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Fraud is extremely common and the best way to avoid it is to get personal recommendations for anything important, like business contacts, lawyers, or accountant
by 3pt14159 6y ago
Fraud is extremely common and the best way to avoid it is to get personal recommendations for anything important, like business contacts, lawyers, or accountants.
Over a decade ago, a friend of mine was under the legal age when he sold his collection of websites with the same theme for around $100m. I'm sure you've heard of at least one of the properties. Being underage, he didn't know how to protect himself, and he gave his lawyers power of attorney. They took almost the entire acquisition for themselves and left the USA.
That's fraud. Those guys are still out there. He contacted other lawyers and they basically said "it's been too long the money is gone and so are these criminals."
- jldugger 6y agoWonder if you could get a judgement and get the domains back.
- boringg 6y agoWasn’t madoffs whole Rolodex of investors by word of mouth?
- Scoundreller 6y agoIt’s hard for an accountant to use their incoming tax returns to payoff their existing tax returns.
- sizzle 6y agoWow that's a crazy story that would benefit from the streisand effect to enact some justice on those scumbag lawyers. Any idea why your friend isn't trying to actively expose these individuals who screwed him over?
- 3pt14159 6y agoWell, at first he was worried that he'd be known as a sucker and wouldn't be able to raise money for another company. "I sold XYZ for $100m, now fund my new thing ABC." Sounds a lot better than the raw truth. Since then, he's started something that's doing well. Some pretty interesting investors, some market traction, but he's still no where near being worth $100m.