28th Edition of The Carnival of Fraud
We had a ton of submissions this week, thanks to being featured on the Blog Carnival home page on Friday and over the weekend. Thanks for contributing and reading… and please stop back to see us soon! Submissions for next week’s carnival can be done here.
China Law Blog highlights the problem of Chinese employees taking kickbacks. Apparently this practice is not legal in China, yet it runs rampant because companies know they may lose significant business if they don’t give kickbacks.
Mine Your Own Business warns about a common scam perpetrated on retailers: A retailer is contacted by a “buyer” who is looking for special pricing on a large quantity of high-end items. Red flag!!!! This “buyer” is looking to run off with your merchandise
Debt Free offers up lesser-known tips to help avoid identity theft, including freezing your credit, regularly checking your credit report, and encrypting computer information.
Matt Paulson gives some information on the new “Identity Safeguards” program offered by Zander Insurance. I’m not a fan of identity theft insurance, but Matt thinks this one is a little different and a little better.
A Cash Advance blog tried to get us to put their post in this carnival. NO WAY! We don’t promote scams here, and “cash advance” companies are one of the worst consumer scams out there!
SoxFirst alerts us that Donald Trump is expected to be called as a defense witness in the fraud trial of Conrad Black. He will allegdly testify that a $40,000 party (paid for with company funds) was not a birthday party for Conrad’s wife, but rather a business gathering.
Digerati Life brings up a name we saw in last week’s carnival: Casey Serin. Word on the street is that the guy is a scam artist who has committed multiple mortgage frauds, but he has a website that is attempting to cash in on his tale of woe. At least he’s got people talking!
The Real Estate Forum highlights a recent warning about mortgage fraud issued by the FBI.
SteveO snapped a picture of a guy riding a bike after his trip to WalMart, and titled it “Loves to Ride“… since the guy was apparently riding a motorized scooter while shopping at WalMart.
Tax fraud… It’s not just for taxpayers anymore. It’s now for IRS agents too!
Weboma has a nice post about scams to avoid. I especially like this post because it references pyramid schemes. And if you know anything about me, you know that I like to speak out against multi-level marketing companies, which are really nothing more than product-based pyramid schemes.
Funny we should mention product-based pyramid schemes…
I worked with Barry Minkow and Fraud Discovery Institute on an investigation of Usana Health Sciences. Read about our conclusions on the fraud being perpetrated on the company’s investors and distributors. Usana promptly sued Fraud Discovery Institute and Barry, yet oddly enough, they didn’t address any of the real issues that we raised about Usana’s material non-disclosures.
Tags: mortgage fraud, Tax fraud, pyramid schemes, multi-level marketing, Barry Minkow, Usana
