This blog may be one of the few publications in the Western world that has never written the word “Kardashian,” but that has now changed. In the stories about the robbery in Paris of Kim Kardashian we found numerous issues that touch on the work we do.
After my recent book The Art of Fact
We pretty regularly find ourselves blogging about small business owners that draw people into scams. We’ve seen the would-be movie executive, the sweet-talking investment solicitor, the landscaper and the produce company owner. Too often, we find that defrauded consumers and investors could have avoided their losses by doing some basic due diligence.
Due diligence is all about following up on red flags, but if you don’t find them, there’s nothing on which to follow up.
Thus, our tireless refrain: turn over every piece of public record information you can about a person, and don’t leave it to others.
We were reminded of this by the story this
According to the Sacramento Bee, a would-be movie studio executive, Carissa Carpenter, pleaded not guilty last week to defrauding investors of at least $5 million during her failed 17-year attempt at creating a movie studio in Northern California. Over the 17-year period, she shifted 
the location of her planned studio several times. Her last
We recently blogged here about surprising facts we’d found when doing diligence on expert witnesses. We’ve looked into so many people and companies that we’re rarely taken aback when we find that someone left something off of a resume or lied about a degree. But sometimes we come across a news story that manages to
We have been asked in recent months to look at an uncommonly large number of expert witnesses, both for clients thinking of hiring experts and by people checking out the other side’s experts.
What an eye-opener. Nearly half of these people turned out to have something in their backgrounds that would give someone pause before
The story of the “nightmare nanny” who has refused to leave her employer’s home has been making waves all over the news. You’ve probably seen it by now— using Craigslist, Marcella and Ralph Bracamonte hired Diane Stretton as a nanny for their three children in exchange for room and board in their home. 
The couple
If anyone wondered what the practical side of Europe’s new Right to be Forgotten would turn out to be, here it is:
In less than a month since a court in the E.U. decided Google links were substantial information and could be scrubbed at the will of a judge, Google has received 40,000 requests to
“TelexFree is already creating MILLIONAIRES and now is YOUR turn.” So read the now defunct website of TelexFree Inc., which U.S. officials ordered to be taken down earlier this month. Massachusetts company TelexFree Inc. held itself out as a low-cost internet telephone company. In reality, its founders were allegedly running a billion dollar global