International Law

Why You Over Spend - For Everything

Posted on July 03, 2008
Image by Getty Images via DaylifeYou are like me - we are idiots. We don't know too much about how to evaluate consumer goods, investments or franchises. (Well, I lie. I know a lot about how to evaluate the purchase of franchise. But on consumer goods and investments, I am pretty much clueless...

Googles "Allowed Sites" Feature

Posted on July 03, 2008
Image via WikipediaWhat does Google promise the blogger, in return for not buying links? Google maintains that you don't need paid links because: "AdSense for content automatically crawls the content of your pages and delivers ads (you can choose both text or image ads) that are relevant to your audience and your site content--ads so well-matched, in fact, that your readers will actually find them useful...

More XL Results Foundation Complaints

Posted on July 03, 2008
Image via WikipediaI am a big sucker for Donald Trump's Apprentice show, as I have talked about before. There is something about the "game" that attracts my attention, even though I a bit puzzled why Trump appears to shill for ACN. Why no videos are allowed of the Donald promoting a silly VOIP product that is outdated...

Can you make money with Mary Kay?

Posted on July 03, 2008
Image via WikipediaIf you buy a distributorship, you want to know how much money you can make. If you buy a franchise, you want to know how much money you can make. If you buy into a MLM network, you want to know how much money you can make. But the current disclosure laws in Canada and US do not make it mandatory to disclose how much participants made in the past...

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What will the Franchisor Do for You?

Posted on July 02, 2008
Image via WikipediaRush Nigut, writing at Rush on Business, notes: "While discussing a franchise case recently an attorney working with me observed that the franchisor really didn't agree to do anything for the franchisee in its franchise agreement. Unfortunately most franchisees are under the mistaken belief that franchisors will provide all kinds of support...

Fraud New You Can Use

Posted on July 02, 2008
Image via WikipediaAn alternative view about XL Results, Tan Hai Liang writes: "If you read carefully, many of the so called complains are "alleged". There are also reports that after investigations, authorities did not find any wrong doing. So how do we know whether XL Results Foundation is a scam or not? Before we make any conclusion, we must always base on facts or evidence...

Bayou Blues Brother in Custody

Posted on July 02, 2008
Image via WikipediaNEW YORK (AP) -- Federal officials say fugitive hedge-fund swindler Samuel Israel has surrendered to authorities. Rebekah Carmichael, a spokeswoman for U.S. Attorney Michael Garcia, said Wednesday that Israel is in federal custody...

How Much of the Future will turn out to be Like the Past?

Posted on July 02, 2008
Image via WikipediaA standard critique or concern about forecasting is that what was true in the past may not continue to be so in the future. Nassim Taleb is popular for for his tart but cogent counter examples found in the investment forecasts. So far, the critiques simply focus on what is wrong with rules that assume that the future will closely resemble the past, without providing guidance for a world in which the future doesn't closely resemble the past...

BurnLounge is a Pyramid Scheme

Posted on July 01, 2008
Image via WikipediaFrom the FTC Press Release about BurnLounge; "An operator who used deceptive earnings promises to recruit consumers for a multi-level marketing operation that was a pyramid scheme has agreed to settle Federal Trade Commission charges that the operation was illegal and violated federal law...

Fighting Investment Fraud: The One Thing that You Need to Know

Posted on July 01, 2008
Image via WikipediaThe US Senate Special Committee on Aging in 2006 held hearings on "How Seniors can stop Investment Fraud". Barry Minkow, the man behind the ZZZZ Best fraud in 1980's but now running the Fraud Discovery Institute had a very interesting submission, in which he defined fraud as "the skin of truth, stuffed with a lie"...

Canada Day Fraud Links

Posted on July 01, 2008
Image via WikipediaOver at Pink Truth, Tracy writes about: "Directors feed everyone so much bologna about Mary Kay and how great it is. But did you know that every line of every script has an underlying message? Everything a director tells you and/or a potential recruit can be very easily translated into its true meaning within a split second...

What is the Sunk Cost Fallacy?

Posted on July 01, 2008
Image via WikipediaKim Klaver, writes at her blog, that "Sunk costs should be ignored...but that's hard to do. Last year I bought a DVD set of a TV series I never got to watch. I watched the first episode. Didn't get into it that much. Put it on the shelf...

eBay Liable for Auction of Fakes

Posted on June 30, 2008
Image via WikipediaIn a remarkable decision increasing gate keeper liability, a French Court has found eBay liable for allowing fake designer goods in it auction. "A French court on Monday ordered eBay to pay $61 million US in damages to LVMH -- a manufacturer of designer goods -- for failing to block the sales of knock-off items on the online auction site...

Using Industry Statistics To Sell Business Opportunities

Posted on June 30, 2008
Image via WikipediaLance Winslow, a colourful character who has battled the FTC a number of times, writes on his blog about the use of Industry Statistics and the new FTC Biz Op Rule "In the past many business opportunity sellers would use industry specific statistics on their Web sites, brochures and even in videos, which they would mail to potential buyers...

Cold Stone Case Study

Posted on June 30, 2008
Image via WikipediaGwendolyn Bounds, writing at the WSJ has an article on Cold Stone, with three warnings for franchise buyers. "1. Is there too much expansion? Cold Stone's rapid pace of store openings was enticing. Everyone wants to be on board with a winner...

CRM publishes 50 ways to protect your Privacy

Posted on June 30, 2008
Image via WikipediaEd Dickson, writing at fraudwar.blogspot.com, points us to 50 tips from CRM to protect our privacy. But I want to focus on what Ed says about vishing, telemarketing fraud: "The CRM industry has a stake in fighting the battle against scams that are being made easier by technology...

License to Lie, Cheat and Steal

Posted on June 27, 2008
Image via WikipediaBob Frankman writing at BlueMauMau, writes about integration clauses, "Franchisors and franchisees, want a heavy-duty philosophical thought? In the video clip below, Samuel Jackson is a hit man who has just been burglarized in a restaurant...

Interesting Decision Rule

Posted on June 26, 2008
Image via WikipediaRick Larrick at Duke, writing at his blog GPM, has a neat article on the difference between miles per gallon and gallons per mile, MPG versus GPM. Rick asks: "What is the problem with MPG? Consider a decision between two cars--a current vehicle and a new vehicle that is more efficient...

Charlie Munger on Human Misjudgment

Posted on June 26, 2008
I had a chance to re-read Charlie Munger's 24 Standard Causes of Human Misjudgment, taken from his 1995 address to the Harvard Law School. He has some interesting ideas. Why institutions tolerate and are eventually undone by fraud: "Remember...what was it? Serpico? I mean you let that stuff...

Neat Ponzi Scheme Executed in Buffalo

Posted on June 26, 2008
Image via WikipediaThe SEC is reporting that their temporary restraining order, TRO, against was extended "The Commission's complaint, filed on May 15, 2008, alleges that from at least May 2005 to the present, Gane and M-One orchestrated a securities offering fraud that has raised at least $5...

Internet Scams by Terry Dean

Posted on June 26, 2008
Image via WikipediaTerry Dean, over at Internet Business Coaching, gives his list how to detect an business internet scam: 1. Big Promises of Specific Amounts of Money Quickly 2. Tons of Pictures of Their Wealth. 3. No Work Required. Business opportunity sellers will tell you how you don't have to do any work...

How You Can Solve Your Work Life Balance Problem

Posted on June 25, 2008
Image via WikipediaStacey Shulz, at Brain, Child describes a way you fail dramatically - become a network marketer, after answering an ad online. " Lopez, twenty-nine, lives in Springville, Utah, with her husband and two children. She's got a college education and a full-time job as a manager at a flexible-packaging manufacturing company...

Should the States Franchise Out Their Registration Processes?

Posted on June 25, 2008
Image via WikipediaJohn Arden, at Trade Regulation Talk, discusses franchise regulation, quoting the US Dean of Franchising, "Atlanta attorney Rupert M. Barkoff bemoans the United States' "overly complex and extremely inefficient" franchise sales regulatory system, which involves both federal and state regulation, no federal preemption, and a lack of harmonization among state regulatory schemes...

Wed Fraud Stories

Posted on June 25, 2008
Image via WikipediaJohn R. Emshwiller, writing at the WSJ, has a great story about high life fraud: "Federal prosecutors charged Raffaello Follieri, an Italian entrepreneur and former business partner of California billionaire Ron Burkle, with funding a lavish lifestyle by using money from a real-estate venture that was supposed to capitalize on his alleged Vatican ties to redevelop surplus Catholic Church properties...

TRUTH ON THE MARKET » Chairman Kovacic Announces the "FTC at 100? Self-Assessement Exercise

Posted on June 25, 2008
Image via WikipediaJosh Wright, writing at the Truth on the Market, about the FTC "The motivation of the presentation was the announcement of the FTC's self-assessment project which will take the form of external consultations and workshops involving academics, industry and agency officials starting in late July and extending throughout the calendar year...

Why You fell Hard for Mary Kay - Compliance Tricks

Posted on June 24, 2008
Image via WikipediaLazy Gardens, an anonymous poster over a Tracy Coenen's Pink Truth writes: "Someone commented, "I know we talk about brain washing here, and cult dynamics, but honestly I still haven't read a good reason why this worked on me and how it still works on women who normally would NOT be so compliant...

Learning Skepticism From George Carlin

Posted on June 24, 2008
Image by Getty Images via DaylifeJay Dixit, over at the Psychology Today blogs, has an extraordinary interview with George Carlin, weeks before his death. I want you to read the entire interview; Carlin had an ear for detecting fraud, bullshit, and lies...

Crooks con woman using 'magic' bracelet- Police just as Stupid

Posted on June 24, 2008
Image via WikipediaHere is an example why regulators don't have a clue about con criminals. The Vancouver Sun reports: "An elderly Chinese woman was tricked out of $20,000 earlier this month by a trio of women who convinced her that she should buy a bracelet that had magical powers...

Is Identity Theft Service a Good Service?

Posted on June 24, 2008
Image by Kazbad via FlickrEd Dickson, at Fraud, Phishing, and Financial Misdeeds, reports that Tom Fragala, at MyTruston, was awarded a 2008 Product Innovation Award from Network Products Guide "Truston's innovative SaaS platform offers an organized approach to getting a stolen identity back and keeping it safe...

All Freight Logistics Ponzi Guilty Plea

Posted on June 24, 2008
The Department of Justice reports: "The president and CEO of All Freight Logistics, Inc., pleaded guilty today to mail fraud and money laundering charges in connection with his Ponzi scheme to defraud investors of millions of dollars through the offering of exorbitant rates of return, U...

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