Fisher Capital Management Scam Prevention News: 2G scam: ED invokes tough money laundering Act against Raja

The Enforcement Directorate will call former telecom minister A Raja for interrogation some time next week.

NEW DELHI: The Enforcement Directorate has initiated proceedings under the stringent Prevention of Money Laundering Act against former telecom minister A Raja and will call him for interrogation some time next week.
ED intends to begin the process of attaching properties found to be linked to proceeds of payoffs allegedly linked to the allocation of 2G spectrum licences in 2008 when Raja was minister, official sources said.

Fisher Capital Management Scam Prevention News: Shutdown-Averting Budget Deal Is Not Very Serious In Terms Of Deficit Reduction

Last week’s near shutdown of the government occurred because we were supposedly having an intensely “serious” discussion about reducing the federal deficit. But when you look at both the components of the deal that were agreed to, as well as some of the matters that were on the table, it’s hard to take these claims of seriousness very seriously.
As you already know, a lot of the eleventh hour debate concerned Planned Parenthood — an issue that related more to pure partisan antipathy than to a serious attempt to save taxpayers money. That’s not it, though. There’s a slew of things in the deal, or in the discussion of it, that just have nothing to do with cutting the deficit. In fact, there’s a fair amount of things that would actually add to the deficit.
Below are eight prime examples, including a note on whether they made it into the final agreement or not.
1. Budget Gimmicks Galore!
The $38 billion in cuts is already being reported as the largest single deficit reduction measure in history. But as the Associated Press reports today, both sides of the negotiating table indulged in a slew of budget tricks to arrive at that top line figure:
The details of the agreement reached late Friday night just ahead of a deadline for a partial government shutdown reveal a lot of one-time savings and cuts that officially “score” as cuts to pay for spending elsewhere, but often have little to no actual impact on the deficit.As a result of the legerdemain, Obama was able to reverse many of the cuts passed by House Republicans in February when the chamber approved a bill slashing this year’s budget by more than $60 billion. In doing so, the White House protected favorites like the Head Start early learning program, while maintaining the maximum Pell grant of $5,550 and funding for Obama’s “Race to the Top” initiative that provides grants to better-performing schools.
Instead, the cuts that actually will make it into law are far tamer, including cuts to earmarks, unspent census money, leftover federal construction funding, and $2.5 billion from the most recent renewal of highway programs that can’t be spent because of restrictions set by other legislation. Another $3.5 billion comes from unused spending authority from a program providing health care to children of lower-income families.

Fisher Capital Management Scam Prevention News: Chester-based GB Group’s software praised for fraud prevention

SOFTWARE designed by Chester-based data management specialist GB Group has achieved a six-fold return on investment for a financial industries client.
LaSer UK, in Solihull, is jointly owned by French retail and investment bank BNP Paribas and retailer Galeries Lafayette and provides a range of credit and loyalty services.
It manages more than four million customers on behalf of more than 200 organisations and used GB’s URU programme to verify customer identities during the recruitment process.
After a successful trial LaSer has adopted URU at all three of its business areas – Creation Consumer Finance, Creation Financial Services and Sygma Bank UK – and Ian Frith, its fraud and underwriting manager, said: “For every pound spent with GB Group we’ve saved six through fraud prevention.”
He said URU is “a truly innovative verification tool, unlike anything else we viewed in the market, which also provided customers with a slick and simple sign-up experience.”

Fisher Capital Management Scam Prevention News: Card skim scams steal $170m

Australia has recently been targeted by skimmers from Romania, Southeast Asia and Sri Lanka

CREDIT and debit card fraud has tripled in just three years, with Australian consumers ripped off more than 657,000 times last year at a cost of $170 million.

The multi-million-dollar profits have attracted organised crime, with Australia recently targeted by crime groups from Romania, Southeast Asia and Sri Lanka.
These gangs are involved in large-scale card skimming, the Australian Crime Commission revealed in a report released today.
Organised crime groups have also moved into superannuation fraud, using stolen identities to access savings or unclaimed superannuation funds.
“Evidence has emerged of groups targeting superannuation holdings,” the report said.
One early-release scheme involving 121 clients netted crooked fund managers more than $685,000, which was moved out of Australia through low-value international funds transfers to the Philippines and Pacific Island nations.

Fisher Capital Management Scam Prevention News: Couple of clowns duped in super scam muddy waters for true victims

The clowns came out to play when the federal government shelled out $55 million in compensation for certain investors in Trio Capital.
The clowns include the former Wollongong financial planner Ross Tarrant, on the front page of a rival newspaper this week moaning about how DIY super investors should be paid compensation.
And that bloke Peter Johnston, the head of the Association of Independently Owned Financial Planners, was out there whingeing about the same thing.

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Really, who are these jokers? How anyone could quote them with a straight face is beyond me. They have zero credibility on the issue of Trio Capital. The fact they are presenting themselves as part of the solution is staggering; they were part of the problem. Worse, they are muddying the waters for DIY super investors who have what appear to be genuine claims for compensation.
A quick recap: Trio Capital, a fund manager in Albury, was seized by regulators in December 2009. It has now been revealed to have been operating a big fraud in two particular hedge funds it managed: Astarra Strategic and ARP Growth.
On Wednesday the Assistant Treasurer, Bill Shorten, said government compensation would cover 5000 members of super funds overseen by the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority with money in Astarra Strategic. All up, they will be paid $55 million.
But 295 self-managed super fund investors in Astarra Strategic and 70 investors in ARP Growth were essentially told to nick off. Collectively, along with some direct investors who are not being compensated, these investors lost up to $120 million.
Now, this should be a big warning bell for the self-managed super investors that account for $420 billion in Australia’s booming $1.3 trillion superannuation industry.
It’s a bell these pages have been ringing for a while. As we wrote here last April, people being ushered into DIY super should receive documents with large red letters on the front reading: ”You could lose the lot.”
My position is not a Ross Tarrant-style pitch for broad-based compensation for DIY super fund investors. For example, I wouldn’t include him in any compensation scheme.
Additionally, there are good reasons for the government’s current position to let people in DIY super look after themselves. The current setting, as played out in Trio Capital, is that government compensation looks after mainstream investors in funds regulated by the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority.
I am alive to arguments of moral hazard that a broad-based compensation scheme for DIY super could create. I am also alive to the ridiculous situation of bailing out a DIY super husband in a case against a DIY super wife.
The reason I am sympathetic to the Astarra Strategic and ARP Growth DIY super investors is they found themselves in a managed investment scheme where a fraud was perpetrated. They entered those schemes on the advice of a trusted adviser. That trusted adviser failed them, often with a flurry of associated fees.

Fisher Capital Management Scam Prevention News: Exploring a Stock Investing Secret

• 4 Funds to Mimic Joel Greenblatt’s Winning Ways

Because the book was published only Tuesday, we’re still reading it and should publish a full review as early as next week.
From Greenblatt’s interview with Morningstar, however, we already have a pretty good idea of what the book is about and what the motivation is behind it.
The “big secret” is value-weighted indexing.
Most indices, like the S&P 500 and Russell 3000, are weighted by market cap. That means that for every dollar you invest in them, the largest-cap stocks get more pennies then the smaller-cap stocks.
For example, if you invest $100 in a S&P 500 index fund (SPDR S&P 500 ETF(SPY_) is a popular one), about $3.48 is invested in ExxonMobil(XOM_), the largest-cap stock in the index, while about $2.52 is invested in Apple(AAPL_), the second largest, and so on.
Greenblatt believes that weighting the indices by value parameters, such as the operating earnings yield and return on tangible capital used by MFI, produces better stock investingresults.
In the Morningstar interview, he says that market-cap weighting removes about 2% of annual returns as opposed to equal weighting (where money is spread evenly among all stocks in an index).
A quick Google search will net you dozens of studies corroborating that fact, and it makes intuitive sense as well: Very large-cap stocks have more limited growth avenues and are more appropriately priced in general.
But the real upside is by placing bigger bets on firms in the index that rank higher by value parameters. Greenblatt contends that this adds 4%-6% of return a year over market-cap weighting over the long term. Furthermore, back-testing shows that this method is not any riskier or volatile than a market cap weighted solution.
To implement this system for investors, Greenblatt and his partners at Formula Investing have created “managed indexed” mutual funds. The U.S.-based ones use a universe of the 1,400 largest U.S.-listed stocks. Formula Investing U.S. Value A (FVVAX) chooses 800 to 1,000 of these, and the Formula Investing U.S. Value Select A (FNSAX) selects 75 to 120 of them. Both funds base their selections using MFI parameters and rebalance themselves frequently. There are also international variants of these two funds, choosing stocks in 26 countries outside of the U.S.

Fisher Capital Management Scam Prevention News: Cyber criminals target owners of smartphones

Unsocial Networks: Fraudsters are using sites such as Facebook to lure victims
Smartphones and social networking coupled with illicit money transfer are making it easy for fraudsters to exploit members of the public. Figures released last week point to a growing £400m-a-year problem as naive and vulnerable individuals are being lured into cyber crime involving money transfers.

These losses make up 10 per cent of last year’s overall British fraud figure of £4bn. This covers losses to consumers targeted using social networking sites such as MySpace, Facebook and Twitter. It includes mass-marketing fraud such as online ticketing and rental as well as advanced fee frauds.
“As social networks grow in popularity, there is a risk that they become increasingly targeted for fraudulent activities,” says Toby Jones, a spokesman for MySpace.
In broad terms, fraud has increased by 25 per cent over the past five years, according to the not-for-profit organisation Cifas. In 2010, 217,385 frauds were reported to the National Fraud Database by Cifas members.
In online banking, fraud increased 14 per cent, or £60m, last year, according to the National Fraud Authority.
The Office of Fair Trading has revealed that 39 per cent of people losing money to a scam in the past year did so through advance fees or money transfer, with 7 per cent losing more than £4,000. The consumer direct division of the regulator said this topped the list of complaints about scams and it receives more than 1,000 complaints about them each year. Further down the list are prize draws and sweepstakes, ticketing and foreign lotteries.
Money transfer operators such as Western Union, Money Gram and Hifx became regulated by the Financial Services Authority in November 2009 and since then consumers have been able to complain about them to the Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS). They are a valued service used by a growing economic migrant population, more than 35,000 of whom travel from outside the EU and are given visas to work in the UK each year, according to the Home Office. Many of these workers do not have bank accounts and problems can arise with money not reaching the specified destination or the incorrect exchange rate being applied.
Complaints about money transfer operators have remained low against the background of banks and building societies. The FOS received 508 complaints about transfers carried out between banks or building societies in 2010 and 635 in 2009. It is currently upholding 43 per cent of these complaints. “During the 2010 calendar year, about 60 complaints were referred to us. This was up from 10 complaints received in 2009 – although obviously we were only able to look at complaints that arose after November 2009,” says FOS spokeswoman Emma Parker. “We upheld in favour of consumers around 47 per cent of these complaints in 2010.”

Fisher Capital Management Scam Prevention News: Online Crime’s New Frontiers

Las Vegas, Nevada (NAPSI) – More than ever, Americans are using new gadgets for entertainment, to communicate with friends and family and to perform their jobs. Thanks to technological advances, streaming movies, downloading music and e-mailing can be done with the tap of a finger.
Two of the most popular technology trends over the last couple of years are the ever-increasing use of mobile devices, like smartphones and tablet computers, and social networks. Together, the improvements have allowed people to broadcast information and interact with their friends and family, anywhere and anytime.
Unfortunately, while new devices and new ways of connecting have made getting online much easier, they’re also providing cybercriminals with new, creepy ways of targeting victims. As more people use their “smart” devices to access the Internet and stay up-to-date with their social networks, online thieves have more opportunities to steal personal information, which can then be used or traded for their financial gain.
Norton by Symantec, the makers of Norton Internet Security, recently released its 16^thInternet Security Threat Report. Among the top findings, the report revealed that mobile devices and social networks are among the hot new targets for crooks looking to make a quick buck.
One of the latest scams involves cybercriminals taking popular smartphone applications (or “apps”) and creating “poisoned” versions. The versions may look like the originals but after unsuspecting users have downloaded them, a number of things can happen—potentially damaging or dangerous software may be installed onto your phone, unnecessary personal information may be requested or the application (and the cybercriminals controlling it) may be able to see and even control all your mobile phone activity.
“Many people aren’t even aware that these kinds of mobile threats exist,” said Adam Palmer, Norton’s Lead Cybersecurity Adviser. “Taking precautions can be as simple as using a mobile security application and sticking to legitimate app marketplaces.”
On social networks, once a cybercriminal has access to someone’s account, he or she can post links to other websites on the victim’s profile. These links will show up on the news feeds of the victim’s family and friends and lead them to infected sites with viruses and other nasty items. The popularity of using shortened links also works in the scammer’s favor, since people aren’t able to easily tell if the link connects to a “bad” site. According to the Symantec report, of the total number of dangerous links found on social networking sites, 66 percent of them were hiding in shortened links.

Fisher Capital Management Scam Prevention News: Android Hits 350K Daily Activations, But Overspending Looms Over Google

Android is outselling everybody, but the investors are disgruntled
It was a tale of mixed news for search and smartphones giant Google Inc. (GOOG) with yesterday’s earnings report.  The company reported its Q1 2011 calendar quarter earnings [press release] and while there’s cause for optimism, investors seemed to almost unanimously feel that the bad outweighed the good.
I. The Good News — Great Growth
The good news was that Google continues to beat analyst earnings expectations.  It recorded first quarter revenue of $8.58B USD, well above the average analyst prediction.  That represents a terrific 27 percent year-to-year growth.
Video ads on YouTube appear to be at last increasing revenue and paid ad-clicks over all recorded a nice 18 percent raise.
And in the conference call on the earnings, Google’s Jeff Huber reported that the company’s smart phone OS, Android, continues on its prodigious growth pace.  The OS is now recording 350K activations per day.  Not long ago it was a big deal when Android hit 100K activations per day (May 2010) and 200K activations a day (September 2010).
To top off the good news, Android users now have 3 billion apps installed on their smart phones, a testament to the success of Google’s Android Marketplace, which today has over 200,000 apps.
II. The Bad News — Leadership Concerns, Rampant Spending
But the “bad” news, as far as investors were concerned, was Google’s elevated spending pace.  One big spending spot was the workforce.  Google went on a spending spree, growing its workforce 28 percent.
And Google also gave all its employees a raise last year.
This year, it says it will hire 6,000 more employees (it hired 2,000 in Q1 2011) and raise pay, on average, another 10 percent.
The company also spent a lot of money giving its various departments more funding.  It also picked up its pace of acquisitions, something that’s expected to continue as the company tries to fortify its social networking, music, and mobile businesses.
Investors are also concerned about new CEO Larry Page,who assumed the post on April 4.  While lauded as a visionary who likely will slash bureaucracy, some wonder if he will offer the same quality of communication that 10-year veteran Eric Schmidt — someone viewed as more of a businessman — offered.
III. Investor Reaction
The company’s investors were off put that Mr. Page only came on the earnings call for a few minutes and failed to deliver a detailed roadmap of his plans for the company.  In an interviewwith Reuters, Jim Tierney, chief investment officer of asset manager WP Stewart, an investment house that holds a significant number of Google shares, states, “My sincere hope is that over time he (Page) enunciates the strategy much more clearly.”
BGC Partners analyst Colin Gillis, another major investor expressed more concern about the company’s spending habits than its communication.  He remarked, “You got expenses growing faster than revenue and some people were caught by surprise by the willingness of the company to spend. But Larry Page has signaled pretty clearly that he is going to be driving up expenses. If the expenses are targeted and result in future revenue streams, then good for Larry. If not, that results in an undisciplined spending approach.”
Google Chief Financial Officer Patrick Pichette tried to quell spending complaints assuring investors that his company was still taking a very “disciplined” approach and that every spending proposal would be “scrubbed and scrutinized.”
Investors seemed unconvinced, though and share prices dipped over 5 percent during the day’s trading.