Posted by Tracy Coenen on November 30, 2005 · Leave a Comment
For the second time in recent history, illegal stock trading has been tied to an employee of Quad/Graphics Inc. It is alleged that a securities broker had an employee steal copies of unpublished BusinessWeek issues, and used information from the “Inside Wall Street” column to make some stock trades.
Specifically, it is alleged that broker David [...]
Posted by Tracy Coenen on November 28, 2005 · Leave a Comment
Those who have been the victims of identity theft have the option of putting a fraud alert on their credit reports from the 3 credit bureaus. Is it worth the hassle?
In all honesty, a fraud alert on a credit report provides only a small amount of security. It is simply a statement that your identifying [...]
Posted by Tracy Coenen on November 27, 2005 · Leave a Comment
Entrepreneur Magazine’s December issue includes a short article about click fraud. What is click fraud, you say?
Companies can advertise their wares via pay-per-click advertisements. These are usually very short, with a few key words and a link to the advertisers website. Using services such as Google, the companies pay each time someone clicks on [...]
Posted by Tracy Coenen on November 24, 2005 · Leave a Comment
A federal lawsuit against match.com accuses the company of luring customers into subscription renewals via emails from fake suitors. It is alleged that employees of match.com sent emails to members and went on sham dates in order to get subscribers to extend their subscriptions.
A separate lawsuit accuses Yahoo of posting fake profiles to boost the [...]
Posted by Tracy Coenen on November 23, 2005 · Leave a Comment
Creative types use stock photography for advertising, websites, and print media. Today I was searching for additional stock photos for my website. I went to Getty Images, a favorite of mine, and was browsing their cd collections.
And wouldn’t you know….they have a cd by Digital Vision called FRAUD. Yes, the theme of the cd is [...]
Posted by Tracy Coenen on November 22, 2005 · Leave a Comment
The second part of this fraud story involving Bielinski Brothers Builders Inc. touches on the more personal side of the fraud. The brothers were defrauded by their CEO, Robert Brownell, who was responsible for a total loss of between $10 million and $20 million.
The brothers had a gut feeling that something was wrong. They noticed [...]
Posted by Tracy Coenen on November 20, 2005 · Leave a Comment
Those familiar with internal fraud (i.e. committed by your own employees) know it is expensive, particularly when it involves executives. The executives have more access to information and assets, and that leads to bigger frauds.
Bielinski Brothers, a large builder of homes in southeastern Wisconsin, apparently didn’t suspect one of their own. Robert Brownell worked for [...]
Posted by Tracy Coenen on November 19, 2005 · Leave a Comment
The Association of Certified Fraud Examiners is providing free anti- fraud training in Louisiana, following Hurricane Katrina.
“Conducting Internal Investigations” is being presented by the ACFE to State employees and higher education auditors of public or private universities. The training is particularly important for those who need to meet continuing education requirements.
Full press release here.
Posted by Tracy Coenen on November 17, 2005 · Leave a Comment
A survey released by Cybersource, a provider of electronic payment services, says that merchants will lose $2.8 billion to online fraud this year. Yikes!!! The threat is growing, but apparently companies aren’t doing much more in the way of personnel.
Full story here.
Posted by Tracy Coenen on November 13, 2005 · Leave a Comment
Would you recognize the clues that your client has been ripped off by one of its employees? Or would management conduct business as usual, blindly trusting their employees?
Companies make the mistake of not actively searching for fraud. They tend to trust their employees and trust the procedures in place to safeguard company assets. It may [...]
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