financial fraud

This is International Fraud Awareness Week, when various companies and nonprofit organizations work to educate people about how to avoid becoming victims of financial fraud. And we need the help: Last year, American consumers lost more than $1.7 billion to financial scams.

As financial scams evolve to keep pace with the changing American economy, it is important that consumers educate themselves about common scams. Here are five steps you can take to avoid becoming the victim of financial fraud.

If you have proof of financial crime -- corporate malfeasance or tax evasion, say -- you shouldn't keep it to yourself: Rewards for whistleblowers can reach as high as 15 to 30 percent of the money recovered by the government. Read on for some recent examples of richly rewarded whistleblowing, as well as tips for anyone thinking of blowing the whistle.

In a tough economy, it's a sad but true fact that scams and financial fraud of all kinds seem to flourish like weeds. According to the Better Business Bureau, complaints to the agency rose 10% in 2010, with consumers filing 1.1 million complaints against North American businesses. Among the top...

Last month, IBM's Watson supercomputer beat trivia champs Ken Jennings and Brad Rutter on Jeopardy. At the core of Watson's success was something called Semantic Analysis Technology, and if you want to make your own Jeopardy bet, put some money on the companies that supply it.

The largest federal crackdown against financial fraud in U.S. history was unveiled today, a massive sweep involving more than 100,000 victims who were swindled out of more than $10 billion by some 500 fraudsters, Attorney General Eric Holder announced. Operation Broken Trust, the first nationwide...

A nationwide law enforcement crackdown targeting financial fraud has led to cases against 343 criminal defendants involving $8.3 billion in estimated losses, Attorney General Eric Holder announced Monday. "Operation Broken Trust" is the first national effort of its kind aimed at a broad array of...

If you're shopping on the web and hoping to buy something from someone you don't know, and that seller tries to direct you toward using a particular service such as escrow and shipping, you're probably about to be scammed. Consumer Ally got this letter recently: You may already know this one but I...

A recent decision in the U.S. District Court raises the stakes for "feeder funds" who invested with Bernie Madoff. The judge wove through a "virtual minefield of lawyerly defenses" by Fairfield to get this pesky case dismissed without a trial.

One of out every five citizens 65 or older -- more than 7.3 million Americans -- have been swindled, according to a survey released today by the Investor Protection Trust (IPT), a nonprofit organization dedicated to investor education. (See the top five scams targeting seniors.) To combat this...