21, 2009
Mark Cuban takes an inspired guess about Madoff generated his counterfeit statements of his firms "trades""I'm taking a flyer here, but if they were to put me on the case, the first people I would talk to are the software developers.  Somewhere along the line there was a software program written or modified that allowed Madoff to enter the numbers he made up, who they were paying out cash to and would print the checks and  statements...

Franchising in India

Posted on January 20, 2009
Image by avlxyz via FlickrHere is a scary post about franchising from India."Taking up a franchise gets you, a recognized format, brand name and a system to generate sales. Instead of working on strengthening the products or services, you simply focus on increasing sales, as you work on the business and not in the business...

Irish Eyes and President O'Bama

Posted on January 20, 2009
This is an amusing song, seems like everyone wants to claim the new President as their own!Related articles by ZemantaHistory of InaugurationHow to Follow Obama's Presidential Inauguration OnlineU2 Rock Obama ConcertObama Inauguration Countdown Widget: Get It Here

Is Barry Minkow Aiming Low?

Posted on January 20, 2009
Image via WikipediaMichael Hitzik, writing at the LA Times, questions Barry Minkow's methodology,who has targeted USANA, then Herbalife and lately Lennar."The most curious aspect of Minkow's style as a fraud investigator is his selection of targets. He goes after investment scams almost too small to register on the radar...

Tulips, Tea or Housing?

Posted on January 20, 2009
Image by Getty Images via DaylifeAndrew Jacob, writing in the New York Times, has an interesting story about a commodity bubble in tea."Over the past decade, as the nation went wild for the region's brand of tea, known as Pu'er, farmers bought minivans, manufacturers became millionaires and Chinese citizens plowed their savings into black bricks of compacted Pu'er...

Bait and Switch from Obama

Posted on January 19, 2009
Image via WikipediaCanadians are used to pomp and ceremony as we have a Queen for the head of state.  Lots of stype points, but no management of parliment.Sam Antar warns that Obama may be sailing into a fraud storm, starting with his high priced inaguration...

Why Are We Duped so Easily?

Posted on January 19, 2009
Image by darksong via Flickr Robin Hanson, writing at Overcoming Bias, discusses Paul Maliszewski's new book, Fakes, and has a new observation about confirmation bias. "In news, social science, and fiction consumers mainly want more vivid impressive detail to support pre-existing abstract conclusions...

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