Battle on Fraud

Coverage and Consequences All Over The Board

Three fraud related articles just appeared in one of my local newspapers, all on the same day.  The amount of coverage, and the consequences of each crime, makes little sense to me. Article 1 – woman forged a check (one check) for $144 and cashed it at a local grocery store.  Happens most every day from what I know and …

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Feeling Secure Using ATMs – Guess Again?

Much attention has been directed towards identity and credit card thieves “skimming” unsuspecting individual’s debit and credit cards, capturing the account information off the card’s magnetic strip and making up fraudulent cards using the captured information.  The first notice an unsuspecting card holder receives that their account has been jeopardized is when fraudulent charges start appearing on the violated account, …

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And the cases continue to get bigger and bigger

130 million credit and debit card numbers stolen between 2006 and 2008 – just staggering.  By now with this case and all the other large thefts of credit information that we know about, and that’s limited to the ones we know about,  it’s hard to imagine if any single card holder still exists who hasn’t had their information compromised at …

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Punishment for Embezzlement Too Extreme?

Probation, suspended sentences, fines and restitution – all common consequences for white collar crimes.  Prison time – although the victims would like the suspects in jail, it is not necessarily the end result the perpetrator receives.  But execution… for white collar crimes??? “China executed the former chairman of a huge state-owned airport holding company on Friday, six months after he …

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Madoff – A New Measure for Egregiousness?

20 years, because there were fewer victims than Madoff’s, and the toll of the crime effected fewer than Madoff?  Since when does Madoff become the measure? $700 million, hundreds out of jobs – this is still pretty egregious – or am I missing something?  The toll Dreier’s crime took on individuals was devastating, just ask the hundreds of employees of the firm suddenly out of a job in a declining market.   Maybe thousands didn’t loose their life savings like in Madoff’s, but to portray this major theft as nothing more than “a small group of hedge funds and other investors — who lost about $400 million — as well as hundreds of employees who lost their jobs when his law firm collapsed.”  “Mr. Dreier is not going to get much sympathy from this court,” Judge Rakoff said, “but he is not Mr. Madoff from any analysis, and that’s why I can’t understand why the government is asking for 145 years.”  Maybe the government is trying to send a message here with these crimes – you think!

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