One of the criticisms leveled against Usana Health Sciences in Fraud Discovery Institute’s original report on the company is the lack of retail sales. Usana acknowledges the importance of retail sales in its 2005 10-k, on page 16 (bold added […]
One of the hallmarks of a product-based pyramid scheme is the absence of sales to retail customers. Examine a multi-level marketing company like Usana or Mary Kay, and you will see that for the most part, their distributors do not […]
I am wrapping up writing my manuscript entitled Essentials of Corporate Fraud, to be published by John Wiley & Sons. I’ve been discussing my experience with finding a publisher and getting a book deal here. It’s been an interesting process, […]
An astute reader found this at the bottom of a Quixtar (Amway) website: “This site is protected by U.S. Patent 6,980,962” Protected by a patent? A business scam like Amway, Quixtar, whatever it’s called this week? Surely the United States […]
The Wall Street Journal had a special section today on entrepreneurs, and this blog was mentioned in an article entitled Blog It and They May Come. We got in both the print edition and online edition, and got linked too. […]
A few months ago, the issue was raised of the Utah Attorney General, Mark Shurtleff, “endorsing” Usana Health Sciences. Staff at his office told Fraud Discovery Institute associates that the Attorney General would never endorse a company, and we reported […]
Today on the White Collar Fraud Blog, Sam Antar has the first part of a three part series on the inventory numbers at Overstock.com. It’s curious how Overstock’s inventory numbers always seem to create more questions than they answer. Sam […]
Mortgage industry professionals are facing increased scrutiny by federal prosecutors in Houston, Los Angeles, Phoenix, and New York, according to the Wall Street Journal. The FBI reports that 1,200 mortgage fraud cases are currently under investigation, compared with only 436 […]
Small businesses find blogging can be useful — but time consuming. Wall Street Journal By Sarah E. Needleman A few months after launching a blog early last year, Get It In Writing Inc. started seeing traffic to its Web site […]
Ladd McNamara apparently has no regard for the rules of agencies that license physicians. Yesterday he opened a brand new blog, which he titles “Dr. Ladd McNamara’s Blog.” Too bad that on May 31, 2007, Barry Minkow and Fraud Discovery […]
