It’s Not Personal, It’s Only Business…Identity Theft 

Los Angeles, CA (PRWEB) July 24, 2006 --
By Alex Kwechansky

For three years a fraud was perpetrated upon A2G Company Inc. of Los Angeles. The company's real name is being withheld because the fraud almost destroyed it.  The crime was finally discovered when a tax department levied the corporate bank account for three years in back taxes.  
The Company president (name withheld) couldn't understand what was happening.  He had signed all the tax payment checks himself.  And they had been prepared for timely submission by the company's CFO.
Little did the President know -- but the CFO would turn out to be a corporate I-D thief.   
And as the President was to discover, corporate I-D theft would threaten the company, its staff, its lenders and its very owner.

The goal of a corporate I-D thief is to defraud the company through various methods including embezzlement, diverting company revenue or masquerading as a signing officer to cause financial and legal damage.
 
Thousands of companies could be victimized: Privately owned companies present the largest number of potential victims.  The more recognizable the name -- the less likely it is to be a target; it takes ego and daring to tell a banker that you represent General Motors and you need to open another bank account.
 
The corporate I-D thief is likely to come from the inside. The person might be a senior executive -- someone with intimate knowledge of the company's finances.  He or she may be a highly trusted individual with virtually unlimited access to the books and money.  This could be the financial controller or the CFO.  Even a 100-percent owner might be abusing corporate I-D in an effort to evade taxes, hide assets from lenders and investors or even conceal them from a spouse's divorce attorney.  

A corporate I-D thief will use a variety of methods to steal money from the company.  The thief can open a secret bank account under the corporation’s name and deposit the company’s revenue into it. The thief could also create a new company with a name that loosely resembles the one now in existence.  For example: An existing company is called A2G Company, Inc. The new look-alike can be called simply A2G Company.  

How is corporate I-D theft discovered?  Undetected, the crime is rarely apparent until it is too late.  Leaving the company to chance, this type of fraud becomes detectable if a company falls into financial straits, there's a mistake in the cover-up or other unplanned occurrence.

Companies must conduct independent operations examinations for suspicion and detection of potential fraudulent activities.  Not performing such a study is like not buying liability insurance because you have not yet had a claim. 
The most difficult part of the discovery is to accept that someone who is respected and trusted may be behind the caper.  The lesson here?
No one should ever be above oversight.

Alex Kwechansky, C.F.S, is a specialist in business fraud detection in Los Angeles.  Website: Businessfraudadvice.com

Buying a Condo Can Be Like Marrying on a Blind Date

Los Angeles, CA (PRWeb) April 10, 2007 -- The collapse of the sub-prime mortgage market is even putting a squeeze on many condominium owners with conventional mortgages, according to one Los Angeles fraud specialist and business consultant.

"Condo owners are being hurt in a way that private home owners are not," says Alex Kwechansky, CFS (http://alextalksbusiness.com).

"When one condo owner in a ten-unit building suffers foreclosure because he can no longer carry his mortgage, he will likely stop paying his homeowner fees. " says Kwechansky "Then all the other unit-owners are forced to make up the difference in their homeowners fees."

That difference can be large if there is a major repair that cannot wait.

It can also have a great impact upon personal relationships among unit holders. "Some people will be able to afford an increase in payments and others who can't may vote against necessary projects," says Kwechansky. "That will create animosities."

Even if that homeowner recovers financially, their relationship may not.

The collapse of the sub-prime market is just one of the things that should concern a condo buyer.

Would a person get married after only a first date? Of course

not! Would a person buy a condo after the first visit? Well, very likely yes! In either case one is being seduced into a commitment before knowing what the relationship has in store.

In today's sub-prime situation, this relationship is even riskier.

Like the person one marries, a condo has characteristics good and bad. Its personality is reflected in its unit owners, its regulations (in some areas called CC&Rs) and its Board of Directors. And before buying in, the buyer may not be able to gauge whether their future neighborhood and they are compatible.

Is the Board of Directors controlled by involved homeowners or by tyrants who gain pleasure in imposing legal and social power upon fellow owners?

A condo's regulations are legally binding and control all legal, as well as, financial activities. One that says "no dogs" -- means man's best friend is not welcome -- and neither, possibly, are animal lovers. Other regulations can ban barbeques or a holiday wreath on a front door or even a snack at the pool.

Alex Kwechansky is a Certified Fraud Specialist in Los Angeles specializing in detection and resolution of fraudulent activities. He has advised condo owners facing disputes with management boards and says those rules and personalities will have a profound impact on one's day-to-day life. A resident may have experiences that are nice or nasty, friendly or fiendish and costly.

Here are some situations a new owner needs to recognize and beware of:

Board members are unpaid. Some members serve reluctantly (no one else wants the job, etc.), some enjoy the involvement while others enjoy a feeling of power over their fellow residents.

Unresolved disputes must be handled by the Board and create stress between residents that can escalate to virtual war. While the regulations structure conduct, personalities may weaken these rules by mixing personal relations with arms length regulations. Accusations of favoritism frequently arise.

A dispute's inertia may cause individual Board members to fear opposing other Board members to stop an action or to settle. They fear being accused of favoritism or creating a precedent that may undermine the regulations. Finding themselves in a no-win situation, they allow these minor issues to grow into a lawsuit where a judge decides the issue. The judge can end the legal dispute but cannot restore harmony between residents, not to mention acts of revenge or reprisal.

When these issues fester, one begins to consider simply moving away. A homeowner may feel forced to decide between peace or place. The financial and disruptive costs to move again may be prohibitively high. Non-payment of one's homeowner fees becomes a possible short term source of moving money in a dispute or eviction.

In the event of legal action taken by a Board, all the residents are equally responsible for the legal expenses. This includes an equal contribution demanded from the party being sued. The defendant homeowner contributes to the lawsuit against them. Their own legal expenses are their own additional expense.

An owner can find himself as the outsider of a social group, or what Kwechansky calls, a "power group". This group believes they have a special position within the community. While not legally enforceable, these formations can cause one to feel ostracized in their own home. This feeling may seem similar to the social cliques once experienced in school.

In a condo, each owner becomes financially responsible for the other. If one owner fails to pay their share or disputes a demand, the other owners may have to pay more to cover for that owner. This has become a bigger risk in sub-prime foreclosures. While these funds should be legally recoverable, that process may take months or even years.

Property management firms that handle the funds of the association must provide clear and verifiable information about cash balance, receipts from each homeowner and expenses paid. While this request seems clear enough, Alex Kwechansky is investigating a case in England where a homeowner has been denied access to the financial information of his Resident's Association and has been sued for non-payment of disputed amounts.

Through litigation, the management firm has disclosed that it co-mingles the funds of all its clients Resident's Associations into one bank account. Direct verification of each association's cash balance is impossible due to the combining of all the deposits and payments of all the associations' funds. This inability to reliably verify such an essential element has led to distrust and litigation that has substantially exceeded the original amount contested by the homeowner. The client chose peace over place and moved while the dispute continues in court.