Carnival of Fraud

Posted by Tracy Coenen on December 31, 2008 · 1 Comment 

Welcome to the December 29, 2008 edition of carnival of fraud. Wenchypoo presents Update With Bonus: The “Con” in Lexicon posted at Wisdom From Wenchypoo’s Mental Wastebasket, saying, “An explanation of how mere words can rob us blind if we let them.” Peter presents Greed. It Never Ends Well. posted at Bible Money Matters, saying, [...]

Carnival of Personal Finance #185: Cheesehead Edition

Posted by Tracy Coenen on December 28, 2008 · 42 Comments 

Welcome to the last Carnival of Personal Finance for 2008, The Cheesehead Edition.  I’m located in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and I send greetings from fellow Cheeseheads. We’ve had an interesting winter so far, with record-level snowfalls in December, followed by record high temperatures on Saturday, and now back to freezing temperatures. Hopefully this week’s Carnival of [...]

Property tax sticker shock

Posted by Tracy Coenen on December 26, 2008 · 1 Comment 

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel writes today about the sticker shock property owners are having when they open their property tax bills. The taxes have gone up in general, but property owners are frosted because their assessments no longer match the real market value of their houses. The reality is that property values are generally down, [...]

Wondering why frauds at public companies aren’t being pursued by the Feds?

Posted by Tracy Coenen on December 24, 2008 · Leave a Comment 

Consumers are often left wondering why the Securities and Exchange Commission doesn’t heavily pursue allegations of fraud against public companies like Overstock.com (NASDAQ:OSTK), Usana Health Sciences (NASDAQ:USNA), Herbalife (NYSE:HLF), and the like. I’ve always said the answer is simple: There are not enough resources devoted to investigating and prosecuting fraud in public companies. Executives are [...]

How to make social media a total waste of time

Posted by Tracy Coenen on December 23, 2008 · Leave a Comment 

I admit it: I’m not a lover of all things social media. I am participating in the Facebook and Twitter discussions a bit begrudgingly. It’s not that I don’t think these tools work to grow businesses and create interesting discourse. They do. It’s just that as a solo, I have only so much time available [...]

$65 million fraud via a shell company scheme

Posted by Tracy Coenen on December 23, 2008 · 1 Comment 

The IRS is accusing Ausaf Umar Siddiqui, vice president of Fry’s Electronics Inc., of embezzling more than $65 million from the company via a shell company scheme. They say he used the money to pay gambling debts in Las Vegas A textbook shell company scheme would go like this: Set up a company that sources [...]

For students and job seekers: Becoming a fraud investigator

Posted by Tracy Coenen on December 21, 2008 · 1 Comment 

I routinely get emails from students, job seekers, or the gainfully employed who want to make a career change… all asking me for advice on getting into the field of forensic accounting and fraud investigation. Here are my top three tips for getting into this field:

Big Three bankruptcy impact distorted

Posted by Tracy Coenen on December 18, 2008 · 3 Comments 

Last week at the 2008 Inforum Outlook Conference, a presentation was given about the impact of potential bankruptcy filings of the Big Three automakers, GM, Ford, and Chrysler. The media has cited figures ranging from 2 million to 3 million jobs lost. A study of such bankruptcy filings found that the figure of 3 million [...]

More TARP secrecy

Posted by Tracy Coenen on December 17, 2008 · 1 Comment 

Remember when the leaders of this whole Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) promised us that the spending of our 20 gajillion taxpayer dollars would be “transparent”???? Transparent apparently is synonymous with the word “secret” in their world. How many ways can our government be un-transparent? Contracts with professional services firms providing services related to TARP [...]

Who is making money as a United First Financial agent?

Posted by Tracy Coenen on December 17, 2008 · 10 Comments 

Not many people, that’s for sure. As with any multi-level marketing company, a tiny fraction of people at the very top of the recruiting pyramid make some money, and everyone else makes little to nothing. Here are the numbers posted on a UFF agent’s website in August 2008 (click to see full size):

Next Page »