I occasionally like to look at consumer fraud complaints to see if I can learn any lessons for corporate compliance.On the consumer side there is tremendous volume of complaints and many parties trying to help. It caught my eye when four different organizations got together to identify the top consumer complaints for 2009. Here are … Read more »
Category: Fraud
National Consumer Protection Week
National Consumer Protection Week 2010 is March 7-13. Take advantage of the FTC’s free resources, which can help you protect your privacy, manage money and debt, avoid identity theft, understand credit and mortgages, and steer clear of frauds and scams. This year’s theme is Dollars & Sense: Rated “A” for All Ages. The idea is … Read more »
Madoff Losses Down from $65 Billion to $20 Billion
How do you value fraud? When the Madoff ponzi scheme collapsed the claim was that there was $65 billion in losses. That was the total dollar value on the account statements given to investors. Of course, that number was fictional because there were not real assets behind those numbers. The trustee overseeing the liquidation of … Read more »
Fraud Charges Against Ken Lewis and Joseph Price
New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo filed securities fraud charges against former Bank of America CEO Kenneth Lewis and former Chief Financial Officer Joseph Price. The Attorney General claims that the two decided not to disclose the enormous losses at Merrill Lynch & Co. before getting shareholder approval to acquire the Wall Street firm. The … Read more »
SEC Goes After Sub-Prime Lender
The Securities and Exchange Commission charged three former top officers of New Century Financial Corporation with securities fraud for misleading investors as New Century’s subprime mortgage business was collapsing in 2006. At the time of the fraud, New Century was one of the largest subprime lenders in the nation. In its complaint, the SEC alleges … Read more »
How Fraudsters Try to Look Legitimate
The SEC is putting its new investor-focused website to good use: Investor.gov. The first item that caught my eye was their article on how fraudsters use fake SEC registrations and bogus seals to make them look legitimate: Fake Seals and Phony Numbers: How Fraudsters Try to Look Legit. They offer these five pieces of advice: … Read more »
It’s Tough Being Green… And Charged With Fraud
Mantria Corporation is a “diversified and progressive business enterprise that seeks out emerging sectors with a passionate focus on sustainability and the commercialization of socially responsible products and services.” At least that’s what their website says. The SEC says: “In reality, the only green these promoters seemed interested in was investors’ money.” According to the … Read more »
The SEC is Going After the Geeks
First, Bernie the boss turned himself in, saying he did it all by himself. Nobody believed that, including the SEC. So the SEC went after Madoff’s right-hand man, DiPascali, and Madoff’s accountant, Friehling. Now the SEC is going after the geeks. The Securities and Exchange Commission charged two computer programmers for their role in helping … Read more »
The Dark Side of Aggressive Goal Setting in the Workplace: A Shortcut to Unethical Behavior
EthicsPoint sponsored a webinar by Dr. Lisa Ordóñez, University of Arizona, Professor of Management and Organizations in the Eller College of Management at The University of Arizona “Applied managerial experience and hundreds of academic research studies have catalogued the positive impacts of goal setting on performance. Challenging, specific goals compared to instructions to “do your … Read more »
International Fraud Awareness Week
November 8-14, 2009 is International Fraud Awareness Week. This weeklong campaign, sponsored by the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners, encourages business leaders and employees to proactively take steps to minimize the impact of fraud by promoting anti-fraud awareness and education. Test your knowledge about fraud with this Fraud IQ Test, which includes 20 actual questions … Read more »