It's been a while since I posted something in the "Funnies" category but today I just had to share something with our readers. I just got off the phone with an elderly friend that had received an e-mail from a notorious scam artist that promised daily income with little or no risk.

Her family had told her that it was a scam, and my wife had told her the same, but she still wanted to know what I thought. She had forwarded the e-mail to me. It took me about 5 seconds to see the offer as a scam.

Continue reading Sunday Funnies: Huge profits with no risk!

Sunday Funnies: Huge profits with no risk! originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Sun, 23 Aug 2009 17:10:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Continue reading Madoff arrives in North Carolina to begin life in prison

Madoff arrives in North Carolina to begin life in prison originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Tue, 14 Jul 2009 18:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Bruce Watson recently reported on DailyFinance that Bernie Madoff's victims may be eligible for theft-loss deductions of as much as 95% of their losses over five years.

There's debate about whether that's fair. Some think it's too much, some say not enough, but here's what I say: Why not take a big pile of the TARP money and use it to make Madoff's victims whole?

I know: That's ridiculous, unprecedented and un-American, but do we really have any principle left to stand on as a reason for opposing such a bailout?

Continue reading Why not bail out the Madoff victims?

Why not bail out the Madoff victims? originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Wed, 18 Mar 2009 15:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Is the bailout just a Nigerian email scheme? originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Wed, 24 Sep 2008 15:40:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

SEC charges 'Teach Me To Trade' promoters with fraud originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Wed, 12 Mar 2008 17:12:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Con artists prey on troubled homeowners originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Fri, 09 Nov 2007 16:15:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

As a dog lover, I have to say that this is one of the most evil scams I've seen in a long time. According to The Consumerist, the latest advance-fee scam works like this:

You're browsing through an online classified ads site like Craigslist, and see a cute little dog available for adoption. You email the poster who replies that there is no fee and that while he hates to see the dog go, the weather in Africa is no good for him. If you could just pay the shipping fee, he'll be happy to send you the dog -- and so you wire him the shipping fee and, you guessed it, never hear from him again. In some cases, he may string you along with more requests for money but, either way, you ain't gettin' the pooch.

These con-artists should have to share a jail cell with Michael Vick.

[Photo from BurningWell.org]

Using puppies to steal your money with advance-fee scams originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Sun, 14 Oct 2007 09:10:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

eBay (EBAY) and Yahoo! (YHOO) join to prevent fraudulent email originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Mon, 08 Oct 2007 12:20:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

--The "educational sessions" advertised are generally little more than sales pitches, and attendees are often pushed to open accounts or buy products that day.

--Nearly 60% of the 110 investment firms and branch offices examined showed evidence of weak supervision of the employees running the seminars, including failure to review the seminar materials.

--About half of the seminars included false or misleading claims and 13% included what appeared to outright fraud.

--23% suggested investments that were unsuitable.

Feds probe deceptive marketing practices of 'free lunch' seminars originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Mon, 10 Sep 2007 16:35:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Ya know those books from Playboy that are so good you can't put them down until you finish?

Great Business Disasters: Swindlers, Bunglers and Frauds in American Industry, edited by Isadore Barmash and published by the Playboy Press, is just that kind of book. I would actually say that it's the most interesting book of business history I've ever encountered. And it's out of print.

Great Business Disasters is an anthology of some of the best financial journalism of the era, with a special focus on longer pieces covering frauds and mess-ups. We get a piece by John Brooks (author of the also-excellent Once in Golconda) on the infamous Ford Edsel and a fascinating piece by a very young Andrew Tobias on the National Student Marketing fiasco, who worked as a marketing director for the company.

There are a total of 15 accounts of some of the greatest and most infamous mess-ups in business history. Some of these are more obscure but still fascinating, and you're unlikely to find out about them outside of this book.

Reading Great Business Disasters, I couldn't help but lament the fact that this sort of long-form journalism is dying. Only a few great writers -- Gary Weiss and Herb Greenberg come to mind -- are carrying on this art. With Rupert Murdoch having complained that he finds The Wall Street Journal's feature stories too long, this situation seems likely to get worse.

Someone really needs to get the rights to this book and put it back in print -- It could be updated with some of The Wall Street Journal's accounts of the Enron blow-up and, of course, my coverage of Usana Health Sciences (Kidding...). Fortunately, the book is still available. Here are some places to get it used:

• On eBay
• AbeBooks
• Amazon.com (As low as a penny!)

Book Review: Great Business Disasters originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Wed, 05 Sep 2007 19:15:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Here's some pretty strong evidence that Americans could use some more financial literacy and fraud prevention training. The SEC filed securities fraud charges today against what the Commission called a "Internet-based Ponzi scheme that raised $41.9 million in just four months from over 20,000 investors worldwide".

That's a lotta lettuce. PhoenixSurf.com offered "investors" an elaborate scheme wherein they could earn returns of 120% in 8 days. Warren Buffett eat your heart out!

The defendants, Jonathan W. Mikula, 21 and Gabriel J. Frankewich, 29, both of Georgia, settled the charges without admitting or denying guilt by disgorging their ill-gotten gains.

The fact that what appears to be such an obvious Ponzi scheme, just based on the returns offered, was able to attract so much money is indicative of how ignorant a lot of people are when it comes to protecting themselves from scams.

Walter Ricciardi summed it up well in an interview with the Associated Press: 'If it looks too good to be true, it probably is... Promises or guarantees of double-digit returns in a matter of days or weeks are highly suspicious and the investor should exercise extreme caution."

It looks like the same greed that inspired Mikula and Frankewich allowed a lot of people to be conned out of their hard-earned money.

SEC charges Phoenixsurf.com is a Ponzi scheme -- Is anyone surprised? originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Wed, 25 Jul 2007 18:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

In a recent Answer Guy column, George Mannes takes a question from a reader wanting advice on a high yield "investment opportunity." The site that the reader describes pays 10% interest monthly, an annual return of 120% or more, depending whether the interest is compounded. Any savvy investor will know that this website doesn't pass the sniff-test. The old maxim applies: If it sounds to good to be true, it is.

In routing out investment scams, here's the one thing that investors need to remember: Warren Buffett has gained worldwide recognition (and the number 2 spot on the Forbes list) as an investor by earning a compounded annual return of just over 21% on the book value of his company Berkshire Hathaway. 21%. That's the best in the world.

So the website the reader asked Answer Guy about is claiming to be about ten times as good as Warren Buffett. Hmm... And to think I've never heard of it!

So there ya go. That's pretty much what you need to know to avoid being scammed by one of these so-called "high-yield investment programs."

Look out for online investment scams originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Thu, 17 May 2007 20:20:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

eBay (NASDAQ:EBAY) CEO Meg Whitman last week outlined eBay's current three-prong approach for battling the phishers and scammers who continually prey on unsuspecting eBay users. Red Herring reported that this past Thursday at the VISA Security Summit in Washington, DC, Ms. Whitman made it known that in the continuing effort to restore basic user security to their site would remain proactive and reactive. What I found to be a startling contrast to former eBay attitude on the subject was Ms. Whitman's admission that in this continuing effort eBay could not go it alone, as evidenced by her request for involvement in the anti-fraud efforts by the filtering of e-mail by ISPs, something which is unlikely to happen.

The three-prong approach that eBay is implementing is focused on protecting eBay users from unwittingly divulging important personal and financial information to people who have no business obtaining such data. The plan involves a key fob that accesses randomly generated passwords, the blacklisting of known fraudulent websites, and a request that ISPs only forward e-mail from recognized domains. On their face the conjoined ideas sound legitimate but analysts remain highly skeptical as to their usefulness effectiveness and implementation.

Losses from e-mail phishing and other data diversion tactics topped $2.8 billion for 2006. Reports say that the three major targets are PayPal, eBay, and commercial banks. Gartner analyst Avivah Litan said that eBay is "at the center of this hurricane for fraudsters." While eBay is certainly not at fault for the continuing onslaught upon their membership, this writer maintains that it needs to be far more transparent about its problems, far more helpful to its members, and far more aggressive in the successful prosecution of the individuals who continue to pillage eBay membership.

Key fobs are for keys. Prisons are for scammers. Let's get with it eBay.

eBay mounts counterattack on phishers and scammers originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Sun, 25 Mar 2007 13:40:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

I came across an interesting music video from Nigeria today. It's the popular (in Nigeria) hit "I go chop your dollars, " by Nkem Owoh. You can see the video here. It's an ode to the Nigerian email scam, which for those of you who haven't received the email (2 or 3 show up in my spam box every day), involves receiving an email from someone purporting to be the beneficiary of a large inheritance who would like to share some of it with you -- if you can advance them a few thousands dollars so that they can secure the money. Of course, the unwitting victims send in the money and never receive a dime. You can read more about it on ExpertLaw.

The scam has become one of the largest industries in Nigeria, with the government only recently ramping up efforts to crack down on it. Victims include widows and several churches have gone broke with the scam. Many of the fraudsters rationalize defrauding Americans by seeing the scam as their way of "stickin' it to the man," in a country that is rife with anti-American sentiment. The music video provides interesting insight into a culture where scamming Americans is glorified in some circles. Of course, people involved in the scam represent only a small fraction of the country, and most Nigerians are honest hard-working people. But it is certainly interesting that an artist was able to have a hit song with such a message.

Nigerian email scam: The music video originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Tue, 26 Dec 2006 15:23:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Had enough of the malls already? Today is the recently anointed retail landmark known as Cyber Monday. It is the first Monday after Thanksgiving and the day that shoppers, in theory already weary of the extreme shopping experience offered on Black Friday, are ready to shop from the comfort of their office chairs.

The day got its name from trade group Shop.Org just last year and doesn't represent the biggest online shopping day -- just one of the biggest, according to an article in the The New York Times (registration required). The headline predicts, "E-Looking But Little E-Buying," and the article pokes fun at the alleged phenomenon, quoting a retail analyst saying the day is "more hype than reality."

Perhaps this year that record will change as more stores offer special online deals. Barnes & Noble, The Home Depot, Inc. (NYSE:HD), and Petco.com are mentioned in The Times as having special offers today. GottaDeal.com has a special CyberMonday forum listing online offers from Staples, Inc. (NASDAQ:SPLS), Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (NYSE:WMT) and Best Buy Co., Inc. (NYSE:BBY).

Continue reading Goodbye Black Friday, hello Cyber Monday

Goodbye Black Friday, hello Cyber Monday originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Mon, 27 Nov 2006 05:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.