When 84% of small business owners report being concerned about online fraud issues, there is a clear need to educate . That’s why the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners (ACFE) has organized National Fraud Awareness Week from November 11-17.

As a supporter of Fraud Awareness Week, SunTrust Banks has partnered with the National Small Business Association (NSBA) in the “Foil Fraud” survey to understand the pain point of fraud in small business and to educate small business owners about prevention.

Among the survey findings:

• 84% of small business owners are concerned about fraud in connection to their business finances.
• Although online identity theft topped the list of concerns (65 percent), check fraud (45 percent) and credit card fraud (52 percent) were the most frequently experienced types of fraud.
• With fraud striking small businesses an average of six times, it is apparent that fraud is a detriment to the livelihood of a small business—resulting in tens of thousands of dollars in losses.
• Of the 82 percent of small business owners stating they wanted banks to offer more help in fighting against fraud, 46 percent were either unsure or reported that their bank does not offer online fraud detection services.

For more information, please visit www.suntrust.com/foilfraud.

I’m generally a fan of Starbucks. They have overpriced coffee and it’s not my favorite, but it is convenient and they have built a fantastic business operation that I admire in many ways.

But this is just silly. According to Consumerist, Starbucks is suing a Michigan coffee shop called Conga for trademark infringement, and it’s all about the green circle. Conga has reportedly been using their logo for 11 years, but Starbucks just decided that it’s confusing and infringing.

Now I’m sorry, but that green circle Starbucks uses as part of its logo is pretty generic. The real part of their logo that is distinctive is the woman in the center. Conga hasn’t even copied anything about the logo – not the font, not the stars, not the image in the center.

But somehow the suits at Starbucks are convinced that people visiting Conga in Michigan might be confused and might think they’re walking into a Starbucks. Give me a break!

Compare the logos:

Sorry. I’m all in favor of protecting corporate intellectual property and identities and such, but Starbucks has this one all wrong. I sure hope that when they realize it, they’re kind enough to pay the legal fees of Conga for such a silly claim.

Why don’t I have employees? Quite simply put, I’m not interested in doing adult daycare again. I’ve been there, done that, and I’m not doing that again. The day I had to explain to an employee why little pigtails (the kind a 3-year-old would wear) weren’t appropriate for client meetings and why it was important to wear clothes that actually matched one another… I knew my calling as an employer was over. These are things one might expect a 29-year-old to already know. I had reached my breaking point, I think.

BusinessWeek has a great article on employees who slack off and abuse paid leave. What! I’m shocked to learn that employees spend lots of time while on-the-clock doing stuff that’s not related to what they’re paid to do. Shocked, I say!

Okay, not really. The article, aptly titled “Shirking Working: The War on Hooky” details some of the modern methods used to analyze the work patterns of employees. It’s estimated that $74 billion is lost annually to absenteeism, and that employees only work for about 85% of their pay. They goof off the rest of the time.

Companies giving greater scrutiny to employee absences include Wal-Mart, Delphi, Dell, Georgia-Pacific, and Southwest Airlines. Some are calling this “absence management.” Southwest says their new software has already saved them $2 million annually in reduced administrative costs.

Here’s the cool stuff: The new software can track things like the employee who is chronically “sick” on Monday or around holidays. Nice.

Our government? No, never! Not even in Wisconsin, one of the states with the biggest tax burden in the country. And it’s no wonder… the state was started by Socialists and continues to be overrun by lefties.

Seriously – hidden taxes are everywhere and an article on MSN gives us some of the gory details. We all know about certain taxes like those on fuel, tobacco and alcohol. But there are many less visible taxes that many people don’t even think about. The article lists some:

• Gambling winnings taxed as ordinary income
• Premiums on employer-funded life insurance greater than $50,000 are taxed
• Certain items that are imported – included on the list are bicycles, hammocks, peanut butter, and brooms

How expensive does this get? A government study estimates that consumers pay $400 million to $1.9 billion each year because of subsidies to the sugar industry.

Taxes are applied to all sorts of things like passengers on boats on certain waterways, airline travel, children’s vaccinations, the portion of a college scholarship that pays for room and board.

Why do these taxes get assessed? It’s one way for the government to take our money, and it’s also a way for them to control behavior. In essence, taxes may encourage or discourage certain behavior and may give certain industries competitive advantages. How’s that for government deciding how we should live our lives?

Hat tip: Wenchypoo. Great blog… check it out!

I don’t know if I was living under a rock or what, but I first discovered Consumerist a couple of months ago. I know, I know… I investigate fraud for a living and you’d think that I’d be on the lookout for sites that help consumers avoid scams. I am – sort of. You see, the focus of my company is not on consumer issues, but business fraud.

But I’ve taken an interest in these consumer scams and schemes… plenty of them perpetrated by good old American companies. You know, the ones that you’d think would value our patronage and treat us right? Consumerist does a great job of publicizing situations in which customers get the shaft from big business.

And this whole thing is about to come full-circle. Next month, I will become part of a new site, sponsored by a company with a HUGE online presence. We’ll be putting together a consumer finance blog, with several writers covering different aspects.

My focus, of course, will be fraud and scams against consumers. And this is going to be fun. I’m going to be blogging about current fraud issues facing consumers, ways to protect themselves, and real life consumer rip-offs. I’m going to be collecting stories from readers who’ve been cheated or scammed and we’ll be giving the companies who perpetrate the fraud and other bad acts a nice bit of publicity.

Stay tuned for more details, as we get ready to launch the site in a few weeks!

The Washington Post reports that two Washington D.C. government employees have stolen over $16 million in phony tax refunds in a scam that has gone on for at least three years. Harriette Walters and Diane Gustus have been charged

The two employees worked in D.C.’s Office of Tax and Revenue, and were helped by about 40 friends and family members. There were additional participants in the fraud scheme who worked in government offices. Walters and Gustus would create tax refunds for property tax accounts that would be made to appear overpaid, and then checks would be made to sham companies created by conspirators. Co-workers of Walters and Gustus would approve the fake documentation so the checks could be issued.

The fraud was uncovered when a bank employee questioned a $410,000 tax refund check that was brought into the bank in July. The investigation has found that the average amount of the refund checks created in the scheme was $388,000. Many are questioning how such unusually large tax refund checks were never noticed by other employees.

Today Bradford Richardson sold $600,000 more of his Usana stock. He’s liquidating all of it. With only 400 shares of stock left, I think TerminatedRamp has this one right…. Bradford Richardson, Usana’s Executive VP of Asia Pacific is going to be the sacrificial lamb. Barry Minkow and Fraud Discovery Institute released Cheating in China last month, detailing how Usana corporate employees are knowingly and willingly violating Chinese laws against multi-level marketing.

About the only way Usana can get out of this one is to offer up a sacrificial lamb. Make Richardson the one who was responsible for it all. Get rid of him and vow to make things right in China. That’s really their only chance for survival.

From Zac Bissonnette at BloggingStocks:

After Whole Foods Market (NASDAQ: WFMI) CEO John Mackey bizarre antics prompted an SEC investigation and widespread media hoopla, the company’s board of directors has decided on a new policy. Top executives and directors will now be explicitly prohibited from posting on online forums about the company, its vendors, or its competitors, except on Whole Foods-sponsored sites.

Happily, the change does not prohibit them from posting about other topics. So Mr. Mackey will still be able to compliment his own hairstyle while posting anonymously.

It’s kind of bizarre that Whole Foods even had to add this to its code of ethics, and it seems unlikely that this kind of thing will ever happen again at any normal company. Of course, it happens every day over at Overstock.com (NASDAQ: OSTK), where Director of Communications Judd Bagley routinely attacks critics on Yahoo! message boards and Wikipedia.
<snip>

Overstock Board of Directors??????

The Usana executive in the best position to know how factually accurate the Fraud Discovery Institute allegations about Cheating in China … keeps unloading his Usana stock. Go, Bradford Richardson! Richardson is Usana’s Executive Vice President of Asia Pacific. Sounds like someone who knows firsthand about how badly Usana breaks China’s laws, and therefore how untrue Usana’s SEC filings are in regard to the company’s activity in China.

Here’s Richardson’s stock sales, totaling over $1 million since the October 18 release of the Cheating in China report:

I could be way off base here, but isn’t it possible that this guy knows all about the cheating in China and knows that it will very soon catch up with Usana… and he’s selling while his stock is stock is still worth something? Naaaaah… I’m sure that can’t be it.

News on Herbalife (NYSE:HLF):

5:25PM Herbalife in its 10Q discloses SEC has issued a formal investigation (HLF) 39.35 +0.65 : The co says “on September 20, 2007, the Company was orally advised by the Los Angeles Regional Office of the SEC that the SEC had issued a formal order of investigation into the timing of trading in Herbalife securities by a former mid-level employee. The Company does not believe these trades involve the Company itself. In addition, on November 1, 2007, the Company received a voluntary request for the production of documents from the staff of the Los Angeles Regional Office of the SEC regarding the extent of personal use of Herbalife products by the Company’s distributors and the Company’s related policies and procedures. The SEC has advised the Company that its inquiry should not be construed as an adverse reflection on any person, the Company or its common shares, or as an indication from the SEC or its staff that any violation of law has occurred. The Company is cooperating fully with the staff of the SEC in these matters.”