Insider: Bradford Richardson, Executive Vice President of Asia Pacific

Company Bio: Bradford joined USANA in December 1997 as executive director of international development, and from 1999-2005 held the roles of vice president of international development and vice president of international. In January 2006, he was appointed executive vice president of Asia Pacific, and currently has profit & loss responsibility for USANA’s operations in the Asia Pacific region. Additionally, Bradford is responsible for the definition and execution of USANA’s international expansion strategy.

Google search:

mary kay party scam

Answer:

Yes, indeed! Beware the Mary Kay lady!

Mary Kay is a product based pyramid scheme, which means they use the product to lure you in, trumpet the potential of product sales, and then recruit you to be a consultant. Recruiting is the ultimate goal, and very little actual retailing of products goes on.

Mary Kay Inc. sells $2 billion (wholesale) to its consultants each year, and the bulk of that collects dust in basements and garages because there is not much of a market for the products. Read more about Mary Kay on this blog and on my consumer awareness site Pink Truth.

Sam says that he went to BestBuy.com and bought a hard drive for in-store pick up. What he got was a box of bathroom tiles. Now Best Buy is saying he’d better take it up with manufacturer and that they’re not going to issue a refund and that Sam should just take his loss. We don’t think he should. We think it’s not legal to sell someone a box…

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I am in favor of school vouchers. It has worked well in Milwaukee. Don’t let anyone tell you any different. Is the system perfect? No. But the public schools here are terrible, and at the very least, the voucher program gives children an alternative.

Does the voucher program help everyone? No. Some parents are not involved with their children and don’t really care, so they don’t utilize the program. But for the low-income households with parents who care, it has been fantastic.

Google search:

independent auditors as necessary evils

Answer:

That is an interesting search. The reader was directed to my article Finding Fraud With the Right Auditor, which differentiates between traditional external auditors, tax auditors and forensic accountants. It’s important for those engaging auditors and consultants to know the differences between the two.

Are traditional auditors a “necessary evil”? In many ways, yes. They’re expensive and their usefulness is limited. But they’re required, so they’re brought in every year to look at the financial statements.

Google search:

patrick byrne & naacp

Answer:

First result is my article NAACP wants Patrick Byrne of Overstock.com to apologize. Cool!

See here’s the thing… I understand what Patrick was trying to say. It’s just that he said it in the worst possible way, and it came out sounding very insulting and condescending. And instead of just saying to the public “hey that came out wrong and here’s what I meant,” he jumps up and down and says “they’re lying!”

No, Patrick, they weren’t lying. It’s on video. You said it. Why not try a new approach just this once?

Class action suits against auditing firms PricewaterhouseCoopers and Deloitte & Touche are raising questions about future lawsuits. Auditors are suing PwC because they say they were denied overtime pay and benefits, and the suit covers all associates and senior associates of PwC in California.

The firm is saying that the auditors were properly classified as exempt employees under California law, and therefore they were not entitled to overtime pay.

Stan O’Neal, CEO of Merrill Lynch, is said to be stepping down on Monday. He is not going willingly, however. The board of directors was meeting this weekend to discuss candidates for the postition.

O’Neal’s departure comes following an $8.4 billion writedown in the third quarter, with most of that related to mortgage-related assets.

Up to this point, O’Neal appeared to have done a good job at Merrill Lynch, boosting the company’s profitability and expanding its international reach. But former colleagues now say that his weakness was firing many longtime employees in his early days at Merrill Lynch. His independence and unwillingness to listen to contrary views may have led to the lack of support he now has from the board of directors.

Adding to the criticism was O’Neal’s discussion with Wachovia Corp. CEO G. Kennedy Thompson. O’Neal asked him if they would be interested in buying Merrill Lynch, but he had no authority to even have that conversation.

Patrick Byrne, CEO of Overstock.com made a teeny little goof this week. Well, okay… it wasn’t so teeny. It was pretty bad.

Byrne was part of a debate on school vouchers in Utah, which he favors. During the debate, he said that when minority students don’t graduate from high school, “you might as well burn them.”

Yet in true Patrick “Sith Lord Conspiracy” Byrne style, he’s denying it. The Salt Lake Tribune reports:

Byrne didn’t apologize Friday. He said he said nothing wrong and his comment is being distorted.

“It’s worse than a cheap shot. It’s a lie. Somebody is trying to create the implication I said the exact oppostie of what I said in that answer,” Byrne said.

The NAACP is demanding an apology from Byrne, but he’s got this to say:

“I’m saying we should not be throwing out kids. We should not be discarding kids. I’m saying the current system does,” Byrne said. “Forty-two percent of minority kids in Utah don’t graduate. That is a calamity. The people who are saying, ‘That’s OK, let’s not change the system,’ they are saying we might as well throw out those kids. Those kids don’t matter.”

Yo, Patrick! They’ve got it on video! Check it out for yourself…

Oh, and if you oppose vouchers, you’re a bigot, according to Byrne.

Companies that relied heavily on telemarketing were hit hard by the Do Not Call list. They were severely limited in doing cold calls over the telephone. Anyone on the Do Not Call list was off-limits, and today that totals about 145 million phone numbers.

One of the ways companies get around the list, is by using something called a “lead card.” They send materials to consumers, and the consumers are asked to send back an enclosed reply for free information about the product or service. When a consumer sends back that card, she or he has unknowingly given the compay permission to call, even if the consumer is on the Do Not Call list.

Prosecutors are beginning to crack down on the deception behind the lead cards. Some companies have falsely implied they were affiliated with the federal government or certain advocacy groups in order to entice consumers to sent back the replies. Some are blatantly deceitful, making statements about changes in Medicare benefits or new legislation passed by Congress.

Little do consumers know that many of the cards will be given to salespeople who will begin making the phone calls. Many of these cards are being sent by marketing companies that later sell the leads to insurance agents, investment representatives, or people peddling trusts or other estate-planning products.

Marketers are banking on the portion of the Do Not Call law that allows them to still call households on the registry if they have agreed in writing to receive the calls. But the Bureau of Consumer Protection says that businesses are not allowed to get that consent for phone calls by using ruses or deceptive tools.