The longer you investigate people, the more bad behavior you will be able to talk about. But there is little I have encountered in my work that is more sickening than deed fraud – the subject of a recent case we had.

Philadelphia. Photo Credit: Creative Commons.

A form of identity

Get ready for college admissions scandals phase II, and maybe III, IV and V.

The reason I think so? Because of the way it was discovered.

Prosecutors didn’t break up the ring of bribing college coaches and exam proctors by using vast computing power, databases and algorithms, but by interviewing somebody. According to multiple reports,

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. 

“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

One of the best ways to learn how to detect fraud is to look at people who have been caught and then analyze what you could have done to avoid being taken in as others were.Fake royalty.jpg

News from Germany here about a man jailed recently for rape and fraud after pretending to be German royalty

GettyImages_138621830.jpgMost people have seen the warning message on the ATM machine that recently deposited funds may not be made available for immediate withdrawal.  What people may not realize is that a number of scams have been designed to take advantage of the lag time between deposit and collection.  A variation of the scam even