Friday Morning Fraud News
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William Zale, writing at Trade Regulation Blog, has a nice summary of the recent eBay and Tiffany's lawsuit:
"Famous jeweler Tiffany failed to establish that online marketplace eBay engaged in false advertising under the Lanham Act in connection with the sale of counterfeit jewelry on its site, the federal district court in New York City has ruled.
eBay allegedly engaged in false advertising by
(1) referring to Tiffany merchandise in promotional features on the eBay home page and Jewelry & Watches page and
(2) purchasing "Tiffany" as a keyword to indicate the availability of Tiffany merchandise on eBay via "sponsored links" on Internet search engines such as Yahoo! and Google."
Good article about false advertising, read it.
Chris Carey, writing at Shares Slueth, announces his and Mark Cuban's securities fraud site"
"Today we begin our grand experiment -- independent Web-based reporting aimed at exposing securities fraud and corporate chicanery.
Call it journalism. Call it investigative blogging. Call it what you will.
More than 13,000 companies are listed on U.S. stock exchanges. Analysts for brokerages and independent research firms track fewer than half of them. Overburdened examiners at the Securities and Exchange Commission review only a fraction of the filings that come their way."
Cuban and Carey, I believe, are engaged in short selling their panned picks. This will be very interesting to follow.
Tom Stafford, writing at Mind Hacks, has an article on magicians and persuasion.
"This is what most impresses me about professional magicians.
The slight of hand and the perceptual tricks are cool, but its the cognitive magic, the shaping of expectancies through narrative, that makes them seem so wondrous."
Read More From BizOp News
July 24, 2008
Is That Business Legitimate or a Scam?
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John Tozi, writing at Business Week, has a good article on business opportunities.
He writes:
"The Internet is littered with offers for home-based business opportunities that promise big profits for easy work.
But many of these offers, which range from envelope stuffing to medical billing, are really scams that prey on people's aspirations to work for themselves.
Business opportunities share three characteristics: a solicitation to the buyer, a mandatory payment to the seller, and a promise to help the buyer find locations or leads that will bring profits.
They're often advertised in classified ads, online, and in spam e-mail. Many claim to be low-risk ventures with money-back guarantees, and no experience necessary.
Offers stress how much the participants can earn each week in specific dollar amounts, and fraudsters often have shills who falsely testify about their own success."
Most ordinary observers, including regulators, are puzzled by the fact that people routinely fall for the magic weaved by business opportunity fraudsters.
John was kind enough to quote me on this very idea:
"Experts say anyone can be taken in by the right pitch.
The techniques are no different in kind from the ordinary marketing techniques that normal sales people use. They're just selling nothing," says Michael Webster, a Toronto lawyer and the author of a blogon business opportunity fraud.
Anybody can be a mark on any given different day. Even I could be. [a mark]"
Read John's entire article on business opportunities, and especially his slide show.
