Archive | Sep 2007
Barry Manilow hates Elisabeth Hasselbeck
Barry Manilow was supposed to be on The View today. He was scheduled to be interviewed by Elisabeth Hasselbeck. He refused to do it. Barry said he’d be on stage with any of the other co-hosts, just not Elisabeth. He said: Unfortunately, the show was not willing to accommodate this simple request, so I bowed out. [...]
Continue reading...Finally the New York Times gets it
18 Sep 2007
The New York Times will stop charging for access to parts of its Web site, effective at midnight Tuesday night. read more | digg story
Continue reading...Plea agreement with Bill Lerach
18 Sep 2007
The U.S. Attorney’s Office has announced a plea agreement with Bill Lerach, former partner at Milberg Weiss. He will plead guilty one one count of conspiracy, forfeit $7.75 million, and pay a $250,000 fine. He will receive a prison sentence that could be from one to two years. The charges against Lerach were part of [...]
Continue reading...Finding fraud by looking at ratios
18 Sep 2007
While doing some research, I came across an old article written by Joe Wells on analyzing ratios to find fraud. The article Irrational Ratios was published in the Journal of Accountancy, and used the ZZZZ Best case to illustrate the point. I’m a believer that today’s really good fraudsters manipulate the financial statements so that the [...]
Continue reading...The Next Enron? Countrywide Workers Sue Over Retirement Plan
16 Sep 2007
The mortgage lender’s employees say the value of retirement accounts plummeted by millions as the company’s stock fell. Some Countrywide Financial Corp. employees sued the mortgage lender Wednesday, claiming they suffered heavy losses in their 401k retirement accounts after the company failed to warn them about the depth of its financial troubles. read more | digg [...]
Continue reading...M.B.A.s Are Losing Their Importance on Wall Street
16 Sep 2007
Many young people on the fast track to fat paydays in the financial industry are choosing to forgo M.B.A. programs. As more Americans have become abundantly wealthy, young people are recalculating old assumptions about success. The flood of money into private equity and hedge funds over the last decade has made billionaires… read more | digg [...]
Continue reading...A follow-up on the story in the WSJ about the Hutterites
15 Sep 2007
A couple of weeks ago, I did a post on a story in the Wall Street Journal about the Hutterite community and the use of cell phones and text messaging. I wrote the post not because it has anything to do with fraud, but because I was just interested in the story. It’s never a [...]
Continue reading...Ladd McNamara must have seen an attorney
14 Sep 2007
Finally, Ladd McNamara is living in reality. For quite some time, this Usana supporter, high level distributor, and former member of the Usana Medical Advisory Board has been illegally referring to himself as a doctor and an M.D. Illegally? Well that’s according to the California rules, and McNamara lives in California. He has no medical [...]
Continue reading...An excellent analysis of the demise of Usana
13 Sep 2007
An article today on SanDiegoReader.com does an excellent job of highlighting what’s been happening with the Usana case. As if I’d ever let you forget, I will remind you that Usana Health Sciences is being investigated by the Securities and Exchange Commission for violation of securities laws. Their investigation was initiated based upon a lengthy report [...]
Continue reading...SEC brings charges against auditors
13 Sep 2007
69 auditors have been charged by the Securities and Exchange Commission with issuing audit reports on the financial statements of public companies without first registering with the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board. The SEC has named 37 unregistered audit firms and 32 audit partners in this violation of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002. According to [...]
Continue reading...- A new pyramid scheme: United First Financial
- Mary Kay Cosmetics: Destroying half a million women a year
- Ufirst Money Merge Account: Resistance is futile
- The Sarah Palin pregnancy cover-up that wasn't (updated)
- What does Dave Ramsey think about United First Financial
- Vendor talks, Usana squawks
- United First Financial agent compensation plan
- Why can't I pee on my neighbor's lawn?
- $3,500 wasted with United First Financial, per Dave Ramsey
- Searching for Shop to Earn scam
- Tracy Coenen: Oh.. And if you really want to pay $3,800 toward your mortgage...
- Tracy Coenen: Maurice - You’ve fallen for their crap. $5,000 on your...
- maurice: Tracey, Again, I’m not in favor of purchasing software or...
- Tracy Coenen: Well Paul, you apparently agree with me as well. This has been...
- Paul Haley: Has anyone here actually read anything I’ve written any...
- Tracy Coenen: So what Paul is saying is that there is some link between human...
- Lee D: Climate Change is Identity Politics at it’s highest level. And...
- Duped: Good gracious! Sounds like we have another Al Gore here....
- Paul Haley: Lee, There’s no straw man there. Man wasn’t...
- Lee D: Way to mix affirming the consequent with a straw man argument, Paul....
- SEC employees more worried about future careers than actual enforcement?
- “Climate change”: Just another fraud on consumers
- Latest numbers: MPS still sucks
- Property tax sticker shock
- More TARP secrecy
- Bernard Madoff Ponzi scheme investor losses: Recovery?
- Barry Minkow and Fraud Discovery Institute release proof of James Peterson’s (Microsemi Corp) lies
- James Peterson expands the lie; Microsemi board doesn’t care
- Planned Parenthood violating Indiana’s sexual abuse laws
- More public company executives with falsified credentials
About the Author
Tracy Coenen is a forensic accountant and fraud examiner who investigates white collar crimes, including cases of financial statement fraud, embezzlement, tax fraud, and insurance fraud. She is the author of Essentials of Corporate Fraud and more than 100 articles on fraud featured in industry publications.
18 Sep 2007
1 Comment