In the world of Patrick Byrne, CEO of flailing Overstock.com (NYSE:OSTK), his paid stalkers, and his nutty followers, anything and everything is evidence of a massive conspiracy on Wall Street. Involved in this massive conspiracy are “captured” journalists who “take orders” from hedge funds and help [...]
I could literally spend all day blogging about scams on consumers. And the consumers don’t even have to be gullible. There are plenty of scams that look completely legitimate from the outside, and it’s not until you’re involved with them that you realize they’re scams.
The latest [...]
There’s a fine line between the First Amendment right to free speech and defamation, and this has become an increasingly larger problem online. What do you do if you’ve been careful with your reputation personally and professionally, but someone with a vendetta decides to attack you?
The end of the year is fast approaching, and its’ a good time to remind everyone of a few basic things they ought to do before December 31. I appeared last year on CNBC’s On the Money to talk about my five best tips for taxpayers.
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John W. Scherer, founder of VideoProfessor.com. Do you want this guy to profit at your expense?
Have you seen the Video Professor on television? Nice infomercial type advertisements where you’re offered all [...]
UPDATE: Overstock.com just issued a press release in which Patrick Byrne calls Grant Thornton a bunch of liars. Add them to his list of “miscreants.”
No longer can Patrick Byrne, wacky CEO of Overstock.com (NASDAQ:OSTK) claim that those pointing out his lies and materially misleading financial [...]
My second book, Expert Fraud Investigation: A Step-by-Step Guide, was recently reviewed by my colleague Michael Goldman for The Value Examiner, the magazine published for the National Association of Certified Valuation Analysts. It’s read by consultants who work in the areas of business and asset [...]
It’s interesting to note that TheStreet.com (NASDAQ:TSCM) is apparently having trouble keeping its books, especially since Jim Cramer is one who loves to rant about companies with shoddy bookkeeping. It’s troubling, of course, because Cramer suggests that you should sell the stocks of companies that don’t [...]
Much to my surprise, the Federal Trade Commission appears to be taking action against Pre-Paid Legal Services (NYSE:PPD) for making misleading representations in connection with its Identity Theft Shield and Affirmative Defense Response System products.
The company is named, along with CEO Harland Stonecipher anbd Chief [...]
Sam Antar has often referred to Overstock.com and CEO Patrick Byrne as the gifts that keep on giving. And he sure is right! There is never a dull moment when it comes to wacky conspiracy theories and accounting woes that never end.
Last week, Overstock (NASDAQ:OSTK) announced that it wouldn’t [...]
This week Overstock.com (NASDAQ:OSTK) notified the public that they wouldn’t file their third quarter 10-Q on time. The reason:
The registrant has been unable to complete its financial statements for the quarter ended September 30, 2009, as it is continuing to analyze the proper accounting treatment for $785,000 the registrant [...]
Robert FitzPatrick of Pyramid Scheme Alert is bombarded every week by consumers who want to ask him, “What about this MLM?”
You see, the marketers of multi-level marketing companies have gotten very savvy. They know that plenty of us have figured out their con game. They [...]
I wrote last week about my opinion of the fraud that is our federal government’s stimulus programs. Our government has a vested interest in making us think these programs are successful. How else can an agenda of “wealth redistribution” and socialism be promoted? They must have “success” on their [...]
People have many different reasons for participating on Twitter and other social media sites. They range from recreational purposes, making professional connections, and selling products or services. Whatever your goal with Twitter, you’re probably wondering how you can attract more followers.
Of course, publishing interesting Tweets is [...]
You feel obligated to blog. You think it would be a good way to “get your name out there” and market your professional services firm. Your boss has been bothering you about “that social media stuff.” But you feel lost.
In steps Blogging Suits. I have created BloggingSuits to teach [...]
People who support our government engaging in “stimulus” activities are fools. While it sounds good to “stimulate” the economy and there are supposedly jobs created and saved with stimulus dollars, the truth is that these government programs are at best very wasteful, and at the worst downright fraudulent.
Look at the [...]
We have discussed at length all of the reasons why the United First Financial Money Merge Account (UFF MMA) program is a waste of $3,500. In fact, we’ve even proven how even if the software was FREE, consumers are better off not using it.
The evidence which supports these assertions is [...]
I’ve written extensively in the past about the train wreck that is Overstock.com (NASDAQ:OSTK) and its nutty CEO, Patrick Byrne. Just when I think there couldn’t possibly be more to write about the horrible company and Byrne’s crazy antics, I’m proven wrong.
For those that have been following Overstock.com for [...]
For years, Milwaukee County has been a bloated government entity. Spending has been out of control as the politicians continued to expand what the government controlled, and they didn’t seem to care since it was “only” taxpayer money.
When Scott Walker became the County Executive, he [...]
More than a year after I started to write about the evils of United First Financial, its representatives are still trying to dazzle the crowds with bogus claims of factorial math.
It’s become clear that the primary method for selling consumers on this ridiculously expensive software that the consumer doesn’t [...]
If you’re in the U.S. and you have a credit card, you may be very familiar with arbitration clauses. Most of the credit card companies, and plenty of other companies you do business with, have these clauses in their contracts. What they generally say is that you the consumer give [...]
Kevin Thompson hires himself out to multi-level marketing companies to give them legal counsel. Supposedly he knows his way around the legality of MLMs, just like my buddy Gerry Nehra supposedly does.
So I was perusing Kevin’s website and came across this interesting diatribe about what separates “legitimate” [...]
Today Matt Taibbi posted a “shocking” article and video purporting to show a day trader engaging in massive naked short selling of a stock. And the firm that clears his trades, Penson Financial Services, goes along with it all.
Taibbi says that day traders can have a huge impact on [...]
As a fraud investigator, I take honesty and fair dealings very seriously. When I make a mistake, I own up to it. When someone I’m doing business with makes a mistake, I expect them to also take responsibility and make things right. I have been defrauded by Bagshop.com and its [...]
I am at a point where I feel that our government is stealing from the citizens. Taxes are out of control. Once upon a time, there were no taxes in the United States. Then little by little, the government started enacting tax laws. At first the [...]
Recruiting for multi-level marketing companies has become a game of strategy. How many times have you been invited to hear about “an opportunity,” but the person inviting wouldn’t tell you the name of the company? We’ve all heard about this tactic… The recruiters don’t want anyone to “pre-judge” or show [...]
The world of mommy blogging is all aflutter. Bloggers have been criticized and those responsible for dishing out the criticism must be shamed or sued or both!!!
For those of you who aren’t hip to what mommy blogging is… it’s blogging done by moms. Lots of them are just using blogging [...]
A few months ago, I posted a rant here about my hate for everything Quickbooks and Intuit. The problem is, however, that a lot of people use it (so that means I have to use it in many of my investigations) and there aren’t many good alternatives.
Intuit immediately got [...]
Earlier this year, Barry Minkow and Fraud Discovery Institute railed on Medifast, a company with a weight-loss plan being marketed with a multi-level marketing plan. The company was built primarily through marketing of the weight loss program through physicians. The Medifast executives realized that the MLM structure was their [...]
Eight years later, and the emotion of September 11 doesn’t go away. I remember how I felt that day. How friends and I leaned on each other as we tried to understand the terrible act that was carried out.
Today I pay tribute to Karen Lynn Seymour [...]
Earlier this week I wrote about the MonaVie lawyers going after bloggers who do unflattering critiques of the company. Their premise was silly: You can’t use our name in a URL. Here’s exactly what they said in their threatening letter to blogger “Lazy Man”:
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When will companies learn? Trying to silence critics of them with bogus threats of legal action just isn’t effective. We have something called “freedom of speech” here which guarantees us the right to speak our minds, so long as we’re being truthful. Yet that doesn’t stop multi-level marketing companies from [...]
This whole “healthcare reform” debate is making me crazy. Mainly because of all the disinformation provided, as well as the alarming sound bites played by the media. The truth is that our healthcare system in America does NOT need “reform.” Yes, there are some good changes that could be made, [...]
According to Barry Minkow, co-founder of the Fraud Discovery Institute, Terrell Herring, President and COO of inVentiv Health Inc. (NASDAQ: VTIV) “claims to have an MBA degree from Pacific Western University, a well known ‘diploma mill’ that ceased to exist by that name in 2007.” This “diploma” was cited [...]
This afternoon I found 9 comments waiting to be posted on my blog, all for the post Buying a job with Haverhill Home Staging? Questionable.
All 9 comments were done this morning over a period of about three hours, and all were from the same IP address. All praised Haverhill, [...]
All year long we’ve been seeing news story after news story about how “direct selling” (the name meant to disguise multi-level marketing and confuse consumers about the true intent of the companies) is a great option for making money during difficult economic times.
We know better! People are losing just as [...]
Yes, it’s true. When the government does more to penalize taxpayers more (make them pay “more” in taxes), the taxpayers alter their behavior to mitigate things. In the case of Americans who are paying most of the income taxes (remember that 1% of taxpayers pay more income tax than [...]
A reader of Fraud Files recently contacted me to offer some information on the inner workings of ShopToEarn. Readers of this blog have had plenty of questions about the company and its founder, Patrick Welsh. One reader did a bunch of research, and came away with more questions than [...]
Forget about the massive cost. Forget about the millions that will still be “uninsured.” Forget about the fact that healthcare will be rationed. Forget that those over 65 will be considered more expendable and therefore be denied some care. All that is bad enough…
But now there’s finally a piece [...]
Times must be tough over at Mary Kay. Instead of focusing on “enriching women’s lives” as the company is so fond of saying, they’re instead busy running around suing all kinds of people . A couple of weeks ago, Mary Kay filed suit against Yahoo for including advertisements [...]
I’m not a believer that a bad economy means more fraud is occurring. Those who say this is happening simply have no basis for that opinion. Because so much financial fraud goes undetected, it is impossible to determine if it’s growing or not. (But saying fraud goes up in [...]
One of the credibilty builders (i.e. smokescreens) that United First Financial agents use when trying to sell their Money Merge Account is… “It’s based on the Australian banking system!” The claim is that this “system” has been used successfully in Australia for years, and so we should believe in it [...]
