Litigation

Video Professor doesn?t want you to know how their scam works

Posted on November 29, 2009
Have you seen the Video Professor on television? Nice infomercial type advertisements where you’re offered all sorts of computer software for free.. just pay shipping and handling. If you’re like most people, you probably thought the company made its money on the shipping and handling fees...

Grant Thornton to SEC: Overstock.com is lying

Posted on November 24, 2009
UPDATE: Overstock.com just issued a press release in which Patrick Byrne calls Grant Thornton a bunch of liars. Add them to his list of “miscreants.” No longer can Patrick Byrne, wacky CEO of Overstock.com (NASDAQ:OSTK) claim that those pointing out his lies and materially misleading financial statements are just “miscreants,” operatives of an imaginary “Sith [...

A review of Expert Fraud Investigation: A Step-by-Step Guide

Posted on November 22, 2009
My second book, Expert Fraud Investigation: A Step-by-Step Guide, was recently reviewed by my colleague Michael Goldman for The Value Examiner, the magazine published for the National Association of Certified Valuation Analysts. It’s read by consultants who work in the areas of business and asset valuation, business fraud deterrence, detection, and investigation, litigation consulting, and [...

Trouble keeping the books at TheStreet.com?

Posted on November 20, 2009
It’s interesting to note that TheStreet.com (NASDAQ:TSCM) is apparently having trouble keeping its books, especially since Jim Cramer is one who loves to rant about companies with shoddy bookkeeping. It’s troubling, of course, because Cramer suggests that you should sell the stocks of companies that don’t keep up with their regulatory filings, and TheStreet...

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FTC taking action against Pre-Paid Legal Services Inc.

Posted on November 19, 2009
Much to my surprise, the Federal Trade Commission appears to be taking action against Pre-Paid Legal Services (NYSE:PPD) for making misleading representations in connection with its Identity Theft Shield and Affirmative Defense Response System products...

Overstock.com: The circus continues

Posted on November 17, 2009
Sam Antar has often referred to Overstock.com and CEO Patrick Byrne as the gifts that keep on giving. And he sure is right! There is never a dull moment when it comes to wacky conspiracy theories and accounting woes that never end. Last week, Overstock (NASDAQ:OSTK) announced that it wouldn’t be filing its 10-Q for the [...

Overstock.com admits they?re clueless about the accounting rules

Posted on November 13, 2009
This week Overstock.com (NASDAQ:OSTK) notified the public that they wouldn’t file their third quarter 10-Q on time. The reason: The registrant has been unable to complete its financial statements for the quarter ended September 30, 2009, as it is continuing to analyze the proper accounting treatment for $785,000 the registrant received during the first quarter of [...

Consumers looking for the ?good? MLM

Posted on November 09, 2009
Robert FitzPatrick of Pyramid Scheme Alert is bombarded every week by consumers who want to ask him, “What about this MLM?” You see, the marketers of multi-level marketing companies have gotten very savvy. They know that plenty of us have figured out their con game...

More lies about ?job creation? with stimulus money

Posted on November 05, 2009
I wrote last week about my opinion of the fraud that is our federal government’s stimulus programs. Our government has a vested interest in making us think these programs are successful. How else can an agenda of “wealth redistribution” and socialism be promoted? They must have “success” on their side to justify continuing on this [...

Government stealing more money from citizens (digital download sales tax)

Posted on September 30, 2009
I am at a point where I feel that our government is stealing from the citizens. Taxes are out of control. Once upon a time, there were no taxes in the United States. Then little by little, the government started enacting tax laws. At first the taxes were just meant to pay for services that [...

The secret to recruiting for ShopToEarn

Posted on September 29, 2009
Recruiting for multi-level marketing companies has become a game of strategy. How many times have you been invited to hear about “an opportunity,” but the person inviting wouldn’t tell you the name of the company? We’ve all heard about this tactic… The recruiters don’t want anyone to “pre-judge” or show up with opinions before they’ve [...

Oh the cruel, cruel internets!

Posted on September 21, 2009
The world of mommyblogging is all aflutter. Bloggers have been criticized and those responsible for dishing out the criticism must be shamed or sued or both!!! For those of you who aren’t hip to what mommyblogging is… it’s blogging done by moms...

I?m glad I?m not the only one who hates Intuit, Quicken, and Quickbooks

Posted on September 15, 2009
A few months ago, I posted a rant here about my hate for everything Quickbooks and Intuit. The problem is, however, that a lot of people use it (so that means I have to use it in many of my investigations) and there aren’t many good alternatives...

Medifast and Take Shape For Life: Weight loss pyramid scheme?

Posted on September 14, 2009
Earlier this year, Barry Minkow and Fraud Discovery Institute railed on Medifast, a company with a weight-loss plan being marketed with a multi-level marketing plan. The company was built primarily through marketing of the weight loss program through physicians...

September 11 Tribute: Karen Lynn Seymour Dietrich

Posted on September 11, 2009
Eight years later, and the emotion of September 11 doesn’t go away. I remember how I felt that day. How friends and I leaned on each other as we tried to understand the terrible act that was carried out. Today I pay tribute to Karen Lynn Seymour Dietrich, one of the 2,996 lives lost on that [...

September 11 Tribute: Karen Lynn Seymour Dietrich

Posted on September 11, 2009
Eight years later, and the emotion of September 11 doesn’t go away. I remember how I felt that day. How friends and I leaned on each other as we tried to understand the terrible act that was carried out. Today I pay tribute to Karen Lynn Seymour Dietrich, one of the 2,996 lives lost on that [...

Mona Vie: Don?t use our name in your URL, unless you?re Wikipedia (and we?re doing the editing)

Posted on September 03, 2009
Earlier this week I wrote about the MonaVie lawyers going after bloggers who do unflattering critiques of the company. Their premise was silly: You can’t use our name in a URL. Here’s exactly what they said in their threatening letter to blogger “Lazy Man”: As a network marketing company MonaVie does not permit its name to [...

Here come the MonaVie lawyers?

Posted on September 01, 2009
When will companies learn? Trying to silence critics of them with bogus threats of legal action just isn’t effective. We have something called “freedom of speech” here which guarantees us the right to speak our minds, so long as we’re being truthful...

ObamaCare contradictions

Posted on August 21, 2009
This whole “healthcare reform” debate is making me crazy. Mainly because of all the disinformation provided, as well as the alarming sound bites played by the media. The truth is that our healthcare system in America does NOT need “reform...

Another dishonest public company executive uncovered by Barry Minkow

Posted on August 13, 2009
According to Barry Minkow, co-founder of the Fraud Discovery Institute, Terrell Herring, President and COO of inVentiv Health Inc. (NASDAQ: VTIV) “claims to have an MBA degree from Pacific Western University, a well known ‘diploma mill’ that ceased to exist by that name in 2007...

Haverhill Home Staging posting on blogs?

Posted on August 11, 2009
This afternoon I  found 9 comments waiting to be posted on my blog, all for the post Buying a job with Haverhill Home Staging? Questionable. All 9 comments were done this morning over a period of about three hours, and all were from the same IP address...

The Pink Truth about Direct Selling and the economy

Posted on August 06, 2009
All year long we’ve been seeing news story after news story about how “direct selling” (the name meant to disguise multi-level marketing and confuse consumers about the true intent of the companies) is a great option for making money during difficult economic times...

Federal tax revenues down dramatically

Posted on August 05, 2009
Yes, it’s true. When the government does more to penalize taxpayers more (make them pay “more” in taxes), the taxpayers alter their behavior to mitigate things. In the case of Americans who are paying most of the income taxes (remember that 1% of taxpayers pay more income tax than 95% of taxpayer in total) they: change [...

Inside ShopToEarn?s ?customer service department?

Posted on July 30, 2009
A reader of Fraud Files recently contacted me to offer some information on the inner workings of ShopToEarn. Readers of this blog have had plenty of questions about the company and its founder, Patrick Welsh. One reader did a bunch of research, and came away with more questions than answers...

How we?ll get screwed under the proposed health plan for America

Posted on July 26, 2009
Forget about the massive cost. Forget about the millions that will still be “uninsured.” Forget about the fact that healthcare will be rationed. Forget that those over 65 will be considered more expendable and therefore be denied some care...

Mary Kay Cosmetics is suing another product liquidator

Posted on July 23, 2009
Times must be tough over at Mary Kay. Instead of focusing on ?enriching women’s lives? as the company is so fond of saying, they’re instead busy running around suing all kinds of people . A couple of weeks ago, Mary Kay filed suit against Yahoo for including advertisements with Mary Kay keywords in their email [...

Reports of financial crimes growing

Posted on July 21, 2009
I’m not a believer that a bad economy means more fraud is occurring. Those who say this is happening simply have no basis for that opinion. Because so much financial fraud goes undetected, it is impossible to determine if it’s growing or not...

Australian scam sounds exactly like U1st Financial!

Posted on July 21, 2009
One of the credibilty builders (i.e. smokescreens) that United First Financial agents use when trying to sell their Money Merge Account is… “It’s based on the Australian banking system!” The claim is that this “system” has been used successfully in Australia for years, and so we should believe in it too! However, the truth is that [...

Who pays all the income taxes?

Posted on July 20, 2009
Obamanomics has made it popular to call on the “rich” to pay “their fair share” of taxes. Lets increase taxes to pay for ineffective, unnecessary, wasteful government spending, but lets make sure the “rich” are the ones who pay those increased taxes...

Usana Health Sciences misrepresenting distributor earnings

Posted on July 19, 2009
written by: terminatedramp USANA publishes a distributor average earnings chart to be used to recruit new distributors into their business opportunity. See the following USANA website that provides their earnings chart: http://www.usana.com/dotCom/opportunity/payplan/index...

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