Barry Minkow, the ex-con mastermind of the Zzzz Best Carpet cleaning fraud, who reformed himself into a crusader against fraud, is back in the limelight. After receiving numerous accolades for helping federal agencies uncover more than $1 billion in frauds, he is out with his new set of three DVDs titled Frauds Gone Wild, which consists of Protecting Yourself from Investment Fraud, Protecting Yourself from Affinity Fraud, and Protecting Yourself from Elder Fraud. The production of the films was financed by a man who had tipped Barry off on a fraud in progress. While he did not end up getting his money back, he wanted to help other people from falling victim to fraud.
Several months ago, I received free review copies of the DVDs from Mr. Minkow's Fraud Discovery Institute. While they are entertaining and well put together, the $17.99 that Amazon is charging for each volume is far too expensive for them to be a good investment, in my opinion. Each DVD is about 30 minutes long, but much of the material is the same throughout. You will get the gist of protecting yourself from watching one of them. My advice: if you're interested in learning about fraud and how it works, just order Protecting Yourself from Affinity Fraud. It's the most psychologically interesting, and covers much of the material from the other two.
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